Introduction

There are probably more than a few people who assume that eromanga means first and foremost “disgrace” (ryōjoku), as in sexual disgrace, assault or rape. The precise details are unclear, because statistics remain unavailable, but, practically speaking, works that could be categorized this way certainly do stand out. However, compared to the old days, “pure disgrace material” (jun ryōjoku neta) narrowly focused on the theme is not particularly abundant. The abundance is in works with disgrace-like elements – in other words, works that include depictions of “sex acts coercively performed by one without the explicit consent of another.” If there are works that, when read to the end, reveal that the sex acts in question were consensual, then there are also cases where the character the reader thought was the victim actually ordered the “perpetrator” or “assailant” to do it. Stories complicate the acts immensely. Furthermore, from around 1990, works where women disgrace men – to put it in the jargon of adult videos, “reverse rape” (gyaku reipu) – have been on a rapid rise. The pattern of a horny and hot female teacher doing a reluctant male student is already a staple. These days, it is only the old geezers who stubbornly cling to the simple-minded notion that “men are stronger and more active than women.” Likewise, it is only out-of-touch haters who denounce all of eromanga as “rape manga.”

Be that as it may, whether referring to a theme, motif or just the visuals, why are there so many “disgrace works” in eromanga? As one possible answer, we can raise the issue of efficiency. By incorporating disgrace, artists can easily build a dramatic story with eye-catching scenes of intense sex in the basic format of 16 to 20 pages. Rather than depicting warm and peaceful sex in a bland everyday world, artists can throw a fastball straight at readers. This is a brutally honest way of explaining things, but often times that is just how it goes with reality. Everywhere one finds editors who, in meetings with manga artists, assign a quota: “Please insert erotic scenes in 15 of the 20 pages.” Although the numerical values in this example are entirely hypothetical, it does not change the fact that it is very common for editors to ask for many erotic pages in eromanga.