Lolita Anime, the First Adult Anime, Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary!

Lolita Anime, the first hentai anime ever published, and one of the most controversial, celebrates its 40th anniversary today.

Origin

During the “lolicon boom” in the 1980s, Wonder Kids studio and erotic manga artist Fumio Nakajima released the first animated episode of Lolita Anime on February 21, 1984, making it the first adult anime ever published. This renowned and controversial hentai concluded on May 25, 1985, with six animated episodes in total.

Story

Episode 1

The first segment focuses on Youko, an orphan in a small village forced to care for her senile grandfather. Her grandfather keeps forcing himself on Youko because he mistakes her for his late wife. Later, a group of boys in the village rape Youko, which triggers an avalanche.

The second segment follows Kyoko, a schoolgirl whose father owes money to a mob. The mob boss kidnaps Kyoko with the intention of making her work off the debt as a bondage slave.

Episode 2

In the third segment, Itsuko is an awkward schoolgirl with a crush on her senpai. This boy saves Itsuko from being raped by a drunk salaryman, and she takes refuge at her senpai’s house for the night.

The fourth segment follows the hedonist adventures of a private school’s art teacher and his young student.

Episode 3

A middle-aged man is teleported via portal from a bar to a nightclub full of girls. There, he meets Miu, a young green-haired girl, who he begins to pursue. However, Miu is not about to be taken advantage of, and she leads the man through a series of sci-fi settings.

Episode 4

A girl named Tomoyo is invited to model at her art teacher’s house. Her teacher, Mr. Nishiwaki, has ulterior motives, and drugs Tomoyo with diuretic pills in order to force her to urinate for him. Tomoyo is then forced into a submissive relationship with both her art teacher and music teacher, whom are engaged to each other.

Episode 5

Miu returns, this time as the girlfriend of an American surfing expert named David – but secretly, both are shape-shifting aliens. Miu goes surfing, and befriends a boy named William, who is interested in both Miu and David.

Episode 6

This episode was a clip show compilation meant to cap off the Lolita Anime series. Miu returns on an enormous spacecraft, with the man from episode 3 piloting it. They send out a special page that can only be heard by people with “dirty minds”, and the girls from previous Lolita Anime episodes call in to talk to Miu. This episode is 60 minutes long, but is padded with both reused footage and instrumental slideshows of Miu at the beach.

Reception

Although this hentai initially had low sales, it significantly improved after Episode 3 with the addition of Miu, the main character of Lolita Anime.

Lolita Anime has been and continues to be criticized both domestically and internationally for its explicit scenes of rape and bondage involving underage characters. As a result, it is considered one of the most controversial and banned series in history. However, despite extensive criticism, it was a pioneer as the first adult animation published in Japan, marking the beginning of the hentai genre in anime.

Trivia

1. Lolita Anime emerged during the “lolicon boom” in the 1980s.
2. The hentai is also known as Rorita Anime.
3. Although Suzumi-bune, a film from 1932, was the first known adult animation, Lolita Anime is considered the first published hentai anime in history.
4. In the 1980s, the popularity of the lolicon genre increased due to factors including the influence of Clarisse, a character from the movie “Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro” (1979). As a result, Lolita Anime was modified from its third OVA to include Miu, a character more in line with the lolicon trends of the time, in response to the issue of low sales of previous episodes.
5. Miu and Ami from Cream Lemon were among the first female characters to gain popularity in the hentai anime genre.
6. The episode 2 was the first to include lesbian scenes in a hentai anime on record.
7. In the third OVA, there is a scene featuring several girls dancing, including Clarisse from Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro and Minky Momo from Mahou no Princess Minky Momo.
8. On December 15, 1984, the first animated episode of Lolita Anime (Nikkatsu Video) was released, marking the debut of a new series with the same name as the previous one but produced by company Nikkatsu and artist Aki Uchiyama.
9. In 1985, Wonder Kids released “Kindai Eigasha Eiga no Tomo Special Edition Lolita Anime / Wonder Kids Special Feature,” a book detailing all aspects of Lolita Anime production.
10. Lolita Anime is considered one of the most controversial anime in history due to its high sexual content featuring underage characters.
11. Shortly after The Lolita Anime‘s first episodes were released, other independent animators began producing more erotic OVAs, including the classic hentai Cream Lemon, thus marking the beginning of the hentai anime industry.
12. Wonder Kids issued a statement regarding their decision to end the Lolita Anime series: “The flame has now been lit for adult anime.”