Since this was being discussed in another thread where it was totally off-topic, I think it's time for it to have its own thread. Here we discuss the word "hentai" (and "ecchi"), and the difference in meaning between the original Japanese words and the English usage of them.
Relevant thread:
http://4-ch.net/nihongo/kareha.pl/1121923289
Relevant post:
http://wakaba.c3.cx/soc/kareha.pl/1120622894/35
First, a summary of what's been said elsewhere already:
There are other words referring to porn too, of course. To quote an earlier post:
> It depends, really. Porn movies are called AV (Adult Videos), "pink" is often applied to words to hint that they have to do with erotica ("pink doujin") ...
> Futhermore, what we'd call hentai manga is usually tagged as "成人コミック" on the filesharing networks - literally, "adult comic" (and actually "comic" as a loan word, not "manga"). There's also "18禁", "Over 18 only". Both of these are more formal, obviously.
I'll also repost http://wakaba.c3.cx/soc/kareha.pl/1120622894/35 in here:
I got curious and Googled a bit for further discussion on this topic, and found this (on site that is apparently now dead, so only the Google cache exists):
The part I found most interesting were the quotes that person had gathered and translated. I'll cut-and-paste them here to preserve them. Many thanks to Akadai Shirou for doing this work:
What Japanese think about this
These are quotes straight from the Japanese, translated, pulled from numerous sources.
どうやら、日本語の「変態」の意味のPervertやKinkyという意味は少なくて、単にHなアニメとかをいうみたいです。
It seems they rarely mean the Japanese meaning of 変態, Pervert or Kinky, but rather they are using it just to mean any H anime
---
外国人に｢HENTAI｣と言う言葉を広めた奴を捜しています！！！懸賞金＄1,000,000−
I'm looking for the guy that spread the word 'HENTAI' among the foreigners!!! $1,000,000 reward
---
海外のオタク系が日本製のアダルトアニメやゲームを表す言葉。
Definition: Word used by foreign fanboys to mean Japanese adult animation and games
---
ちなみにエロゲーはHENTAI GAMEとか書いてあった。・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・なんかやなカンジ。
By the way, [in U.S. video game magazines] they call [Japanese] adult games HENTAI GAME...................... that sounds awful
---
HENTAIとは成年コミックや１８禁美少女ゲーム、アダルトアニメをさす
HENTAI is used [by foreigners] to indicate adult comics, games, and animation
---
外国の HENTAI サイトをうろうろと見て歩いていたら・・・なんだか気分が悪くなってしまった（苦笑）。
なんて言うか・・・独特の雰囲気があるよね。
ちなみに HENTAI というのは、日本の漫画、アニメ、ゲームなどのえっちなメディアを指すらしい。
日本人の俺としては、やっぱり抵抗があるなぁ（笑）。
他人が描いたＣＧや市販ゲームのＣＧを無断で転載して、ギャラリーで御座い・・・というサイトが実に多い。
うーん、この辺は基本的な考え方が違うのかな。
節操の無い連中だ・・・という印象を強く感じるね（笑）。
I went looking around at those foreign HENTAI sites... and kinda I just got sick.
What can I say...they have a 'unique' atmosphere.
'HENTAI' is what they use to indicate Japanese manga, animation, games, etc. when they have etchi content.
Speaking as a Japanese person, I have to say that's pretty disturbing.(laugh)
There's a ton of sites that just copy other people's illustrations and rip images out of games, then display them in a gallery.
I guess their entire way of thinking is different from ours?
I get a strong impression of a total lack of civility and morals. (laugh)
---
Ｈ（えっち）
「性交」を意味する若者用語。
実は「ＨＥＮＴＡＩ（変態）」の頭文字から来ている。
海外の濃いＯＴＡＫＵたちの間ではＨではなくＥＣＣＨＩと表記される。
それに対して事情通のＯＴＡＫＵが「ＥＣＣＨＩはＨＥＮＴＡＩのイニシャルなんだから、Ｈと書くのが正しい！」と啓蒙運動を行っている。
その様な日本人も知らないような知識を、どこから得たのか非常に謎である。
てゆーか、正しかろうと間違ってようと、あんまそんな日本語を世界に広めないで欲しい。
H (etchi)
Word used by young people to mean sexual intercourse.
