Merry Christmas from Jail

You may or may not have noticed, but I’m Canadian. And you know, up here in Canada we like to think we’re a pretty fair and righteous bunch of people. All of those crazy fear-mongering laws being put to place in the US (who needs a trial, anyways?), we don’t care so much for that. We’re all about peace and love and tolerance and progressive liberal views!

At least that’s what I thought. But it turns out our Criminal Code is a little more “interesting” than I thought. It also turns out that I’m a felon.

Wait, what?.

You see, I hinted on my site recently that I was looking into making a “Christmas present” for everyone. I don’t know if I’ll have time to update this later, so I’ll just let you know what it is now:

Mystic Girl! My 3rd hentai game is officially in progress!

Hurrah! So what’s the problem and how does this lead me into being a criminal?

Well making games of any sort is a complex, time-consuming endeavour. As much as I’d love to be able to continue throwing endless amounts of free stuff around, there are more productive ways for me to spend me to be spending my time than making hentai. So if I was going to continue I wanted to get some tangible pay back from my efforts.

My plan? Create another free hentai game (that is in itself better than Demon Girl) and then create an expanded version which cost a few dollars for a bunch of extra content. Obviously the popular response to this will be “OMG YOU SELL OUT” but I think it is rather fair. And since my games get millions of hits, hopefully I could nab a couple of sales here and there. Everyone else would just pirate it anyways, so I wouldn’t really be restricting access very much. Plus, it all starts with giving a new game away for free, so forgive me for not feeling bad.

But now I would be selling pornography. Or am I? Is hentai pornography? Is there any legal mumbo jumbo I need to go through to legally sell it? This is a serious issue, so I looked into it.

And here we come to the wonderful Criminal Code of Canada. Surely here I can find the information I’m looking for. Wait, no, doesn’t mention a thing about the sale of pornography. It does however bring some new insights that are of interest:

1) Hentai = pornography.
2) Pornography + violence = obscene.
3) Obscene pornography = Corrupting public morals = A criminal offence.

And here I am distributing tentacle rape hentai to millions of people.

Now I’m not a lawyer, and the law seems so ridiculously vaguely worded that I don’t know if it holds any water in court, but I’m still disturbed to say the least. Disturbed enough that the whole plan up there – probably not gonna happen. As soon as money gets involved people start paying attention, and I don’t want attention to lead to me going to jail.

But hey, there’s a catch. If I use the game to portray a political message it suddenly becomes legal again! And all politics is rape of some kind or another. Maybe if I make the tentacles represent ridiculous, outdated laws, and Mystic Girl represent a hentai artist...

The Ultimate Hentai Game

Not going to happen.

Weep and despair, my friends, for the game of your dreams is never coming. All hope is spent, thrust into the gaping chasm of a society unwilling to let go of its innocence. Reality is a harsh mistress. It teases you with glimpses of possibility but leaves before satisfaction has been delivered. And so we beg at the table for pathetic scraps of pleasure.

While some may be satisfied with their petty dialogue trees and pre-Atari gameplay design rejects, we know better don’t we? We have a grander sense of beauty and dream for a day when the ultimate hentai game will finally arrive.

It won’t and here’s why (in no particular order):

1) No Profit Potential:
Good games take time to make. Time is money. This is money that has to be made back at some point. But what is the market for a hentai game, exactly?

a) A bunch of freeloaders. I mean let’s face it: I don’t pay for much and you probably don’t either. Porn is the most widely pirated entertainment media there is. There is a ton of it and it is very easy to get. Add to this that the people who are most willing to appreciate a good game are also the most likely to know how to get it for free and you’ve got a severe lack of people willing to pay for a quality title.
b) No one you can market to. I don’t think IGN wants to throw hentai on the front page, do you? Retailers won’t stock it. Even most sources of adult content wouldn’t give you the time of day as the majority of people consuming porn still think cartoon sex is for freaks. What’s left? Ads on 4chan? That’s just another cost to recoup and also leads back to 1a): pandering to the people most likely to pirate your content.


