Hentai is its own little world, with its own set of rules and its own aesthetic. I think for many people, the whole genre is suspect. It’s that mixing of youth, innocence, and sex that unnerves the many of us. 

I don’t really know what to make of it all. As a fetish, it seems mostly harmless, even though they almost always involve women who seem more distressed than aroused by sex. Their orgasms often sound like a cry for help.

I wouldn’t know how to unpack all the cultural and emotional layers that underlie the genre. Women in them are infantilized, and objectified, which isn’t unique to Japan, but you don’t find cartoons like The Lament of an Otherwise Healthy Girl being made anywhere else.

The film opens in Young Hiroe’s bedroom, where she is furiously masturbating whilst fantasizing about her boyfriend. She is grimly determined to bring herself to orgasm, but cannot. Her internal dialogue explains that she is 19 and has never been able to cum, but she is working hard to resolve the situation. Meanwhile, her sister Mayaka is peeking through the bedroom doorway, admiring Hiroe’s efforts and coveting her sister'sHiroe’s elaborate vibrator.

When Mayaka realizes that young Hiroe can’t climax, Mayaka goes to her own room, dresses up in some sexy underwear, and returns to help Hiroe out. They try a variety of methods, and finally achieve orgasm when Mayaka hypnotizes Hiroe. 

Such is the world of hentai. A world where 19-year-old women look and sound like 12-year-old girls and indulge in casual incest. It’s a special place, a world constructed for the viewer’s pleasure. Everything in this pornographic world must bend to the sexual preferences of the user. Pornography is the only genre where the viewer is referred to as a “user". Porn has a narrowly prescribed purpose which it is beholden to. The purpose may be narrow, but the pathways to that purpose (sexual satisfaction) are diverse.

Before there were rainbow flags and initiatives to foster the acceptance of the diverse spectrum of sexuality, there were little bastions of equality where the sexually diverse could mingle, like the sex shops in Time Square. They offered videos, magazines, and toys catering to every possible proclivity. Whatever shook your particular gourd, there was a little section waiting for you on a shelf, and if you were nice, you might find an attendant to let you get hands-on in the back room.

After their hypnotism session, Mayaka realizes that she has mistakenly conditioned Hiroe to cum anytime Mayaka touches her. Hiroe hasn’t realized this yet, and toddles off to have sex in a classroom with her boyfriend. He tries his best, but she ends up having to fake an orgasm to keep him happy.

Mayaka brings her sister to a fortune teller, but that doesn’t help, so she brings her to a “scientist". Unfortunately, he turns out to be a “mad scientist". He straps Hiroe to a chair and sicks his newfangled tentacle robot on her. It wouldn’t be hentai without a little tentacle porn. The scientist controls the robot from what looks like a church organ. As he presses buttons, the robot’s pink appendages frantically molest her. Hiroe screams in ecstasy, but is still unable to climax. The wiggly robot persists until it eventually overheats and explodes. It’s a direct ripoff of the scene in Barbarella when she is strapped into the “excessive machine” by the evil Duran Duran. There is one critical difference, however. It is the strength and intensity of Barbarella’s sexuality that overwhelms the machine (read female empowerment), not her inability to orgasm.

Defeated, Mayaka and her frigid sister go home, and Mayaka confesses about the hypnotism and the conditioning. Hiroe barely has time to absorb this before Mayaka changes into a dominatrix outfit and starts using Hiroe as a plaything. Then, to bring the film to a close, their mother appears in the doorway. She, too, is dressed like a dominatrix, and quickly hops into bed to join her progeny. All's well that ends well. The scene closes with an exterior shot of the house while we hear Hiroe yell, “Please forgive me!”

The Lament Of An Otherwise Healthy Girl was directed by Masakazu Akan in 1994. I couldn’t find any information on him, or on most of the people listed in the credits. Not all hentai are created equal. There is hentai that just involves a little nudity, there is the softcore genre, and then there is hardcore. The Lament Of An Otherwise Healthy Girl is softcore. There are no genitals shown, pixelated or otherwise, but there is plenty of sex.

The Lament Of An Otherwise Healthy Girl was an OVA, which is very similar to a straight-to-video release, except that OVAs sometimes serve as pilots for a new series, which The Lament Of An Otherwise Healthy Girl did. It became a series called Frantic, Frustrated, and Female, or F3.

The whole thing could have been a lot worse. The only rape scene is Hiroe’s encounter with the tentacle robot. Getting away with only having to watch one rape is an unusual boon. The incest is just silly, I can’t defend it, but it’s a way of having sex partners at the ready in the next room. There is plenty to be offended by if you want to go that route, but it is just a single bit of fetishistic soft porn in a diverse and egalitarian sea of equal-opportunity masturbation fodder.