It actually comes from the first letter in the word HENTAI(変態).
Among the hard-core foreign OTAKU, they write it 'ECCHI' instead of 'H'.
Acting against this are a group of other OTAKU familiar with the etymology of the word who go around saying "ECCHI is just the initial for HENTAI, so you're supposed to write it H!" in an attempt to enlighten everyone.
How they learned that sort of trivia that not even Japanese people know is a complete mystery.
More importantly than that, regardless of whether they're getting it right or not, I'd rather they didn't go spreading the usage of that sort of Japanese
---
お名前：天狼星
＜・#65310;BAKAとかHENTAIとかOTAKUって言葉を教え
てるのは誰ですか？ 知人じゃないことを祈ります（苦笑） いや・・ HENTAIは
すでに日本語じゃなくなってるか？ 日本製の萌え系エロ絵なんかをさす言葉だし；
Name: Tenrousei
[...]Who taught these people to say BAKA and HENTAI and OTAKU and such?
I'm praying it wasn't anybody I know. (pained smile) Actually, it seems like HENTAI
isn't even Japanese anymore, you know? The use it to mean Japanese drawn cute erotic illustrations and all
---
さて、このポルノアニメというジャンルには、animeよりももっとこの世界で一般的になってしまっているらしい驚くべき名称がつけられている。 HENTAI、というのだ・・！ 「エッチ」という語がそもそもなぜ使われるようになったのか、常識だと思っていたら案外知らない人もいるらしいので、余計なことかもしれないが言っておけば、この「変態HENTAI」の頭文字なのである。初期に日本の「エッチアニメ」を取り入れた人が妙に律儀だったらしく、略語をちゃんとオリジナルに展開して使用した模様である。売り文句には「JAPANESE KAWAII HENTAI」とあったりする。可愛い変態、である。やれやれ。
Now, this genre of porno animation is known to the world not by the word ANIME but by the surprising name 'HENTAI.' The source of the word 'etchi,' -- while I thought most people knew it, apparently some don't, so I'll go ahead and say it here -- is the first letter in the word 変態 (HENTAI). Early on, when Japan's etchi anime was first taken in by foreigners, they apparently were trying to be weirdly faithful linguistically and restored the abbreviation to its original form before using it. You can see the phrase 'JAPANESE KAWAII HENTAI' used in advertising phrases. Cute perversion! Man...
On the one hand, I always find it funny when otaku incorrectly use or abuse the language of the culture that they spend every cell in their body blindly admiring.
On the other hand, with how much the Japanese slice and dice English for their own use, I think they can give us a pass to do the same with their own every now and then.
I like the word "hentai" because I can use that keyword in google to find English sites. If I want Japanese hentai from Japan I use the word "eroi", a word which doesn't exist in English. So it's very convenient.
Also, those guys who are making a fuss about the word hentai are also often the same ones making a fuss about their favorite lolikon h-game being labelled porn. "It's not porn! It's a =mature= title about little angels! They are so cute when they run around naked and... and... HaaHaa"
Oh and why don't we crusade against "anime" and "manga"?
Japanese:
anime = any animation, including Disney.
manga = any comic, including US comics. For old people, it even includes anime.
English:
anime = Japanese animation only.
manga = Japanese comics only.
Answer: because it's convenient like it is now. Let's not mix the two languages. Or then, PedoBear will have to go. Please think of the pedobears!
> Also, those guys who are making a fuss about the word hentai are also often the same ones making a fuss about their favorite lolikon h-game being labelled porn. "It's not porn! It's a =mature= title about little angels! They are so cute when they run around naked and... and... HaaHaa"
Y hello thar slippery slope argument
I think you need to think harder about how the importing of contexts when importing loanwords. "Anime" is a loanword in English - for ALL animation there is already a term in English: Animation. Thus, "anime" with the Japanese context is used to imply the connotation that Japanese animation is meant. This works, as it is not ignoring the original meaning of the word, however, "hentai" is just wrong because it does not have the supposed meaning in Japanese. Supposed context is submitted by using it while completely ignoring the actual meaning.
