We all have our preferred genres of anime, but there’s some common opinion among fans that certain genres are somehow inherently better or worse than others. Today I want to think about why or why not that could be true…
Nil’s post on the same topic brought up a good place to start when it comes to determining if an anime genre can be inherently bad – starting at the “lowest common denominator,” hentai. The majority of anime fans consider hentai to be bad (just as people feel the same about porn). As for why, well, as Nil states, “Hentai is bad because of its need to not necessarily pander to the lowest common denominator but to appease the lowest common feeling of the lowest common denominator. There is little artistic achievement involved in getting little boy John’s noodle prim and proper, because there is little effort involved.”
That description is what makes up a genre I would consider “inherently bad” – when its only purpose is to appeal to the lowest common feeling, without the need for effort, artistic merit, or any semblance of story or characters that convey something worthwhile about life and the human condition. I haven’t seen any hentai shows so perhaps there are some that have these good qualities. But from what I’ve heard, they don’t.
When we move up a bit from hentai we get to the genres that have a more conspicuous following but are still often considered inherently bad by a lot of anime fans: stuff like eroge, ecchi, and similar anime that focus on underage fan service and the like. While the exact anime that fall into these genres vary depending on who you ask, as well as the notion that they should be considered genres at all, the idea is that, again, a lot of anime fans find any anime in these categories to be inherently bad. And again, the reason is the same as for hentai; that they toss aside storytelling dignity and aesthetic worth just to appeal to the perverted side of their otaku target audience.
But…this is when things change a bit. I have seen a few ecchi, etc., anime and while I didn’t find them “good,” I don’t think they’re necessarily inherently bad just for having erotic scenes and uncomfortably sexualized girls. It’s when blatant fan service tramples all over what could have been otherwise decent stories and characters, like I felt was the case with the second season of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. But surprisingly, I thought the first season of the show, with all its fan service, wasn’t that bad and actually had some good stuff in it. On a similar note, I got sincerely good laughs out of the first season of the very crudely humorous Seitokai no Yakuindomo, and while many consider OreImou to be one of these “low” anime, I like the series and found many inspiring and thought-provoking themes in it. So while I can’t speak for hentai because I’m not familiar with any shows in that genre, I don’t think an ecchi, harem, loli, eroge, etc., anime should automatically be labeled as having nothing worthwhile to give at all. It might not be your preferred genre, but until you’ve actually watched it yourself and can find reasons for why you don’t like that particular show, you shouldn’t lump all anime from a certain genre into one.
Which leads us to move up again beyond ecchi to more genres of anime that (mostly elitist) fans consider inherently bad – moe, yaoi, yuri, and the like. Like the aforementioned genres, the reason people like to bash them is because they’re made to appeal to a certain “unintelligent” taste of a certain target audience. But unlike the aforementioned genres, it’s debatable if these should even be considered genres as opposed to something like “tropes.” After all, how does one determine how much “moe” an anime needs to have for it to be considered of the “moe genre”? Does just one moe girl make a moe anime? Or does it have to be a whole cast? Do just one yaoi couple in an anime make it a yaoi anime? Or do they have to be the main characters? It’s difficult, and ultimately pointless, to say how much of a certain trope an anime should have before it can be placed in an arbitrary genre. Calling an anime a “moe” series or an “ecchi” series, etc., is good for the sake of convenience when discussing and recommending/reviewing, but really it’s the series itself independent of its genre label that should be considered. And again, I’ve seen a lot of these types of anime, some being good and some being bad, so I can’t say any of these categories themselves are inherently bad. They can be just as well written and narratively pleasing as any other supposedly better cultured anime. If you have an aversion to cute girls or guys in love with each other, then just stay away from them, but don’t automatically assume having these things makes them bad anymore than having a sex scene makes an anime hentai. For me, its when the selling points (like sex, moe, fan service, etc.,) override or interfere with otherwise good stories and characters, not just that the selling points exist.
And while we’re on that note, another thing people who pre-judge anime based on genre tend to do is put down people who like said anime. I admit that I would be creeped out by someone who regularly watches hentai, especially if that’s the main kind of anime they like. Or someone who’s obsessed with ecchi anime and sexualized loli characters above all else. But I’m not gonna make grandiose assumptions about these people or bash them until I actually know enough about them. I can’t help but be turned off by knowing that fact about them, but maybe some people just use ecchi and hentai to get their own personal entertainment fix and are otherwise normal, decent people. I don’t know, and like the anime themselves, until I can get my facts together with first-hand experience, I don’t want to judge too harshly right away.
