Why is hentai popular?

There are millions of people who watch hentai and get off to it. It’s a type of porn like no other porn you’ve seen before – it’s animated.

Hentai has a long history, dating back up to 1,000 years with roots in the traditional Japanese erotic art called shunga. After World War 2, censorship in Japan relaxed and technology got popular and more people were able to access porn.

Porn got mixed in with the culture of manga and anime – comics and cartoons – and hentai was born. The reach of hentai has gone far beyond Japan, with the top three countries in terms of online searches being Mongolia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

It’s regularly one of the most searched for porn genres, outstripping MILF and amateur for example.

Why has this form of cartoon porn become so popular? Here, we’re going to look at:

• Watching hentai for escapism
• Choosing to watch hentai instead of real porn
• Hentai as a form of nostalgia
• The content of hentai as a reason to watch

Plus, we’ll look at the cultural reasons why hentai is consistently popular.

1.      People watch hentai for the physical extremes

In cartoons, anything can come true. This very much applies to the bodies of the people featured in the sexy cartoons.

When you watch hentai, you’ll notice the impossible physical forms of the men and women. There are huge dicks that would make a man fall over if they were real. The massive boobs of the characters in hentai are another attraction.

There’s been a lot of interest in why men are into big boobs. Long story short, they just are and you’ll see chesticles that are bigger than the woman’s body when you watch hentai.

Hentai is able to work with bodily extremes without harming anyone or requiring surgery.

2.      Hentai can take you to sexual extremes

Just like bodies can be and do anything in cartoon porn, extreme sexual desires can be played out in hentai.

Some of the most popular sub-genres of hentai include:

• Lolicon, which is characters portrayed as being younger than 18
• Dickgirls, which are women with dicks – surprisingly enough
• Bestiality, where characters have sex with all kinds of real and imagined animals
• Tentacles, which is kinda a sub-sub-genre of bestiality where people have sex with octopus or alien tentacles

These things would never be possible on a real human porn set, but with hentai, they come to life in a way the people who watch hentai understand and appreciate.

3.      Hentai is an alternative to real porn

Porn and sex are everywhere. It’s all over the internet and people can easily become porn models. Sex between real humans is accessible all over the place and even in countries that ban porn, people can still watch people fucking with a little bit of tech effort.

We all know the standard porn tropes like bratty stepsisters, lesbian sex, and hot blowjobs. They’ve been watched a thousand times so to watch hentai is a break away from the norm.

As well as the physical and action extremes you see in hentai, it’s just different and it can always be different because the only constraint on hentai is the imagination of the person drawing it.

4.      People watch hentai for nostalgia

The last decade or so has been an era of nostalgia. Gen X and late-Millennials are reveling in reunions of their favorite bands, TV shows, and movie reboots.

How does watching hentai square with this? Everyone watched cartoons as kids; it’s an art form that we’re all familiar with. For the same reason cartoons like South Park, Family Guy, and even The Simpsons are popular, so is hentai.

People understand cartoons. The element of fantasy is understood. We know anything can happen and suspend our ideas about reality when we watch hentai.

5.      When you watch hentai, you get real stories

If you ever watched porn in the 80s and 90s, you’ll remember there being a storyline. Not a great storyline or even a well-acted storyline, but there was an idea in the porn.

You still get standard tropes now, with horny housewives fucking pool boys and babysitters getting fucked by the daddy of the house. The focus on the story isn’t there as much though. This can be even more true with the amateur porn that’s becoming ever more popular.

Hentai still has that old-school narrative to it. There’s a story and an idea in a hentai porn clip, whether it’s how she came across the alien that’s fucking her or how he met the girl he’s about to hardcore fuck – there’s something new.

That freshness and the ability to be creative with settings, characters, and situations is a big reason to watch hentai.

6.      Watching hentai because of Japanese culture

Ever heard of a weeaboo? It’s basically a person who isn’t Japanese but has a full hardon for the culture.

When you’re completely obsessed with a culture, immersing yourself in the pornography is as important as learning the language. There’s a big culture of people being into all things Japan and they can see hentai as a window into that culture. 

Even people who wouldn’t be classed as a weeaboo – weeb for short – can be into Japanese culture. It’s made its way into the food we eat, films we watch, and beers we drink. Consider these cultural items:

• Sushi
• Ramen
• Samurai
• Ninjas
• Geishas
• Sapporo beer
• Sake rice wine

Does hentai belong on that list? You’ve probably thought about it when you’ve indulged in other elements of Japanese culture, at least.

Why do people watch hentai?

Hentai is a different type of porn than most people normally watch. It’s not constricted by the normal rules of sex and porn. People like the idea of getting their kicks from cartoons and love Japanese culture, so why not watch hentai too?