E-Hentai is an
image-hosting and
file-sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include re ...
website focused on
hentai
Hentai () is a style of Pornography in Japan, Japanese pornographic anime and manga. In addition to anime and manga, hentai works exist in a variety of media, including artwork and video games (commonly known as ''eroge'').
The developme ...
(Japanese
cartoon pornography
Cartoon pornography, or animated pornography, is the portrayal of illustrated or animated fictional cartoon characters in erotic or sexual situations. Animated cartoon pornography or erotic animation, is a subset of the larger field of adult anima ...
). The site hosts user-generated image galleries primarily of pornographic content originating or derived from
anime
is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
,
manga
are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
, and
video games
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
, such as
fanart
Fan art or fanart is artwork created by fans of a work of fiction or celebrity depicting events, character, or other aspect of the work. As fan labor, fan art refers to artworks that are not created, commissioned, nor endorsed by the creator ...
,
scanlation
Scanlation (also scanslation) is the fan-made image scanner, scanning, translation, and Image editing, editing of comics from a language into another language. Scanlation is done as an amateur work performed by groups and is nearly always done w ...
s of manga and ''
dōjinshi
, also Romanization of Japanese, romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of ''doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of exi ...
'', and
cosplay
Cosplay, a blend word of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and Fashion accessory, fashion accessories to represent a specific Character (arts), character. Cosplayers often i ...
photographs. Its sister site Exhentai (colloquially known as Sad Panda) was spun off from E-Hentai in 2010 to host artwork that depicts
material that is illegal in certain jurisdictions, such as
lolicon
In Japanese popular culture, is a genre of fictional media which focuses on young or young-looking girl characters, particularly in a sexually suggestive or erotic manner. The term, a portmanteau of the English-language phrase " Lolita co ...
,
shotacon
, abbreviated from , is, in Japanese contexts, the attraction to young (or young-looking) boy characters, or media centered around this attraction. The term refers to a genre of manga and anime wherein prepubescent or pubescent male character ...
, and
bestiality.
History
E-Hentai launched as a
Yahoo! Group
Yahoo! Groups was a free-to-use system of electronic mailing lists offered by Yahoo!.
Prior to February 2020, Yahoo! Groups was one of the world's largest collections of online discussion boards. It allowed members to subscribe to various grou ...
on July 1, 1999. The group moved to a
.net
The .NET platform (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a free and open-source, managed code, managed computer software framework for Microsoft Windows, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft emplo ...
domain in 2001 before moving to its current
.org domain in 2005 after ownership of its .net domain lapsed and was purchased by another party.
On March 27, 2010, E-Hentai announced that in response to pressure from advertisers, it would no longer host artwork depicting underage characters (
lolicon
In Japanese popular culture, is a genre of fictional media which focuses on young or young-looking girl characters, particularly in a sexually suggestive or erotic manner. The term, a portmanteau of the English-language phrase " Lolita co ...
and
shotacon
, abbreviated from , is, in Japanese contexts, the attraction to young (or young-looking) boy characters, or media centered around this attraction. The term refers to a genre of manga and anime wherein prepubescent or pubescent male character ...
) and
bestiality. Existing galleries containing this content were deleted from the site, amounting to the removal of approximately 30,000 of the website's 150,000 galleries; this content was later spun off onto Exhentai, a sister site to E-Hentai.
Access to Exhentai requires an existing E-Hentai account; for individuals without an account, Exhentai appears as a blank page with an illustration of a crying
panda
The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear or simply panda, is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its white coat with black patches around the eyes, ears, legs and shoulders. Its body is ...
, and has consequently has earned the nickname "Sad Panda" among users of the site.
In June 2019, both sites were removed from
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, per the company's policy of de-listing websites that violate the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...
.
On July 26, 2019, E-Hentai and Exhentai announced that both sites would shut down in response to "recent legislative changes in the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
", where the servers of the sites were hosted at the time.
''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...
'' speculated that the shutdown was in reaction to the
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market
The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, formally the Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 9 ...
adopted by the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
in June 2019, which makes digital platforms legally liable for material posted by users that violates copyright, as well as a July 2019 proposal by Dutch Minister of Justice
Ferdinand Grapperhaus
Ferdinand Bernhard Joseph "Ferd" Grapperhaus (born 8 November 1959) is a Dutch politician who served as Minister of Justice and Security in the Third Rutte cabinet from 26 October 2017 until 10 January 2022. He is a member of the Christian Democ ...
to impose harsher punishments on websites that do not rapidly remove child pornography.
24 hours' notice was given for the shutdown of Exhentai, leading users on the image board
4chan
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, mu ...
to attempt to archive the entire site before it closed on July 27.
On August 2, 2019, Exhentai relaunched after its servers relocated to
Moldova
Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...
.
Operations
Works posted to E-Hentai and Exhentai are typically
pirated
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...
and are uploaded without the consent or knowledge of the original creators.
The site is owned and operated by an anonymous moderator who uses the handle Tenboro
and is funded through a combination of advertising revenue and donations; in 2009, E-Hentai estimated its annual hosting costs at
USD$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...
46,000, with donations covering "less than half" of operating costs.
In 2019, Tenboro stated that a persistent tendon injury limited their ability to perform timely maintenance on the website and that they were considering options for its future, such as naming a successor moderator or preserving the website as a permanent archive.
Impact
Collectively, E-Hentai and Exhentai are one of the largest databases of hentai manga and contain over 1,000,000 image galleries.
The site hosts both original Japanese hentai manga and
scanlation
Scanlation (also scanslation) is the fan-made image scanner, scanning, translation, and Image editing, editing of comics from a language into another language. Scanlation is done as an amateur work performed by groups and is nearly always done w ...
s in multiple languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai.
At its peak popularity, the commercial web traffic company
Alexa
Alexa may refer to: Technology
*Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon
* Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service
* Alexa Fluor, a family of fluorescent dyes
* Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture ca ...
ranked E-Hentai as the 264th-most popular website on the internet.
Outlets have noted that E-Hentai functions as a ''de facto'' archive for artwork that is rare or non-existent on other physical and digital platforms; the site hosts content such as
Comiket
, more commonly known as or , is a semiannual Doujinshi convention, ''doujinshi'' convention in Tokyo, Japan. A grassroots market focused on the sale of ''doujin'' (self-published) works, Comiket is a not-for-profit fan convention administered ...
-exclusive works (''
dōjin
In Japan, a is a group of people who share an interest, activity, or hobby. The word is sometimes translated into English as " clique", "fandom", "coterie", "society", or "circle" (as in " sewing circle"). Self-published creative works pro ...
'') and out-of-print
art books
Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that engage with and transform the form of a book. Some are mass-produced with multiple editions, some are published in small editions, while others are produced as one-of-a-kind o ...
that are both pornographic and non-pornographic in nature, with ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...
'' calling the website the "
Alexandria Library of hentai".
''
The Daily Dot
''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. It was founded by Nicholas White in 2011, and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometown newsp ...
'' described E-Hentai as "a relic of 'the old internet, citing it as an example of niche portals for digital content that predate contemporary
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
.
See also
*
Fakku
*
Legal aspects of file sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audios, photos and/or videos), program files, documents or electronic books/magazines. It involves various legal aspects ...
References
External links
* {{official website
Exhentai Website
File sharing communities
Hentai
Image-sharing websites
Internet properties established in 1999