To conclude, I don’t think any genre of anime is inherently bad, and while stuff like hentai could be an exception, it again goes back to everyone’s own personal definition of what “good” and “bad” entertainment is. If “good” to them is “having artistic and storytelling worth,” then yeah, pure hentai and ecchi is bad. But if “good” is simply “mindless entertainment,” then maybe these genres aren’t that bad…it again depends on who you ask and what you’re looking for in your anime.
“Bad genres” is a silly idea.
As a mental exercise, take your favorite masterpiece anime, and put a (justified plot-wise) 5 minute hentai scene in there somewhere. That makes one of the sub-genres hentai. Now, if you say the series is worse for it, that’s all right, since unnecessary scenes can hurt the structural integrity of the series and whatnot. But if you say the series goes from masterpiece to bad with that five minute insert, then the term masterpiece never meant much coming from your mouth in the first place.
Hentai works in particular have clearly defined storytelling goals and a clearly defined target audience, making the vast majority of them very straightforward. Most people are able to tell that the show isn’t for them just based on the hentai genre tag. And, unfortunately, “not for me = bad” is very common logic.
I don’t watch hentai. But I don’t have much interest in mecha, either. That doesn’t make mecha a bad genre, though.
Yeah, a sex scene that’s justified plot-wise wouldn’t necessarily hurt my opinion of my favorite anime. As you said, if someone’s idea of a masterpiece can be shattered just by one short sex scene, then maybe there’s something wrong with them rather than the anime itself.
Totally agree on the “not for me=bad” sentiment that unfortunately runs rampant in the anime fandom. We’re all just trying to enjoy the awesome medium that is anime so we should just spend our time watching what we like and not worry about the fact that some other fan enjoys something we don’t.
You last statement pretty much sums it up. There is no “good” or “bad” anime, or movies, or books, or anything for that matter. It’s all up to each individual person to determine what is good or bad for them. Even extreme things like Sadomasochism for example, which most people would consider “bad”, is enjoyed by some people, and it is “good” for them.
So yeah, nothing is “bad” or “good” we are just dealing with different definitions. We each define what is “good” or “bad” for each of us You can look up anything in the internet, and you’ll find people that like it (even the weird/gross/creepy stuff). The very worst movie I have ever seen (Wild Wild West), if I look it up in rotten tomatoes, I can see that some people actually liked it. There is even a positive critic review!! So that means it’s not “bad”, it’s just not for me I guess.
So I try to be open minded, and watch different anime. Even some genres I consider “bad” (like ecchi, or lots of fan service), may have some good plots, and characters, and I may end up enjoying them. So there are no bad works, just wrong audiences I guess?
My general consensus is that, yeah, I agree that people should just like what they like and there isn’t any inherently good genres among anime, movies, books. etc,. I’m all for people enjoying what they want…as long as what they enjoy isn’t hurting others. If someone’s hobby is partaking in weird masochistic rituals or marathoning hentai anime everyday, they might creep me out but I wouldn’t say that what they’re doing is bad and that they should stop because they’re not hurting anyone else by doing it. Now if they have responsibilities they’re ignoring because they’re watching hentai all the time, like taking care of their family or going to work, then the act of them partaking in that hobby is causing harm to others, which then makes it bad. But again, it has nothing to do with the activity itself being inherently bad, just how the individual uses or misuses it.
Totally agree, Pretty much my definition as well. If it does not hurt anyone in the process, then I would not consider it bad. I’m glad after reading all the responses here, most people seem to think the same way. I wish society was more like that in general…
The idea of a genre inherently being “bad” (and, conversely, a genre that is inherently “good”) is futile; people like what they like. For example, even though I am not a fan of Hentai in general, I can even admit to having my favorites in that genre (like stuff done by a man named Wadatsumi Ikuo, whose cheap yet stunning artwork I absolutely love). One of the beauties of any art is subjectivity and trying to find a way to quantify or consciously engineer what is “good” or “bad” would be to take away a key factor of artistic appeal.