2) No Consensus
What is a good hentai game? After all, we can’t make one if we don’t know what it is.

a) Should it have incredible gameplay? Why does it need hentai then if you’re just playing it for fun? If someone only wants to get off then gameplay just gets in the way. So it should concentrate on just being as erotic as possible! But wait, aren’t pictures, movies, and manga more efficient at that? Why make it a game at all, really?
b) What should it be about? One person wants to see big tits and another isn’t interested in anything but loli girls with dicks giving birth to alien tentacle monsters while having their limbs chopped off. If the game doesn’t cater to one’s interests, it’s not very good now is it? Hentai tastes are very diverse, and something as simple as a tentacle monster can be a very big deal.
c) Does it need a good story? Engaging characters? Riveting dialogue? All that just takes more time away from both the gameplay and the hentai.

You can’t make a good game without these things, but they all detract from the hentai content, which detracts from the point of making this sort of game in the first place!


3) Bad Stigma
Sex is sinful and dirty and you should be ashamed of even thinking about it.

a) So you are a big name game developer. You have a studio of talented people and sound financial backing at your disposal. How is this for a business plan: Create a hentai game, alienating much of your staff, increasing your turnover rate and inevitably giving your company a reputation for being sexist and twisted. Your funding quickly dries up and the gaming media refuses to cover your product. When your game hits the shelves – wait, it doesn’t because it was boycotted by lobby groups and banned by politicians. All non-pornographic avenues of business are blocked to your company (the name of which is forever tarnished) and your own name is personally blacklisted from other gaming jobs. The game itself is forever known as “that terrible sex game” and no one ever recognizes that it was good at all, completely neglecting to pay attention to the fact that there is anything to it other than sex.
b) So you are a small, independent game developer. You’re working alone or closely with a couple other people. You pour loads of time and effort into making a great hentai game. When the time comes to promote and then sell it, no one pays attention. Press won’t even consider talking to you and you have no money and influence to pursue the retail channel. You can’t even get publicity for the game by turning it into a scandalous news story because your company has too little of a reputation to care about. Everywhere you go the game is labeled as “that terrible sex game” and never recognized as being anything more than simple porn.


4) Bad Precedent
Hey, there already is some hentai games out there! They have exciting storylines and incredibly addicting gameplay!

Or not.

a) Shitty hentai games already exist and make money. Why do they make money? Because they are cheaply made and have little competition. After all, if every game sucks, none are really going to steal the show. They can’t even rely on licensed properties because they can’t get any decent licenses willing to enter the sex industry. So what results is that no one has any incentive to make decent products because by maintaining the status quo (of shit) everyone profits with minimum risk. Hey look, boobies!
Hell, DOAX2 isn’t even decent and that is using one of the most popular hentai properties there is. How is a full out hardcore game going to turn out any better if even the big studios are putting out crap?
b) Here’s one for the “but it could happen in Japan!” crew. Japan has lost its status as a bastion of gaming innovation. Sorry, but Japan is the country that turns Dragon Quest releases into national holidays and races out to line up for the latest Gundam title. The public there has voted with their wallets and decided that rehashing the same games over and over again is what they truly want no matter how poorly rated they are. Enter the bad precedent: if hentai games are currently crap then crap is all people are going to want because people seem to love buying the same stuff they already have.

Quality is unimportant, which leads us back to issue #1: there is no market for excellent adult games substantial enough to justify making one.


But we’re a resilient bunch, we’ll just keep hoping anyways. I mean, it’s not all bad. We’ve got good games, and we’ve got hentai. We’ll just have to be happy keeping the two seperate.

The Spiral 2

And the spiral goes on.

Let's recap shall we? The cute and innocent phase gave way to the hard and brutal phase, which branched off into surrealism. Fun!

Now, not all tentacles are created equal. Some might even be considered tame compared to the gangbangs that came before. Obviously this tripe wouldn't hold anyone off for long, but how can we spice it up? Some more girls might help, or maybe it's better to concentrate more tentacles on a single girl? We can clutter it up with a lot of crazy action, or try to make it as clear as possible (read: impossible). Hey, why settle for lots of small ones when we could watch girls being reamed by lots of big ones. But where's the fun in it is you can't see how deep they are going? Some especially considerate tentacles might even leave presents before they go, which can lead to some interesting results. Some very interesting results. In fact, they might go beyond "interesting" in some cases.

If I get any more interested, this could get dangerous. Luckily, that's the point! Tune in next time, whenever that time may be, for our next fearsome installment of The Spiral.

