Hentai translates loosely in English to “perversion” or “abnormality.” It comes from two words that mean “weird” and “condition.” The negative connotation doesn’t keep kinky hentai from being very popular, at home in Japan, and all over the world.
Hentai basically means sexually explicit anime (cartoons) and manga (Japanese comic books and graphic novels). Globally, we perceive hentai as being a kinky version of manga, but in Japan, pornographic anime is generally referred to as ecchi manga or ero-manga.
Here are some popular kinks and fetishes found in hentai manga and anime.
20 Fetishes Found in Hentai
1. Animal Ears (Kemonomimi)
Kemonomimi is a hentai fetish for anime characters who have animal characteristics. This almost always means ears and a tail, which can be removed at will, which differs from others who have more characteristics of an animal.
The idea of a cute, sexy human taking on the ears and tail of an animal and that being attractive is nothing new. Adding cat ears is very common dress-up for women, and let’s not forget a sex empire was built out of the Playboy Bunny motif.
Kemonomimi ears are tiger, otter, cat, sheep, puppy, hyena, and many more.
Read: Pet Play: All About Animal Roleplay
2. Bondage Fetish
BDSM themes including bondage are commonly seen hentai fetishes.
Read: Japanese Bondage: Learn Shibari Rope Bondage
3. Breeding Kink
Kinky hentai frequently explores breeding kinks. Fantasies of impregnation are acted out, often in a laboratory, bondage or BDSM setting. Many hentai fetish works in this genre are about forced breeding and have a sci-fi edge to them.
Read: Breeding Kink and the Impregnation Fetish
4. Cat Girl (Nekomimi)
A very popular kemonomimi character is Cat Girl, who appears as a character in many kinky hentai as well as other kinds of manga and anime. Cat Girl often wears paws as well as cat ears, and there is a whole market for Cat Girl dress up.
While the novelty cute factor is part of this hentai fetish, Cat Girl is not new at all. She appeared already in Japanese art exhibitions in the 1700s, and versions of her were part of folklore and shapeshifting ghost prostitutes. Like many kinky hentai motifs, there is a long history of evolution behind the ideas.
5. Fart Fetish
Kinky hentai is by nature exaggerated and often funny. The hentai fart fetish is often funny, but can also be very serious. The loud noise, defiant rogue character, or perceived humiliation are some of the erotic triggers possible with this hentai fetish.
Read: Fart Fetish: The Smelly Kink of Eproctophilia
6. Femdom Kink
Femdom turns traditional gender mores upside down, and hentai fetish art is no exception. Lots of kinky hentai features femdom scenes, with a submissive male under sexual control by a dominant female.
Read: Femdom Relationships: 8 Examples
7. Foot Fetish
The foot fetish is one of the most common kinks in the world, so of course it is part of hentai fetishes.
8. French Maid Fetish
It’s very common to see characters dressed in the classic black and white ruffles of the French maid costume in hentai fetish animation.
Read: Clothing Fetish: Fabric, Clothing, and Costume Kinks
9. Frotteurism (Chikan)
Chikan means body contact or body rubbing, and shows up often in kinky hentai in the context of someone sneaking a grope or being felt up on public transit.
The concept usually includes the idea of getting away with something, or being done against someone’s will, rather than just people touching, so it is tinged with BDSM.
Read: Consensual Voyeurism: Be a Voyeur with Consent
10. Furry Fetish
Anthropomorphic characters are frequently featured in hentai fetishes.
Read: Sexual Furries and the Language of Furry Sex
11. Futa Fetish (Futinari)
Futinari, or the futa fetish, is a hentai fetish that involves women who have penises. They are cis women with regular female characteristics. Futinari plays with genderbending and blending, with power exchange dynamics, yes, but also with the Japanese fascination for transformation and exchange.
Species, fantasy, and humans often swap body parts and psychological characteristics, too, being shapeshifters of sorts. Transformation or hybridism is part of many hentai fetishes.
Read: 17 Transformation Fetishes and Kinks
12. Giantess Fetish
The idea of a giant woman is part sexual fantasy, part cinematic nostalgia, part goddess worship, and part Freudian wet dream. There’s so much to unpack, but who wouldn’t want to be chased down and ravaged by an oversized beauty?
Read: What Kind of Kink Is Macrophilia?
13. Interspecies Sex
Popular hentai fetish themes include sex between cartoon human and animal, robot, sex doll, alien, ghost, and hybrids of these or more!
Read: Ghost Fetish: Spectrophilia and Ghost Sex
14. Large Breast Fetish (Bakunyū)
Kinky hentai often features breast fetishism and animation figures with extremely exaggerated large breasts.
Read: All About Hyper Fetish and How to Enjoy
15. Mommy / Incest Fetish
Hentai fetishes often explore sexualized mommy themes or features incest.
Read: 5 Kinds of Mommy Fetishes and Kinks
16. Pee Fetish (Omorashi)
Omorashi is a urine or piss fetish that often plays out in kinky hentai, focused on scenes of watching someone wet themselves.
17. Robot Girls (Mecha)
Hentai’s fascinating with transformation and technology is reflected in the robot girl fetish, where cute girls dress like robots, are robots, or turn into robots.
Read: The Pros & Cons of Sex Robots
18. Schoolgirl / School Uniform Fetish
A classic kink the world over is the not-so-innocent school girl in the uniform skirt and button-up shirt with knee-high socks.
Read: Uniform Fetish: 4 Role Plays for Uniform Lovers
19. Tentacle Fetish
More monsters, more imaginary creatures, more aliens, more hybrids of technology and nature… not to mention, tentacles symbolize penetration, and there are usually lots of them!
Read: Tentacle Porn: A Kink for Octopus Tentacles
20. Glasses Fetish
As with many of the hentai fetishes, the glasses fetish is quite common outside of kinky manga. But hentai art really celebrates characters with glasses as part of their erotic couture. With characteristic exaggeration of desirable features, kinky hentai gives those who are gaga for glasses all kinds of attention.
The Origins of Hentai
The first publicly viewed kinky hentai—pornographic anime—came about in the 80s with the popular Lolita Anime series. But hentai and hentai fetishes are the result of a lengthy evolution.
Japan and the rest of the world became fascinated by sexual deviancy after the 1928 release of Psychopathia Sexualis. There was a boom in journals about sex and sexual curiosities such as sadomasochism and incest. However, this was just the natural progression for a longstanding cultural interest merging literature, art, and “strange” kinds of love!
From classic collections of folklore to self-published zines, hentai fetish aspects appear in all kinds of illustrations. Shunga art is a long tradition, too—woodblock art featuring everything from simply naked people, to the famous work like The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife which depicts an enraptured woman making love to an octopus.
Today, kinky hentai and hentai fetishes are a widely known erotic art form, manifest in graphic novels, books, films, and other animation products.
Read: 20 Japanese Fetishes, Kinks, and BDSM Practices
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