Oh, almost forgot, here’s a (non-explicit, PG-13 at worst) sampling of some of Wadatsumi’s work posted on someone else’s site if you want an idea about what his style is like; click on the numbered links to see the illustrations:
http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/clevelandcircle/wadatsumi.htm
Despite what hentai is fundamentally, it’s still something illustrated by someone and therefore can have an art aspect to it, as you said with your liking for Wadatsumi’s style. If you can find appealing art in hentai, that’s great. Most people would be too turned off by the explicit sex to appreciate the art of a given hentai series, and that’s fine too as long as they can see that it’s simply not their thing and not because it’s all inherently bad.
What an interesting post! I would actually agree with your conclusion. It really depends on how you’re associating the word genre, and on any objective scale there should be no clear bias simply by the presence of certain ideas.
Just to defend my stance, and of which I still hold however, I wrote a disgustingly huge disclaimer that took up almost the entire first half of the article which addressed this issue. I basically said that that’s the correct conclusion (the one you said above); however, it’s a boring one because it’s true by pure logic.
Now what happens when you associate the word genre with the tropes that define it? Now that’s a little more interesting because it’s nontrivial, and hence the article’s opinion statement.
Glad you liked my response post here =)
I know I’ve written about the arbitrary term “genre” on past posts, but yeah, especially in a medium like anime that’s full of its own unique tropes, whether something like “yaoi” or “mecha” should be a genre as opposed to a trope is highly debatable. Maybe the term “sub-genre” would be good to use instead? So something like Nisekoi would be in the slice-of-life, comedy, and romance genres, and then its sub-genres would be maybe “harem,” “school,” “moe,” etc,. And then the tropes would be things like “Childhood Friend” and Accidental Pervert.” I dunno, just some food for thought ;)
“I haven’t seen any hentai shows so perhaps there are some that have these good qualities. But from what I’ve heard, they don’t.”
I’ve watched a few, mostly when I was younger, but if a series catches my eye for whatever reason, I’ll give it a watch. Here’s an overview of what comes to mind when I think of hentai with “artistic and storytelling worth”.
Boku no Pico is a pretty good one. I wouldn’t put it on par with “good” anime like Rose of Versailles, Shinsekai Yori and Azumanga Daioh, but I certainly think it’s watching on its own terms (i.e. unrelated to its sexual appeal) and I’d definitely rank it above a lot of popular series I’ve seen, like Naruto, Infinite Stratos and Sword Art Online. Boku no Pico is pretty workmanlike, simply having quality direction and storytelling, but with creativity and detail that elevates it well above the dreck most hentai fall short of. The third OVA in particular has a fantastic OP and a wonderfully understated weirdness throughout. (Spoiler: Coco is almost certainly an alien/fairy.) Tokyo being completely deserted adds a satisfying dash of David Lynch into the proceedings.
Cream Lemon is worthwhile for its historic value (it’s the first ever hentai), its 80s-ness and the wildly variable quality of its stories, from melodramatic shittiness (the Ami trilogy) to solid comedy stories (Star Trap) to episodes with Hideaki Anno animating and Norio Wakamoto voicing characters (okay, there’s only one of those to my knowledge, Pop Chaser).
Suika was kind of like a poor man’s Key series with sex scenes, but I think it worked the best of any hentai anime I’ve seen as a legitimate drama.
After those, I’d say the only worthwhile hentai anime I’ve seen have been ones that take themselves very lightly. I’d recommend the English-dubbed versions of the heavily-rewritten (and -titled) Sextra Credit and A Time to Screw. One zinger from the barely-related-to-the-original-script former is “You’ve got less spine than a spina bifida victim” and one from the almost-completely-unrelated latter is “Oppenheimer was a faggot” (the original conversation had nothing to do with Oppenheimer or any other physicist; the girls were just discussing their breasts).
I think it’s due to the independent nature of manga that there’s a fair quantity of worthwhile manga that happens to be sexually explicit. Shintaro Kago is probably the best-known ero-guro artist for a reason, and he’s written my highest-rated hentai work (according to MAL), My Beloved Lady, which is about a girl whose vagina turns out to lead to a different dimension. You might also recognise his work Abstractations if you look it up (you should look up Abstractations by Shintaro Kago).
