Suggestion: R-18 instead of Hentai

[-b]

@ununseti Yup, that's basically exactly what I'm getting at.

Also, I took a look at the example age systems and have some details to add about Pixiv's system, as someone who uses Pixiv: it may look like Gen vs R18 on the surface, but they actually have two separate R18 ratings. R18 (what you'd expect) and R18-G, where the G stands for gore (can be applied to both eroguro and non-erotic guro works). In addition there's a slightly-hidden-from-view rating where you do not mark a work as R18 but mark it as "suggestive". If you're not logged in, you can't see anything on pixiv that's marked as "suggestive" but if you are logged in, you can see works marked "suggestive" whether or not you have R18 works enabled. (Again, this rating is not visible or filterable anywhere on Pixiv, but I assume it's meant to act somewhat like an R15 rating). The equivalent would be doing something like not showing anything tagged "smut" to visitors who aren't logged in.

 

[ununseti]

Thanks for the correction; I tweaked that comment a bit.

 

[axelTHEGREAT]

meh.. weebs

 

[Teasday]

It's H instead of R18 because I'm pretty sure we're not an age rating authority, nor would the appropriate age rating even be 18 in all countries

 

[ninjadork]

To further explain Teasday's point: the age-rating stuff you're advocating for is an actual legal standard that carries/complies with the weight of law, and has a stupidly complex evaluation and investigation process you have to go through before something can be called "R-rated" or "Mature" without a pack of lawyers jumping up your ass.

In short, this is a very bad idea because attempting to do this not only subjugates Mangadex to additional legal requirements, it requires an investment of money and legal support structure that would destroy this site.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

This debate is still going?

 

[Pika]

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN These kind of debates never end no matter how great the end solution is. I'd say just keep the tags as how they are now, they do their job as fine as it can be

 

[JohnJ]

@Pika totally agree

 

[-b]

@Teasday If "18" is a problem then other suggestions are things like Adult, NSFW, Explicit, Porn, etc etc etc. to make clearer the hentai tag is not just another genre setting, it's a content filter.

I'm not advocating for some kinda full-on MPAA age rating system, I just think that the one filter that already exists could have a clearer name.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

I got bored so I wanted to join in but I wanna make a comment that's not related to the discussion at all.

Spoiler

Pixiv is divided into three filters: general, R-18, and R-18G. From what I've seen, R-18G contain plenty of guro but it also have artworks relating to self-harm which anyone can tell is not guro at all. Since guro is a fetish, I'm assuming that you're holding Pixiv as a standard to compare to but in reality, artists who just wanna draw depressing stuffs need to have the same label as guro artists; you gotta see guro in the reccomendations if you wanna see suicidal anime girls on Pixiv because they're all labeled under R-18G.

Basically, Pixiv labelling isn't perfect either.

Back to the topic,

@-b

The problem with your suggestion is that... why fix what's not broken? Anyone who don't want ecchi or smut can just exclude those tags in their settings. I'm pretty sure that entering the Otaku community automatically introduces you that "hentai" means "porn". What's the point of changing H to R-18 if everything is already running perfectly?

Is there an advantage to switching to R-18?

 

[-b]

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN I don't think Pixiv's system is perfect at all, and I'm definitely not holding it to a standard to compare--in fact, I think their R18G system isn't very good at all. For one thing there's no way to view only works that are R18G instead of R18... in order to see R18G works you have to view R18 works as well, so tough luck to anyone who wants to just see some evisceration without sex (me). And even though westerners like to translate guro as "gore" it technically is short for "grotesque." The art movement from which the modern guro genre owes its roots is more similar to things like Romanticism or Decadence (western art movements). The only reason I mentioned Pixiv's system at all was because ununseti mentioned it in the linked thread and since I actually post my art on Pixiv I figured I'd give some more details on how their system actually works.

Anyway, the reason for my suggestion basically comes down to what ununseti wrote on the previous page:

So as I understand it, the issue is that a genre term is being overloaded to be used as a content age rating as well. And it works for the most part, but it may not neatly fit in all cases because "hentai" comes with its own set of connotations and expectations, just like any other genre.