The Spiral

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Familiarity Breeds Lust

An interesting phenomenon.

You load up a beautifully drawn picture with a perfectly bodied girl in the most sexy scene imaginable and then proceed to gaze at the poorly done scribbles on lined scrap paper on the next page. Why? Because you know who the girl in the second one is, of course. She’s from that game/anime/manga you like oh so much.

All of which sort of flies in the face of common sense, doesn’t it? Intuitively, one might think that after seeing the same face and same outfit over and over again, it might start to get boring. In general, the more familiar one becomes with a subject, the less interesting it gets. People need variety. People lust for the exotic. New faces, new situations, and new experiences are what we want, right?

But somehow Tifa is still hot.

And to be honest I don’t even like her that much.

So how come just knowing who a character is, even if she isn’t real, can make hentai so much sexier? There is obviously something to lust deeper than just seeing a pair of breasts and tab A being inserted into slot B.

Of course it would be a lame (but convenient) cop-out to just keep spouting rhetorical questions and vague statements, so I’ll have to put something of substance up for once.

Here are some of the aspects of familiarity that I think makes hentai sexy:

1) Affection – You like her. You want her to feel good. Knowing that she’s experiencing pleasure makes it all the better for you. But wait, you say, isn’t most hentai rape? Indeed it is. However, it’s also fantasy, and a very common theme in hentai is that everyone always enjoys rape at some point or another.

2) Antagonism – You don’t like her. Stupid whiny annoying evil bitch. Knowing that she’s been taken against her will is deliciously satisfying. Sure it’s mean, but that doesn’t stop it from being hot.

3) Desire – Wouldn’t it be amazing if she were real? Well she isn’t, but you’re not looking at hentai for a real companion now are you?

4) Disclosure – Sure she acts like a tough, independent, completely non-sexual woman all the time. But we all know she’s really a total nympho underneath.

And more that I’m not thinking of at the moment. Feel free to fill in the gaps.

The Closet

Are you in it?

No, no. Not that closet. God knows there’s enough “gay this, gay that” talk in the media these days. Don’t need me talking about it here. No, I’m referring to the hentai closet of course. And how I’m in it. And how you’re probably in it too.

Last week I mentioned how the most common reaction I see to hentai in any face-to-face conversation is people going nuts over how terribly sick and pathetic it supposedly is. In fact I’ve only ever heard otherwise once. However, you and I and millions of other people appear to disagree. The amount of hentai on the net is staggering. The amount in print and on video is equally so. If mankind is just a speck on the fabric of the universe, mankind’s hentai collection is a big, fat, phallus-shaped lump.

So one might think that the concept of enjoying erotic artwork might be somewhat acceptable by now. One might think. Unfortunately, in my experience people thinking is a rare occurrence. In my particular sorrowful case (oh how I weep in my shame), linemarvel and the-guy-who-totally-isn’t-linemarvel-at-all-what-are-you-talking-about remain two completely separate entities.

Conformity rocks, you know? Sure you could stand up for yourself and what you believe in... or you could just smile and nod and finger them behind their back*. It’s not like I’m going to look at hentai in front of them anyways. On the other hand, it’s always that dirty little secret that I have to hide. It’s always that avenue I can’t fully pursue. People always ask why no one has made a quality, sophisticated hentai game. It’s because anyone capable of making that game would be royally screwing over their careers if they did**.

Which is sad. But hey, enough about me, let’s talk about you, shall we?

What is your experience with hentai in your “real life”? Do you ever stick up for your so-very-pleasureful hobby? Ever find yourself in a situation where you don’t have too? Any stories about getting out of the closet? Or any plans too?

Thanks to the glorious anonymity of “teh intarwebs” you can splurge all the gooey details and stay in the closet at the same time! So post away!

*pun very much intended
**among other reasons. I smell another topic coming up...

I'm A Moron

So here I am, all sad that I still haven't gotten a single comment on any of the blog posts. I get a lot of hits to my site, surely someone would say something, right? Surely I'm not completely wasting my time, right?

Note to self: Enable the freaking comment system. -_-;;

So sorry to anyone who tried to post before! I just noticed the queue of comments in the system that I was apparently supposed to approve. Now you should be able to post comments directly and have them show up right away. And if you try and it doesn't work, email me and I'll try to find what stupid setting I missed this time.

