Based on a 2000 PC game, the story centers around a gathering of witches and a student who finds a book on black magic and starts using it for his own viscous purposes. In addition to, obviously, it’s sexual content, the series has fantasy elements like mind control, reincarnation, as well as a fair share of horror. Mixing the occult with explicit, it’s no wonder the PC game and it’s succeeding OVAs struck a chord with the hentai crowd, offering something more than other anime on the market at the time. In what might have been the ultimate troll from a now ex-employee at the cartoon channel Teletoon, the first thirty minutes of a re-cut version of the first OVA entitled Bible Black Complete Version, was aired at midnight, probably shocking the hordes of 10 year-olds allowed to stay up late watching re-runs of their favorite cartoons.

It goes without saying that any self-respecting hentai anime top ten list – now I’m not claiming that such a thing exist, or that this list would fall in under that category, but just bear with be and try to imagine that it does – needs at least one tentacle r*** porn entry. Western discussions about this particular genre does however always seems to exaggerate the proliferation of such pornography in Japan – perhaps in an expression of this somewhat outdated ‘Weird Japan’ stereotype, but that’s a topic for another article. Anyway, boy peeps at teacher, teacher is actually a titular witch, boy is punished and turned into titular tentacle monster, tentacle sex ensues. Tentacles and Witches basically takes over where Urotsukidoji ended, minus the gore (and, arguably, pop-culture value and general edginess).

I was in doubt as to which sort of yaoi hentai I should choose, something light like Sensitive Pornograph or something less safe for work, and ended up opting for the latter. Based on the popular and most certainly highly controversial game of the same ways, Enzai is set in 19th century France in the aftermath of the revolution and follows a young boy named Guys, who gets convicted for a murder he didn’t commit. I’ll leave the conditions of the prison he is sent to up to the reader’s imagination, but he does drop his soap more than once. The ‘prison’ is one of the classic porn movie settings, and Enzai is the anime to choose if one’s into the Yaoi version of that kind of stuff. Though the anime is said to lack the game’s depth and plot, it still preserves a lot of elements that makes it live up to the ‘intelligent hentai’ brand.

The most surprising part of this tale of a sadistic gynecologist named Ryuji Hirasaka is not the fact that it contains enough quantities of a certain bodily fluid that doesn’t put a certain girl in a tub to shame, but that all of the titular nurses are OVER the age of what sane persons would consider appropriate for being depicted in a pornographic movie. Another ‘hentai hentai’ anime, in the sense that it’s not only erotic but also features some pretty twisted stuff, Night Shift Nurses holds the actually pretty impressive reputation as one of the most graphic hentai anime. I try to live by the rule that if something is controversial, and by virtue of being controversial has managed not to fade into obscurity, it’s at least done something right and is thereby worth checking out.

Although almost all the series on this list involves elements of BSDM, Behind Closed Doors is the best example of the genre: a couple is invited to a mysterious mansion, where the husband in question is about to discover a thing or two about his perverted sexual desires. While you, even though you have interest enough to read this far, might be put off by the overtly sexual contents of series like Behind Closed Doors, it might be worth asking: is there any substantial difference between this and any given harem anime? We have a guy, surrounded by maidens willing to please his every desire, just like the high school girls flocks mindlessly around the main protagonist in any given harem series, just without all that suggestive bullshit. Or am I overthinking things here?

A recurring image in almost every hentai or slightly erotic anime (perhaps with the exception of Virgin Night, see below) is that of the chikan – euphemistically translated to ‘Sleazy in the English title – the person which approximately 40% of all billboards on Japanese trains warns you about. A conductor that has probably watched one too many a sexual assault on his shift, who probably also is getting too old for this shit, decides to turn his train into a swinger’s party on wheels, giving birth to the mythological eponymous Midnight Sleazy Train, Crazy Train’s perverted cousin (bad pun is bad). As a synopsis online poetically puts it: ‘get ready to climb aboard… the sleazy train is COMING’ [sic].

If not for anything else, we got to give the creators of this anime credits for the ridiculous premise they managed to come up with: In a reverse China scenario, the male/female ratio is at a critical low, leading the government to issue a card for the seemingly only guy left in town – under the ‘New Sex Law’ he gets a permit to sleep with any girl he might desire, as long as he remembers to carry his ‘Free Sex License’. There’s no such thing as a free lunch though – in an obvious reference to the biblical figure of Onan, who for spilling ‘his seed on the ground’ was put to death, the ‘lucky guy’ is required to make a positive contribution to the country’s declining population – every single time. In addition to its thought-provoking story and provocative art style, Zettai Junshu has also been noted for its rare inclusion of strong, intriguing female characters, as well as its many, often satirical, references to contemporary Japanese society (or maybe I’m just trollin’).

If we choose to interpret ‘Hentai’ in the Japanese sense of the word, as meaning twisted or perverted, Urotsukidoji is probably the closest we’ll ever get. The OVA was based by the works of one of the pioneers of Hentai manga, Maeda Toshio, and is also where the tentacle r*** made its, if not first, at least most memorable appearance. Its tale of the revival of a Super God – the titular Overfiend – as well as epic battles between demons, humans and men-beasts places it in the sci-fi fantasy genre, and it also features a fair share of horror and guts, as well as, of course, tons of twisted sex scenes. It is said only to be rivaled by Akira when it comes to influential anime abroad, and even though this probably is an overstatement, it definitely deserves its status as an anime classic – Urotsukidoji is the epitomization of ‘Hentai’, in the original Japanese meaning of the word.

As can most definitely NOT be said about all of the other anime on the list, this is one of the few erotic anime that I would actually consider finishing (I’m sorry if I ruined the impression that I’ve actually sat through every single episode of all this crap and consequently lost my credibility with the hentai community). Again, the title tells the story: virgin night (alternatively ‘First Night’) is about the first sexual encounter between two teenagers that have been in a long-term serious relationship. Compared to the other entries on this list, it might seem like a light-weight, but in terms of story this is probably as good as it gets. One of the few – if not the only – erotic anime to receive mainstream appraisal, this is the anime you want to watch if you want to fool your date that you’re doing the 2015 version of ‘reading playboy for the articles’, or if you’re genuinely interested in a good anime.

The title makes a nod to the classic Taboo movie series from the final days of the ‘golden age’ of American pornographic movies, and both the original and the anime share incest as a common theme. I won’t question the questionable subject matter here, I’ll simply just recognize the fact that it in some circles is regarded as the paragon of hentai, and a classic of the genre. Now for the plot: a mother, Misako, who of course is unsatisfied with her and her absent-minded husband’s sex life, starts receiving creepy calls from a stranger, and as that wasn’t enough, she and her stepson engages in a sexual relationship. And as her younger sister also eventually gets dragged into this twisted relationship, drama ensures. As before mentioned on this list, one should be cautious of drawing any conclusions on ‘Japanese culture’ based on this kind of source material, and rather see it as an example of how a business that’s seen profit fall significantly over the past few years choses to opt for shock value to please its consumers.