Ok being a fan of Japanese animation for oh god, 25years? We never referred to porn anime as hentai alone. hentai as was said earlier was a thing we would mimic of the girls in anime as a joke. Or in my case piss my grandparents off to no end.
Ero from what family in Japan has said is a borrowed word for erotica. Hence in Chobits Erosito or erotica site. I probably would translate it as such, not the porn site or hentai site that I had seen on fansubs. As for its use in English all my sighing over it will aught for naught. Since no matter the amount of whining about it will change the course of the usage once its started. Americans are very faddish. And will pick up any thing that is a "keyword" Take "High Definition" I see adds selling fucking contact lenses spouting HD vision. Or the ever popular "my bad" Slang from the rapper community taken into a proper phrase and even applied to translation of slang in other languages. To me >>54 closed this argument. It is the way we "old-timers" used the words, if we used them at all. And hentai is suppose to be used as a description not a noun or name for something. ( I think this is what >>54 meant in his/her first line)
The anime and cartoon thing can be debated till the end of ends. I have seen Japanese refer to American cartoons as well of all things cartoons. . . Here in the US early on we referred to Japanese animation as anime because the topics stories etc did not fit with American ideals for cartoons. Hell Heavy Metal is rarely referred to as a "cartoon" But as animation. This use even referred to euro animation. Often this material was not of a drooling sticky child content. It seems America has the prize for this stigmata of animation is for fuzz nuts only.
It does still sting to hear anime referred to as cartoons, but I don't go ape shit all over for it because well to most Americans it IS a cartoon. At least until they realize what the stories contain.
I can't say you younger fans are wrong, just a different generation than I am, Granted I was watching "anime" before I was even attending the first grade. So some of you "technically" are my generation >_<
Of constant bother to me is this new usage of JAP, whence people say nigger its all doom and gloom but I see jap used in hateful ways so often on English bbs or elsewhere. Someone brings up a comment about its derogatory history and use they claim its short for Japanese and that they are to lazy to type it out Proper use is JP or JPN but this current use of .uk .de .jp etc on the net JAP has become common. I mention this because I have seen plenty of posts on this bbs or related bbs as well as others where Japanese ask for the user to stop with its use and flames rise. I mean who are you to argue with the person whom that derogatory word was used against?? its like telling a Korean Gook isn't derogatory. And as what was said earlier I do not get why those so devoted to a medium and culture yet are still so hateful towards them. I often see toshiaki on futaba and elsewhere making "fucking jap" or "damn jap" and even DIE JAP post when mimicking Americans. To me this is harsh because they are getting the wrong impression. As well this relates to the uses of hentai ecchi etc. It is funny how misunderstandings cause such grief or weird outcomes.
I don't mean to bring up racism but its just a topic to open against in the fact we butcher old meanings in our own language or bring across the wrong impression to others. This as well makes me wonder as to the REAL reason futaba has non .jp ip banned from posting. I do not intend to start arguments and will ignore any that will IE I wont respond. nut its to just bring up subject material and a few ideas/opinions.
Oh and I know orphan meant a broken paragraph. I is I guess why we have thesaurus.