Over the past decade or so, Japan has experienced an enormous boom in its tourism industry that has seen crowds of visitors flock to the unique island nation. Partly, this has been caused by economics. Relative to other developed nations, costs in Japan have stayed stable while other countries have seen prices and wages rise, resulting in Japan becoming a cheaper travel destination. At the same time, the cost of air travel became more affordable, and additionally, the Japanese government embraced tourism and made efforts to boost the tourism industry.
That alone would not be enough, though, if Japan were not in itself an attractive destination. As it is though, there are a range of factors that give Japan a fascinating allure. Some people visit for the cuisine, others for the temples, shrines and castles, and some for the sprawling, insomniac metropolises. Another major pull though, is the manga and anime culture, which has become a world-beating industry, regarded as being not just different from animation in other countries, but looked at with reverence.
Within the anime and manga world there are a multitude of niches and sub-categories, and one which is both famous, but also a little hidden away, is hentai. What hentai refers to, broadly, is sexually explicit anime and manga, aimed squarely at an adult audience. It’s a popular category, which itself contains a variety of further sexual sub-categories, and there are many people who visit Japan wanting to buy hentai.
What Does Hentai Mean?
The first thing to point out is that while hentai is a Japanese word, the way that it’s used in English is different to the way that it’s actually used in Japan. In English, hentai refers directly to erotic and sexually explicit manga and anime, and is used as a noun.
However, in Japanese, hentai is an adjective. The meaning of hentai is perverted or depraved, and while it has strong sexual connotations it doesn’t necessarily refer to manga or anime. So, for example, you could simply refer to a person or their behavior as being hentai, meaning that they are lewd, overly-promiscuous or creepy. It’s often negative, but can also be playful.
If you’re in Japan and you want to refer to hentai in the English sense (meaning a type of manga or anime), you’d use the prefix ero, which comes, unsurprisingly, from the English word erotic. So you can talk about ero-manga and ero-anime. You might also hear the words ero-zashi (zashi means magazine, so these are soft-porn magazines), and ero-eiga (with eiga meaning movie).
It’s strange that English has taken a Japanese word (hentai) and changed it a little, while Japanese has done the reverse, taking an English word (erotic) and adapting it, so be careful when asking around about where to buy hentai.
Popular Hentai
There is so much hentai content, and it’s such a vast genre, that it would be impossible to list everything of importance, but there are some examples that are particularly memorable.
Minamoto-kun Monogatari tells the story of a feminine young man who is bullied and moves to live with his aunt, who promptly orders him to have sex with 14 different people, providing instruction along the way.
Change 123 is about a young woman who has a hard upbringing, engages in martial arts training, and develops multiple personalities. Which doesn’t in itself sound erotic, but the story contains frequent sexually explicit encounters.
One more you might want to try is Take on Me, which deals with a perverted photographer who enters into an intense sexual relationship with the subject of his illicit snapshots. This story wastes no time before diving into some extremely erotic content.
Places to Visit in Tokyo
Tokyo and its surrounding cities form a vast, urban metropolis. There is no gap in the concrete sprawl, which takes in Tokyo itself, Saitama to the north, Chiba to the East, and Kawasaki and Yokohama to the south. Within this densely-packed megacity you can find every type of area, including some places that are centers of anime, manga, and also adult entertainment and where you can find the best paid hentai. Sometimes there’s a strange overlap, with diverse crowds rubbing shoulders and some eye-opening sights.
Akihabara
Without question the anime and manga mecca of Japan, and therefore of the world, is Akihabara. In appearance, it’s a concrete sprawl centered around a large, always-busy station on the older, grittier, east side of the city. Walk around, and you’ll find not just anime and manga, but also gaming, electronics supplies, obscure hobby suppliers, toys and collectibles, J-pop culture, and costume stores.
They are plenty of restaurants and coffee shops, and also several maid cafes whose staff hand out flyers in the street dressed, of course, like maids. There are so many bizarre and unique establishments in Akihabara, that the best course of action is to simply get off the train, start walking the many streets, and see what you find.
Ikebukuro
This district is to the north of the city and also has a huge and confusing train station. Exiting the station, it isn’t as immediately unusual as Akihabara. In fact, it’s had a clean-up in recent years and has become a popular place for young people to live.
If you’re looking for anime and manga though, including hentai, then you need to head for an area called Otome Road. This is a very distinctive location, as it has a reputation as being a female version of Akihabara. That is, if Akihabara attracts a lot of male manga fans, and contains maid cafes, then Otome Road is where female manga fans hang out, and instead of maid cafes, there are butler cafes where male staff dress as traditional European butlers.
That aspect of Ikebukuro sets it apart from other areas, but you can certainly also find maid cafes, pick up regular manga and anime, and buy hentai.
Additionally, Ikebukuro is known for its sometimes seedy night life, and has a number of red light areas, so there’s an overlap between manga and real-life.
Nakano Broadway
The Nakano area is conveniently located a little to the west of Shinjuku. Most of it is a normal, busy district, but right next to the station you can find a large, slightly faded shopping complex called Nakano Broadway. The ground floor is unremarkable, but keep walking and take the escalator, and from the second floor up it is very different.
Basically, it’s a kind of smaller, indoor, self-contained version of Akihabara. Again, you’ll find plenty of hentai, along with other toys and collectibles, and some more standard shops too, along with several maid cafes within the building and nearby.
Kabukicho
Finally, there’s Kabukicho, a popular and notorious inner-city part of East Shinjuku. Kabukicho is known for drinking and nightlife, and as a red-light area. It’s certainly for adults and, compared with the rest of Tokyo (which is extremely safe) feels a little more on-edge and potentially risky.
If you’re looking for adult wares though, then you can walk around and find plenty to interest you. Kabukicho is more geared towards regular pornography, but in Japan that tends to overlap with manga and anime, so you can buy hentai too.
Famous Shops
Mandarake
This is a popular chain of shops that has stores all around Japan. They stock a huge variety of new, used and vintage anime and manga goods, covering every niche and all price points. The shop in Akihabara is vast, covering several floors and stocking hentai and adult material. Unusually, while the the fourth floor of the Akihabara branch is geared towards men, the fifth floor stocks material that is more popular with women who are looking for hentai material.
There are also two smaller Mandarake shops in Nakano Broadway, as well as branches at several other locations.
M’s Pop Life Sex Shop
This is a legendary store, situated in Akihabara. It’s huge and is not focused primarily on hentai, selling all kinds of of sexual items. However, being based in Akihabara, this means that a wide-ranging collection of DVDs and printed material is on sale, including an extensive selection of erotic manga and anime.
If your main focus is hentai, then it’s likely you’ll find much to interest you here, and you can enjoy exploring the rest of the shop too.
Another large otaku chain is Animate, where you will find some adult material, but on the whole, the best option is to stop in at the many small, independent shops you will find in Akihabara and Nakano Broadway, and which contain every kind of stock you can imagine, and plenty that you hadn’t thought of.
Cultural Attitudes
One more thing to mention is that attitudes towards erotica and sexually explicit material may differ in Japan when compared to other countries. Pornographic manga and anime are not common in many countries, but in Japan they’re produced in significant quantities, and are big business.
Although sexual content is not entirely out in the open, it’s not especially frowned upon either, and the attitude towards hentai material is, in general, comparatively tolerant. As such, don’t be surprised if, in some areas, you find shops where explicit material is more on display than you might have expected, or if what look like regular manga and anime shops have sections that specialize in adult material.