And "pedobears" can just fuck off and die for all I care. Only 4chan fanboys insist on using that word.
>>8
The point I'm trying to make by being outrageous is, hentai is now an English word, it's no more a Japanese word. Only the etymology is.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hentai
Main Entry: hentai
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: sexually explicit animation or comics
Etymology: Japanese `perverted, perversion'
A better question is, if one wants to get rid of the English word hentai, what word should be used instead?
Japorn? Nipporn? Hardcorenese? None of these sound good.
> Also, those guys who are making a fuss about the word hentai are also often the same ones making a fuss about their favorite lolikon h-game being labelled porn.
It's more like "speak english you idiots" in the general direction of the kawaii neko pinku bento box crew.
I think "pervert" might be too soft a translation. Some people use it casually as a badge of pride or something, whereas you wouldn't catch them being proud of "I'm abnormal".
> hentai is now an English word, it's no more a Japanese word.
LOANWORD is the key term here and what I said is still valid.
The reason I care is "hentai" is a pretty strong offensive word compared to "ecchi" or "ero". Actually, it's a cursing word level.
How about this? / Although FPS (First Person Shooting?) games are not popular at all in Japan...
------------------------------------------------
FPS are called "fakku game" in Japanese. (Of course "fakku" = Japanised version of "fxxk") Because someone mistranlated "F" of FPS.
Everyday on the fakku game board of 2ch.net, hard-core fakku game fans are posting,
"Fakku game rules!!"
"Aren't yankees ashamed of fakku games?"
"Fakku game is a part of American culture."
------------------------------------------------
You should not make fun of them, but you must worry about them, right?
> A better question is, if one wants to get rid of the English word hentai, what word should be used instead?
"Anime porn", "porn manga", and so on works for me. That doesn't give you a convenient keyword for Google searches, but personally I don't need that. Also, the word "hentai" has pretty much been taken over by the paysite porn industry anyway, and they're a bunch of scumbags I want nothing to do with.
Also, I do agree that the usage of "anime" and "manga" is a little bit problematic at times, but that is a simple case of a slight drift in meaning from the original. "Hentai", on the other hand, is a completely new meaning for an existing word that makes little sense in the original language.
The reason I personally care is that I'm doing things that bridge the Japanese- and English-language otaku cultures to some extent. And the Japanese find the western usage of the word "hentai" either hilarious, confusing or insulting. So I try to avoid it, in the name of international understanding.
How about "eroanime" or "eromanga"? The latter in particular has a nice ring to it.
Eromanga is a town in Australia, actually. Fancy that. :)
It's a hot, dry town in the Australian outback, and it's about as far from the sea as you'll get in the country.
>>13: I call bullshit. How the hell do you mis-translate "first" as "fuck?" "Fuck-person shooter?" C'mon, even for a Japanese mangling, that can't be right.
It was a made-up example, to illustrate the situation from the opposite side.
...oh.
Well, there are other, true examples that are sort of like that, actually, though you won't encounter them much in the anime fandom. For example, they use the word "manshon" for an apartment building; before I knew this, I had an odd conversation with a woman who kept asking if I lived in a "manshon" after I kept telling her that I lived in a very small apartment.
There's also "outobai", which means "motorcycle" -- it sounds English, so most of them that don't know better (namely, my kids) think that "outobai" is English. (Maybe it's a corrupted "auto-bike?" Is "auto-bike" British English or something?)
>>16
I know. There's pictures of Japanese tourists standing by the town sign.
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Trekkie, trekker. Yadda yadda...
Wait, there's two ways to say yadda?
>>19
That's far from "true" example.
Is "mansion" a cursing word? Is there anyone pissed off by "auto-bi"(like you>>17)?
And it's funny that I won't encounter them much.
I came from
http://4-ch.net/nihongo/kareha.pl/1121923289/
Hentai is not only a cursing word.
Hentai: transformation, metamorphosis, abnormality, pervert.
Metamorphosis seems to be a valid word, maybe used by entomologists.
Same with the word "otaku". It can be used as a curse or as a plain word.
Obligatory Wikipedia linkage
>>23: My point was that, though English-speaking people may occasionally misuse Japanese words, Japanese-speaking people misuse English words to a far greater degree.