E-Hentai

E-Hentaiis animage-hostingandfile-sharingwebsite focused onhentai(Japanesecartoon pornography). The site hosts user-generated image galleries primarily of pornographic content originating or derived fromanime,manga, andvideo games, such asfanart,scanlationsof manga anddōjinshi, andcosplayphotographs. Its sister siteExhentai(colloquially known asSad Panda) was spun off from E-Hentai in 2010 to host artwork that depictsmaterial that is illegal in certain jurisdictions, such aslolicon,shotacon, andbestiality.
E-Hentai launched as aYahoo! Groupon July 1, 1999. The group moved to a.netdomain in 2001 before moving to its current.orgdomain in 2005 after ownership of its .net domain lapsed and was purchased by another party.On March 27, 2010, E-Hentai announced that in response to pressure from advertisers, it would no longer host artwork depicting underage characters (loliconandshotacon) andbestiality. Existing galleries containing this content were deleted from the site, amounting to the removal of approximately 30,000 of the website's 150,000 galleries; this content was later spun off onto Exhentai, a sister site to E-Hentai.Access to Exhentai requires an existing E-Hentai account; for individuals without an account, Exhentai appears as a blank page with an illustration of a cryingpanda, and has consequently has earned the nickname "Sad Panda" among users of the site.In June 2019, both sites were removed fromGoogle, per the company's policy of de-listing websites that violate theDigital Millennium Copyright Act.
On July 26, 2019, E-Hentai and Exhentai announced that both sites would shut down in response to "recent legislative changes in theNetherlands", where the servers of the sites were hosted at the time.Vicespeculated that the shutdown was in reaction to theDirective on Copyright in the Digital Single Marketadopted by theEuropean Unionin June 2019, which makes digital platforms legally liable for material posted by users that violates copyright, as well as a July 2019 proposal by Dutch Minister of JusticeFerdinand Grapperhausto impose harsher punishments on websites that do not rapidly remove child pornography.24 hours' notice was given for the shutdown of Exhentai, leading users on the image board4chanto attempt to archive the entire site before it closed on July 27.On August 2, 2019, Exhentai relaunched after its servers relocated toMoldova.
Works posted to E-Hentai and Exhentai are typicallypiratedand are uploaded without the consent or knowledge of the original creators.The site is owned and operated by an anonymous moderator who uses the handle Tenboroand is funded through a combination of advertising revenue and donations; in 2009, E-Hentai estimated its annual hosting costs atUSD$46,000, with donations covering "less than half" of operating costs.In 2019, Tenboro stated that a persistent tendon injury limited their ability to perform timely maintenance on the website and that they were considering options for its future, such as naming a successor moderator or preserving the website as a permanent archive.
Collectively, E-Hentai and Exhentai are one of the largest databases of hentai manga and contain over 1,000,000 image galleries.The site hosts both original Japanese hentai manga andscanlationsin multiple languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai.At its peak popularity, the commercial web traffic companyAlexaranked E-Hentai as the 264th-most popular website on the internet.Outlets have noted that E-Hentai functions as ade factoarchive for artwork that is rare or non-existent on other physical and digital platforms; the site hosts content such asComiket-exclusive works (dōjin) and out-of-printart booksthat are both pornographic and non-pornographic in nature, withVicecalling the website the "Alexandria Library[sic] of hentai".The Daily Dotdescribed E-Hentai as "a relic of 'the old internet'", citing it as an example of niche portals for digital content that predate contemporarysocial media.