I wouldn’t argue against people calling Kago’s stuff “art”, but, of the hentai I’ve experienced, the best stuff (as in what I would declare to have objective quality while polishing my monocle or perhaps doffing my fedora) that I would label straight-up porn would be that of another ero-guro artist, Juan Gotoh. It has sort of an absurd quality to it and is just really interesting.
Anyway, I wrote much more on hentai than I meant to or really knew I could, so I’ll conclude with a few quick points:
I don’t think hentai is inherently bad, but there’s probably some cause for most of it being so terrible.
It seems to work best by complementing an exploration (sometimes literal) of human absurdity: comedy or wacked-out guro.
Eroge are sort of a weird example. Many games considered worthwhile (Fate/zero and Kanon, for two quick examples, and Suika, which I mentioned earlier, was also a VN) have porn in them, and somehow they work.
Moving on through your post, Kodomo no Jikan is an example of a lolicon ecchi manga where I really like the story and characters, and think it’s quite good from a detached perspective as well. I once wrote a university essay about it, and I didn’t fail the subject. I rank its graduation ceremony scene below Azumanga Daioh’s but above Angel Beats’s.
Lastly, whether you buy NISA’s release or not, you owe it to yourself to watch Cardcaptor Sakura in high definition. Being a cel anime, having Clamp designs and Madhouse animation make it look pretty wonderful.
Thanks for the insightful info on those hentai and ecchi/eroge series. I’ve actually heard of a couple of them XD Even though they’re not something I’d want to watch/read, I still like learning about new things in the anime world. It’s good to know that there’s at least a few hentai series that make an effort in terms of story, characters, art style, etc., despite having to stick to their genre.
LOL, didn’t except a random comment about Cardcaptor Sakura when we were talking about hentai and ecchi anime XD I’ll probably check it out in HD at some point.
Eh, it’s not that random. I’ve described both Boku no Pico and Card Captor Sakura using the exact same terms, for example:
“It’s just so warm, friendly and sincere. The main character is utterly endearing, their friends are the people you’d want to be friends with. The first part of the story has them in love with an older guy, but they eventually wind up with someone their own age. The story is told so well you’d be happy either way.”
Okay, I saw your Twitter thing while I was reading the post. Also, minor correction: the first hentai OVA was actually Lolita Anime. Not as though that’s the third sentence of Cream Lemon’s Wikipedia page or anything…
I don’t think hentai is supposed to be judged on “artistic merit, semblance of a story or characters that convey something worthwhile about life and the human condition”. It has one sole purpose and the good ones achieve that goal, while the bad ones fail at it, which very much depends on the viewer. Elements like story, characters are subservient to that single goal and insignificant by themselves.
I actually believe hentai is the better genre when compared to ecchi/fanservice shows. Hentai is very straightforward and unpretentious, yet ecchi series are much more ambiguous. They want to create a good story while relying heavily on fanservice and unfortunately the two usually don’t mix very well. The story is most of the time very shallow and hindered by fanservice, while the fanservice itself is too tame and a nuisance to the plot points. Hentai discards the story, focuses only on fanservice and it works a lot better that way.
And I agree with the last statement: There are no objectively bad genres, it’s all subjective.
“I don’t think hentai is supposed to be judged on “artistic merit, semblance of a story or characters that convey something worthwhile about life and the human condition”. It has one sole purpose and the good ones achieve that goal, while the bad ones fail at it, which very much depends on the viewer.”
@Sylpher – I was trying to think of a gentlemanly or ladylike way to say this and you said it perfectly. ;-)
As to my own view on hentai – I’ve seen bits of hentai anime here and there on the Internet. There’s a world of difference between hentai and moe/yaoi/yuri, but even hentai has value (as Slypher notes above) so I wouldn’t call it an inherently bad genre.
I like how Sylpher put it too XD
A lot of (elitist) anime fans I’ve encountered seem to have this idea that if an anime has things that make them uncomfortable, like cute underage girls, guys in romantic relationships, or fan service scenes, then those anime are automatically “bad” and not even that much better than hentai. But yeah, that’s a silly idea as hentai and all those other types of series are worlds apart in their goals and styles.
