You need to understand that this isn’t porn

Ok, mom, firstly, you need to understand that this isn’t porn, all right? It’s called “hentai”. Yes, that’s a Japanese phrase, I’m learning Japanese from these videos. Before I get to the part about learning Japanese, though, let me first comment on the cultural implications of hentai. After the second world war, which Japan lost after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the entire country underwent a period of self-reflection and soul-searching. They wanted to understand how events led to the rest of the world responding with such devastating atomic attacks. This led to a strong antipathy towards war-mongering and international aggression. You may have heard about how the Japanese constitution doesn’t allow the country to have an active military. Same idea. A lot of post-war Japanese culture is a reflection of such attitudes. For example, the Godzilla movies are not just about giant monsters fighting each other. They’re about the horrors of unbridled atomic technology (Godzilla’s always depicted as being powered by or healed by nuclear power), and how such a terrifying force can never be allowed to be unleashed on humanity again. On a similar note, Japanese animation enjoyed a resurgence of popularity after the war, due to the populace choosing to turn towards the comforting images of their youth. Japanese kids, much like kids in our country, like to watch cartoons. As a result, psychologically speaking, cartoons represent a reminder of a simpler and more innocent age. This upsurge in popularity resulted in animated images pervading almost all of Japanese culture: from movies, to television, to advertising, to music videos, and so on and so forth. And because animated images were so widely accepted throughout Japan, they were used for almost every type of source material, or to tell any type of story. Animation was no longer the sole domain of children. You got animated movies that told very mature stories, like Ghost in the Machine or Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Sometimes you get stories that involve very mature topics, like war, or murder, or rape, or torture. The Japanese have generally become quite accustomed seeing depictions of such things in their animations. So yeah, that’s why I was watching this movie. It’s an epic tale about a space crew exploring a distant planet (the crew’s all female, because Japan’s very into gender equality), and they run into a hostile alien, with a bunch of tentacles… and… well… I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but let’s just say the crew eventually figure out how to get along with the alien. It’s a story about bridging cultural gaps and finding common ground. Seriously, it’s worth watching. Ok, next, you remember how I talked about knowing Japanese words and phrases now? It’s because these movies are subtitled in English, so I can learn Japanese while watching them. I mean, I know words like yamete, and iie, and iigu, and lots of others. Much better than just knowing konichiwa, isn’t it? I mean, I’m developing such an interest in hentai that I might just major in Japanese when I’m in college. Who knows, I might be the one writing the subtitles in the future. Oh, and one last thing, you should know that hentai’s considered pretty mainstream in Japan now, and it’s also quite common in the western world too now. Everyone’s watching it. I mean, if I don’t watch it, I’ll be seen as some sort of freak at school. You don’t want your son to be some kind of pariah because he doesn’t watch hentai, do you?