Hentai has the connotation of being straight porn for straight men. The whole reason we also have something called "Shoujo smut" is because straight porn manga for women aren't in the hentai genre at all... it's a separate genre. It's weird to use the name of a genre as the name of a catch-all filter for adult work that doesn't fit in that genre.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

@-b

Ah, got ya. I understand now. But this does begs the question: "R-18" is an umbrella term for all porn meanwhile "hentai" is a term for vanilla porn for straight men; instead of working to change the label, why not ask the community of their opinion first?

For me, hentai is an umbrella term for all porn. We only need to think of the MangaDex community since this is an issue here only.

So guys, what do you think? Does "hentai" mean "all porn" or "vanilla for straight men"?

 

[Pika]

Guro in the West is treated like eroguro though...
R18-G in pixiv can vary between slight blood to amputation porn

I'd rather keep hentai as "All porn" cuz that's the more common way. Besides if we make it "Vanilla for straight men" then there will be a debate about what's vanilla or what's for straight men.
(I mean some straight men watch yaoi, yuri and all the other gay stuff too...)

 

[Granitefish]

Shoujo smut generally shows Sex without Genitalia from my observation. The lack of Genitalia visibility tends to be the main divider between just Smut and Hentai.

 

[Plykiya]

Hentai doesn't have the same connotation in the west as it does in Japan. As I've said before, "yuri hentai" is a completely normal term to be used in the west. Hentai covers perverse or sexual content in general.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%98%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BF%E3%82%A4

 

[ununseti]

@ninjadork said:

the age-rating stuff you're advocating for is an actual legal standard that carries/complies with the weight of law, and has a stupidly complex evaluation and investigation process you have to go through before something can be called "R-rated" or "Mature" without a pack of lawyers jumping up your ass.

I don't follow. Would using the word "R18" would really subject it to the same regulations and requirements as the official legal standards? We'd just be using the existing system as inspiration, we wouldn't be actually using it. Or are you saying that the label "R18" is sort of like the thing with the red cross?

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN said:

But this does begs the question: "R-18" is an umbrella term for all porn meanwhile "hentai" is a term for vanilla porn for straight men; instead of working to change the label, why not ask the community of their opinion first?

Sounds like everything could be solved with a round of indicative votes! _{(haha get it it's a brexit reference)}

To be clear, I don't have a particularly strong stance on either choice; I'm fine with either, I just slightly prefer "R18". (And also more granular rating categorizations would be a cool future feature imo.)

 

[ninjadork]

@ununseti In a word, yes. It kind of varies between jurisdictions and how thoroughly it's enforced, but the general rule of thumb is that using "official notation / official designation" is seen as an attempt to make something legally recognized, which is to say an attempt to acquire legal support for your stuff. If you knew all the minutiae of all the appropriate legal principles you could probably find a loophole or six that would get you out of it, but you'd still have to argue it in court and the accuser would have an advantage simply by being the accuser.

Now, none of this matters if nobody comes picking a fight over it. But people buckle up just in the off chance they get into a car crash; by the same token, staying away from "official notation" gives us a measure of protection from lawyer attacks.

You make the claim that people use "R-18" as a blanket term for porn and you are technically correct. But there's a lot of difference between random scrubs on the Internet using it that way and the admins of a website making it a standard part of website mechanics.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

I personally prefer "hentai" cause it's more weebish

 

[ABCsOfLife]

I didn't really read the comments but, how about just make the term as "NSFW"
I mean if you think about it, there is like Korean stuff included with the "Hentai" mark.. I'm pretty convinced they didn't call it hentai over there in Korea...

But hey, it is "Manga" Dex... It generally about manga stuff, so I guess it's fine to use the "Hentai" term to generalized it.

 

[Teasday]

_{@ABCsOfLife posted:}

I mean if you think about it, there is like Korean stuff included with the "Hentai" mark.. I'm pretty convinced they didn't call it hentai over there in Korea...

Irrelevant, they don't call it hentai in Japanese either. The Wikipedia article Plyk linked earlier says it's a term used in some languages other than Japanese to refer to erotic games and art.

As it stands, it's not really a matter of being not safe for work either, in our case it just means porn from certain categories of publications. I'm not against a rework of the categorization system, but we'd have to figure out what purpose is the categorization supposed to actually serve and how could it serve it the best, and I haven't really heard of a better system yet. The best alternatives so far essentially boil down to someone in the staff having the veto power over which individual manga get defined as H and which don't, and I'm not a particularly big fan of that approach nor does it seem like anyone's really up for taking that mantle.