Excellent points! What you said in your first paragraph goes back to another post I wrote about the idea that a good anime should be judged by whether it meets its own goals (as opposed to lacking things the viewer wants it to have). With that way of looking at it, hentai anime that achieve their goals would be good because they’re so straightforward about it as you said, as opposed to ecchi shows that also try to have serious stories and character development and then become unable to balance that with the fan service, and thus don’t achieve their goals.
The above commenters put it better than me. Just because an anime is hentai, it doesn’t automatically make it bad. And I don’t think a series needs to be heavy on plot in order to be good. In the case of hentai, ecchi, and eroge, other elements can make up for that. I’ll list some examples of hentai, ecchi, and eroge that I think are worth checking out:
Hatsu Inu is a hentai that has surprisingly decent characterization. The character Fujino Shion in particular is a very fascinating and unique personality that you don’t see too much in hentai. The series also has a very well drawn and attractive artstyle, and the interactions can be very cute and touching sometimes.
Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke wo is also fantastic, IMO. Both the eroge and the anime version are adorable in their execution of adorable yuri. The romance is believable, the characters are endearing, and the H-scenes are very sexy indeed.
I haven’t finished the entire VN yet, but Wanko to Kurasou is a great eroge because, again, it’s very cute and touching. Yes, there are sex scenes, but there are also very cute and heartwarming interactions between the characters. It can also get legitimately sad sometimes, almost comparable to a Key series.
Popotan is an ecchi series with a surprisingly complex and thought provoking storyline. It’s a story with the theme of having to say goodbye to things you once loved and made you happy, and I don’t see that too often in ecchi.
Mahoromatic is not only one of my favorite ecchi, but also one of my favorite series in general. The character Mahoro is the best part of the series. She’s a hardworking Yamato Nadeshiko with a very heartbreaking past full of regret and sorrow.
KissxSis was written by the same mangaka as Mahoromatic. While it doesn’t have a particularly engaging storyline, it does however make up for it with very clever and sexy fanservice. The situations are very clever and it even goes into a wide variety of fetishes to appeal to all sorts of people. It may not have a deep storyline or deep characters, but I felt the fanservice elements were so well executed, that it made up for it.
Kanokon is a series that means a lot to me because it was the first ecchi series I ever watched back in 2009. It is absolutely hysterical and has very fun and memorable characters.
Upotte has got to be one of the most creative and witty fanservice shows I’ve seen in a long time. It’s the only fanservice show I can think of where it uses the fanservice for educational purposes. The show, as some may know, is all about guns, and the fanservice is cleverly used in the show to learn about how guns themselves work. Educational while being sexy and entertaining at the same time, Upotte never fails to put a smile on my face.
In keeping with the theme of guns, I’m sure most people have heard of the ever brilliant Strike Witches series. For a fanservice show, the characters are all surprisingly memorable and well fleshed out. It has breathtaking animation, and fight scenes that are a treat to watch. The fanservice, at least to me, never feels forced or unnatural. It all smoothly flows in with the series, and while it does feel weird at first that they don’t wear pants, it does make one accept it as a natural part of the world that the show has created. Vividred Operation is another good one created by the same person.
It’s been mentioned before here, but I’ll mention it again: Don’t let the fact that Kodomo no Jikan is a lolicon series deter you from giving it a chance. Believe me, it has surprisingly a lot of depth, great characterization, and well written drama despite that it is a lolicon series. It takes a lot to make me teary eyed in an anime, but Kodomo no Jikan actually managed to give me the feels more than I expected it to.
This next one may be a bit biased, but I couldn’t resist to put it on the list because I absolutely love it. Sora no Otoshimono is fantastic to me because it has almost everything I love in anime all put together. It can be silly and goofy one minute, and then naturally turned to well written drama and epic action series the next. The artstyle is very easy on the eyes, and the anime has some of the best animation I’ve seen in an ecchi series in a while. I am in love with all of the characters so much, that after a while they felt like old friends or a part of my family, and it takes a lot for a series to make me feel that way. Highschool DxD is another show that comes close (but not quite) to this. Again, it has a pretty intricate story and memorable characters, despite being an ecchi. It also has very quality fanservice that feels like a natural part of the world.
