What's the difference?

perspective maybe, i see ecchi used for mainly comedy. while smut for some down and dirty stuff just short of being completely ero.

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Ecchi is looking. Smut is touching. Hentai is ****ing.

Hope that cleared some things up for you.

Ecchi is male aimed, that's why they're only present with the Shounen and Seinen demographics, it usually contains panty/bra shots, awkward positions, etc. It might even go as far as a girl topless, but they never show any nipples (usually) unless it's edited it in by some scanlator or something.

Smut is female-aimed, again why they're only present with the Shoujo and Josei demographics, they usually contain characters kissing/touching/making love with eachother, while having their privates still censored (in some extreme smut, only barely). The breasts and nipples are always shown though.

So in the aspect of nudity, smut is more graphic. And ecchi is usually more silly, satirical while smut is loaded with drama.

At least, that's my take on things.

Edit: Anyways, looked around and found some threads;

Definition of Ecchi?

Description for Smut
Demographics and the Smut Genre

Last edited by Dr. Love at 4:10 am, Sep 10 2008

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what about tankobon scans though, i think most of them do include them in ecchi scenes with topless girls.

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Well, that's why I put the "(usually)" in.
There are exceptions.

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I find that it's a difference between shounen and seinen. Ecchi shounen series rarely show nipples, while nipples are common in ecchi seinen. At least in my experience anyway.

But that wouldn't be Ecchi.
Ecchi is meant to tease.

What you saw, was probably done to portray the manga more realistic or something, as how a Seinen aims for (usually).

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I'm going to give a brief explanation of the mis-use of the term 'ecchi' in English anime/manga culture. Ecchi is the pronunciation of H, which stands for hentai. So Ecchi=Hentai. Granted, not as a genre, but as a description of someone or something. We got the idea that Ecchi was a genre because all of these terrible translators either didn't know that when a girl calls a guy ecchi, she's calling him a sick pervert, or decided that the word was cute so they left it in (a terrible, terrible sin that should never be committed... only marginally less offensive than the word nakama being used as if there's no English equivalent). So Ecchi isn't the same genre in English as it is in Japanese... If you search for it on Winny or Share, you'll get nothing but porn.

That known, we can see pretty clearly that the 'ecchi genre' is basically any manga in which a cute, probably busty, girl tells a guy (that she likes but who has a tendency to see her in compromising positions) an 'ecchi' (aka hentai, or pervert). Since serious stories rarely make use of this cliche and most shoujo don't put their female characters in such needlessly lewd positions, you can usually find 'ecchi' manga in the shounen romance sections. The seinen equivalent will be labeled as simply 'mature' because it lacks the mandatory cute stupidity that one always finds in cliche love comedies.

Smut is actually very different, even at the base levels. First of all, normally smut will involve physical contact as opposed to visuals (at times smut will rely entirely on the idea that a couple is having sex without ever even showing any skin at all). If you wanted to liken smut to something you're probably more familiar with, it's basically the manga equivalent of a romance novel. An incredibly gorgeous man will fall for a girl and make her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world while they make love in every position and location imaginable (all being more pleasurable than the previous). It's emotional stimulation for chicks and fruits.

So... chickenball (thread starter), got your answer?^.^

I always saw things like this- Hentai>Smut>ecchi.

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