Why Real Women Are Ugly

“Who the hell gets off on cartoons? Why don’t those freaks look at real women?”

Sound familiar? That’s what I hear every time the subject of hentai comes up in a real life conversation. And about as many times as I hear those words, I’m smiling and nodding and agreeing with them. Does that make me a liar? Sure, but I’ll be damned if conformity doesn’t make my life so much easier.

But that’s a topic for another day. For now, let’s just deal with the questions:

Q. Who looks at hentai?
A. Me, you, and most of Japan.

Q. Why don’t I look at real pornography?
A. There is very little porn that has real women in it. Or rather, as I like to say, “I used to like porn before I learned to use Photoshop”.

First off, a picture of a real woman is not a real woman. It’s a picture. It’s ink on a page. It’s pixels on a screen. What’s the difference between a picture of a real woman and a cartoon woman? Trick question. They’re the same thing.

Secondly, pictures of women are almost always photoshopped to hell and back. Ever seen a porno mag? It’s a bunch of paintings, not photographs. The women are super-deformed. It looks grotesque. Women don’t have pencil thin waists, flawless skin, gravity defying breasts and perfectly sculpted hair. That’s called “special effects”, not reality.

Third, even in real life the average porn star is not a “real” woman. She’s usually half plastic. Breast implants, lip implants, coloured contacts, several pounds of make-up (covering the entire body), tricky lighting schemes, buckets of hairspray, etc.

In fact, the entire process of making porn is based around making the women look “better” than reality. The problem is, we know what reality looks like. Ever heard of the uncanny valley? If not, look it up. It applies. Altered women aren’t hot, they’re gross. They offend my sensibilities. They just are not sexy*

So how does this all not apply to hentai as well? Hentai is fake from the start. It’s accepted that you’re dealing with fantasy from the moment pencil hits paper. There is no trickery, there is no uncanny valley, and there are no unnatural alterations. It’s just fantasy, not altered reality, and fantasy is hot.

*Of course I’m generalizing. I do look at “real” porn, but it’s got to be tastefully edited at least. Videos suffer less from this problem, but it doesn’t stop the women from looking freakish a lot of the time.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hentai: Calculating Weirdness

Even the most rabid hentai addict will occasionally encounter a particular breed of art that appears to defy all human comprehension. Under these circumstances it is important not to panic, and to handle any logical processing of the image in one’s mind with the following rating procedure:

Compare the image to all of the following statements and when applicable add the appropriate weirdness values to the image’s total weirdness count. Ratings scale from 0 (Completely normal) to 125 (Vomit inducing batshit insane retina scarring horror beyond words).


Category 1) Rationality

a) The image contains figures with proportions beyond what is considered normal. (Examples: Unreasonably enlarged breasts, gigantic penises, masses of fat or musculature, stretched/squashed/otherwise misshapen body shape) (+1 per figure).

• The sexual focus of the image is on the exaggerated proportions (+1).
  
• The proportions are outrageous to the extent of being physically impossible (+2).
  
• Genitalia in the image is large enough to be considered lethal weaponry. (+2 per weapon).

b) Figures in the image engage in sexual acts that defy the rules of basic anatomy. (Examples: Large insertions, nipple fucking, ass-to-mouth tentacle penetration, inhuman flexibility) (+2 per act).

• The acts would result in death if attempted in real life (+3 per act).
  
• The acts are causing death in the image (+5).
  
• Seeing the acts makes you wish you were dead (+5).

c) Figures in the image are not real types of beings beings. (Examples: Fantasy creatures, tentacle monsters, furries, robots) (+1 per figure).

• The imaginary creatures perform sexual acts with one another (+2).
  
• No real beings are present (+3).

Category 2) Obscurity

a) The sexual focus of the image is on a subject not typically thought of as being arousing (Examples: Feet, armpits, excrement, socks, fully-clothed pre-pubescent girls holding teddy bears) (+1 per fetish)

• You just added 3 or more points (+5).

b) The image is based off subject matter that contains little to no sexual content (Examples: Calvin and Hobbes, Cars, Trauma Center) (+2).

• The original subject matter was targeted at children (+3).
  
• The original subject matter was targeted at babies and toddlers (+5).

c) The subject matter is something you’ve never heard of. (Examples: Obscure anime/manga/game that two people follow religiously) (+1)

• The original subject matter was already sexual content (+1).