And lastly, I know some hate the Rosario + Vampire anime, but I thought that it was a very entertainingly goofy and silly show. I know some people don’t like it because it doesn’t go as in depth as the manga does (I’ve read very little of the manga, so I don’t know if that’s true), but I still thoroughly enjoy the anime, and I don’t regret watching it in the slightest.
Also, just as a side note, I think it’s a little bit rude and disrespectful to call fans of a certain type of show the “lowest common denominator”. There’s nothing wrong with liking hentai or ecchi, and I don’t think it makes you creepy or pathetic.
Thanks for the info on all those anime XD I’ve heard of many of them and have heard good things about series like Strike Witches and Kodomo no Jikan. I can’t say they’re something I would want to watch but I certainly don’t think poorly of anyone who likes them and they probably are good anime.
As I said to Sylpher above, I discussed something like that in a past post of mine – that an anime shouldn’t necessarily be judged because its lacking good story, characters, etc., but should be judged by whether it achieves what it set out to do. So saying a hentai series is bad because it doesn’t have an interesting story or good character development is pointless because that’s not what its goal as entertainment is supposed to be.
When Nil referred to the “lowest common denominator” I don’t think he was calling fans of hentai that. He was just referring to what people would consider the lowest common denominator in terms of entertainment, which would be a focus on erotic sexual scenes (what hentai has).
LOL, I guess I put in way too many anime on my list there. I rarely get a chance to talk about anime with people at all except online, so when I get excited about a subject, I tend to get a little carried away sometimes. Sorry about that.
I believe all anime should be judged on whether it sets out to achieve, instead of whether or not the show is what a particular reviewer wishes it would be. That’s probably why I don’t follow very many reviews anymore (although you’re one of the exceptions because I actually quite like reading them). Nowadays, if I’m going to watch or read a review, it has to at least be of an anime I’ve already seen and formed an opinion on already.
Oh, is that what he meant? I see. Because when I’ve seen other people talk about fans of hentai and ecchi, they usually are referred to as the “lowest common denominator”. As a fan of hentai and ecchi myself, I can’t help but feel personally insulted by that.
No prob about getting carried away. I’m always open to learning more about things in the anime medium I don’t already know ;)
I don’t read a lot of reviews either, kind of for the same reasons as you, but mostly just due to lack of time and interest. I only read reviews from a select few people I know and respect how they judge things. I’m flattered that you like my reviews though XD
Well, I can’t say I know exactly what he meant but I’m assuming that…but that’s what I meant when I used the term too. Going by the tone of his article, I definitely don’t think he was trying to insult anyone, a hentai fan or otherwise.
You’ve made a post talking about how you prefer your style of reviewing, and I think that forms the basis for how a review should be. Nowadays, too many reviewers tend to focus on exaggerating flaws for the sake of comedy, and the problem I have with that is that the jokes are so harsh and angry towards a show, it just comes off as unpleasant to watch. I like it when a reviewer is just straightforward and honest about their opinions on something, and that’s probably sometimes I like it when Doug Walker talks about a movie or a show as himself even more than his NC reviews (don’t get me wrong, I love those too because they’re one of those “exaggerated comedy reviews” done right).
I sure hope not. The last thing we need is another person who judges someone based on the types of shows we watch XD
There is not much to say since I covered the whole moe thing in my past editorials. However, I think there is one thing that remains true, I don’t think there is a such thing as objective criticism or objectively bad since everything is based on subjective tastes. Of course, cultural differences also play a part on why people do not like ecchi and hentai. But still, I think people should have an open mind that not all ecchi shows are bad, but they can be enjoyable. Not only that, hentai material in visual novels usually don’t have any real part of the main story, which is why most visual novel companies like Key and Type-Moon can remove them and make it seem that it never existed at all. The same goes for the Anime. Probably the only exception I know of that kept them is Yosuga no Sora.
Cultural differences do play a role. While even in Japan, ecchi series are considered niche, here in America the very idea of adults watching animation on TV regularly (besides late night comedies) is unusual, let alone something like an ecchi anime.
As you said, ecchi series can have many enjoyable qualities in terms of art, story, and characters. For some people, the ecchi scenes distract too much for them to enjoy it, which is fine. But again, just because they don’t like it doesn’t mean it has absolutely no worth and all anime in that category are inherently bad.