Ask John: How Does Japan Justify Making Mainstream Anime Based on Porn?

Question:
How could a sugary-sweet and family-friendly show like Happiness have been made out of such a raunchy, disgusting and filthy hentai videogame series? It’d be like if Disney’s Hercules cartoon was based on a XXX porno game where Hercules bangs several different girls. This dichotomoy makes absolute zero sense to me. Can you please try to explain it?

Answer:
American consumers certainly wouldn’t expect to ever see mainstream, all-ages friendly Deepthroat or Debbie Does Dallas television series, yet the equivilant is exactly what occurs routinely when Japan’s anime industry turns erotic PC games like Da Capo, Fate/stay night, Akaneiro ni Somaru Saka, Kanon, Koihime Musou, Nanatsuiro Drops, Princess Lover, Utawarerumono, Comic Party, and ToHeart into mainstream television anime. The fact that this trend seems unthinkable in America but seems routine and natural in Japan signifies that some degree of cultural difference must be in effect. The rationale for the mainstream adaptation of erotic games in Japan is based on two primary considerations: Japanese tolerance for sexuality and the literary nature of the games themselves.

Japan has a perspective on sexuality that’s a bit different from America’s. In Japan, just like in America, some degree of polite reservation is applied to sexuality. But sex is treated a bit more pragmatically in Japanese culture than in American culture. While Japanese and American culture both recognize that sex is a natural, instinctive behavior, Japanese society frequently also treats sex as a natural, instinctive behavior, unlike America that always addresses sexuality with a tone of embarassment or a sideways glance. So while American society may presume that something sexually related must be restricted to adults, even if the overt sexuality is removed, Japanese society has less reservation about recognizing that sex isn’t a permanent, unremovable stigma. Because Japanese culture itself is so pragmatic, Japanese society doesn’t insist upon attaching explicit sexual connotations to something that doesn’t actually contain explict sexuality.

Partially because Japanese society doesn’t defame or disregard sexuality to the same degree that American society typically does, pornography in Japan isn’t automatically relegated to the absolute lowest tier of artistic and literary merit. American pornography arguably hit its artistic peak in the 1980s when erotic filmmakers actually tried to make adult movies rather than just film sex. Japan hasn’t abandoned the philosophy that erotica and literary substance can be united. Contemporary hentai games strive to be satisfying narratives with satisfying emotional, visual, narrative, and erotic characteristics. So if contemporary erotic games are actually viable, substantial narratives, there’s little reason not to market them as viable narratives. The complexity and success of titles including Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Tsukihime, Kanon, and Fate/stay night, in particular, demonstrate that many contemporary Japanese adult PC games actually have enough narrative and artistic credibility and viability that preventing them from reaching a larger audience, just because they contain graphic sexuality, would be a regrettable waste.

I’m not aware of any American erotic movies or games that deserve and demand mainstream attention with or without their sex intact. I’m not aware of any American erotica that’s so popular that its fans want to share it and have it viewed and enjoyed by mainstream viewers. Mainstream Americans would object to pornography sanitized for mainstream consumption merely based on the material’s prior association with pornography. Japanese culture is more pragmatic. If a work once had graphic sex but no longer does, it’s no longer pornographic.