Category 3) Offensiveness

a) Add +2 for all following themes that apply:

• Rape
  
• Racism
  
• Sexism
  
• Pedophilia
  
• Infantophilia
  
• Violence
  
• Torture
  
• Mutilation
  
• Necrophilia
  
• Bestiality
  
• Feces
  
• Slavery
  
• Sadism
  
• Transvestites

b) The total amount of points from a) was 8 or higher (+5).
c) 20 or higher (+10).


Category 4) Gruesomeness.

a) The image contains blood. (Examples: Knife wound, popped cherry, bloody vomitting) (+1).

• It isn’t just virgin hymen-breaking blood (+2).
  
• Lots of blood (+2).

b) Figures in the image are injured. (Examples: Bruises, broken bones, bandages, cuts) (+1 per figure).

• The figures are in the process of being slightly injured (+1 per figure).
  
• Severely injured (+3 per figure).
  
• Killed (+5 per figure).

c) Figures in the image are missing limbs (+3 per limb).

• Those figures are engaged in sexual acts (+3 per figure).
  
• With the parts of body that are missing the limbs (+5).
  
• With the limbs (+10).

Tally up the totals and compare with the following chart:

The image is:

0-5 – Completely normal.
6-15 – Relatively harmless.
16-25– Somewhat disturbing.
26-50 – Definitely offensive.
51-75 – Excruciatingly painful.
76-100 – Mind-blowingly horrendous.
101-125 – Born from the depths of hell.
126+ - Beyond the scope of this guide.

Congratulations, if you’ve reached this point (alive) you are now a more informed member of the hentai community and are mentally scarred!

Don't Feel Too Bad

There's always someone weirder than you.

(and if that's as disturbing to you as it is to me, be careful what you click on in this post)

Chances are if you are reading this, you've just come from the land of tentacle monsters, bucket loads of semen, and girls having their internal organs stretched to extremities. Chances are that to you, weird is familiar. Weird has been conquered. Weird bows down to your psyche as its supreme commander.

But high atop the proverbial throne of oddities you neglect to see the hidden faction of weirdos, lurking deep in the dark recesses of the net, poised to overthrow your rule. It would appear, in fact, that the title of weirdest hentai fetish is much sought after. Much sought after indeed.

As it turns out, you really don't need to dig deep for this kind of stuff. Although that's arguable. What is weirder, after all? Girls sucking on giant tentacles or their own giant penises? Does a picture become stranger if not only is a woman having her womb expanded but you can also see a cross section of the process? At what point does getting aroused by armpit hair go beyond the level of strangeness that tank crushing mammeries have?

Can any of this even be quantified?

I say it can (and I'm an authority, didn't you know?). But it has to be done in steps. Systematically dissected and analyzed. After all, trying to directly compare lolicon robot sex with eye socket fucking is not recommended. It has been known to cause brain combustion.

But can you believe that to this day no one has properly documented this process? For shame, hentai community, for shame. Luckily I'm here to rectify the situation. It'll just take me a week to do it.

And if you'd like to weigh in on the matter in the meantime, leaving a comment or email is a good way to do it.

Welcome to the Panel

Well here you are. This is the last step, isn’t it? It’s alright, we understand. We’ve been through it all before. Your picture collection is starting to rival the population of the earth and your bookmarks folder is starting to attract publishing deals. You’re going into debt to pay off the credit card bills for all those subscriptions and there isn’t enough time in your life to physically watch the amount of movies you just downloaded. Maybe, just maybe, you’ve even braved the funny looks from the cashier lady at that shady shop down the back street. Oh, and that extra hard drive you just bought? Yeah, we know what that’s for.

But it wasn’t enough, was it? There was one last barrier to break down, nagging at you in the back of your mind. One last foothold to miss on your spiral into addiction. You came to a hentai blog. God knows you’ve done everything else with the stuff. Guess it’s time to try thinking about it.

Welcome to the Hentai Panel: An in-depth examination of all topics relating to the creation, consumption, and culture of everyone’s favourite pastime. Or the random ramblings of an amateur artist with too much free time. Same difference. I’m your host, linemarvel, the extra ordinary hentai artist. Stay tuned for weekly updates and feel free to leave whatever deranged comments you might have.