HBrowse

Hentai is one of the most popular types of adult content in the world. Although it was originated in Japan, this comic book-influenced type of adult comic has seen a wild level of success all over the world, with the United States actually being one of its largest consumers.

Hentai is nothing like your typical pornography. It definitely sets itself apart from the rest of the adult industry. For one, most of the material involves reading. Manga books are the number one form of hentai (with hentai videos and games coming in at a close 2nd). There are thousands of manga series, each with multiple issues, and fans either buy physical copies (much rarer in the United States) or view translated versions on sites like HBrowse.

If you’ve never seen hentai videos or read a manga before, the art style is very similar to that of anime. So, just picture the hottest anime girl you’ve ever seen, put her in an extreme sexual situation, and you have hentai. For that reason, I would imagine that there is plenty of crossover between fans of anime and fans of hentai.

Personally, I’ve never really understood the desire to jerk it to a cartoon (well, if I’m being completely honest, I guess I did have a thing for Jasmine when I was a kid). For me, porn is so great because it brings your fantasies a little bit closer to reality. Always wanted to fuck a sexy French maid? No problem…there are hundreds of thousands of videos for you to watch of French maids getting fucked, just pretend the dick doing the fucking is yours, and you’re good to go. Hentai, though, seems to be about pushing that fantasy even further, leaving reality far behind.

Another element of hentai that contributes to it being worlds apart from the rest of the content in adult entertainment is that it often includes unusual or extreme depictions of strange sex acts. I’m talking drawings of really young-looking girls getting fucked by tentacles or chicks that are half-human, half-fox sucking impossibly large dicks.

This should come as no surprise considering what the word “Hentai” means when translated to English. Short for “hentai seiyoku,” it actually means something akin to “a perverse sexual desire.” Other translations have taken into account the connotations of the word, resulting in outcomes such as “metamorphosis,” “strange,” or “bizarre.”

How HBrowse Sets Itself Apart

You won’t find any amateur or fan work on hbrowse.com, though. Hbrowse is, to put it in their words, “A hentai manga database featuring a free online comic reader and free download mirrors of English-translated adult doujinshi and comics. We organized all our hentai manga into multiple categories to tailor to the specific tastes of the viewer. HBrowse emphasizes a bare minimal layout for fast viewing without intrusions.”

This little introduction to the site is featured at the top of the homepage (underneath the navigation bar, of course), and it would appear as if everything they said is correct. The site is impeccably organized and well designed. If you have read other reviews of mine, then you are already well aware of how much I love a minimalist web design.

And I think it’s fair to say that Hbrowse has absolutely nailed it. A centered box on the page containing featured issues is surrounded by nothing but white space on either side, with the site’s logo and navigation bar splayed out above it, clearly separating all of the site’s features: Menu, Browse, About, and Forum.

An OCD Sufferer’s Fantasy

Hover your mouse over “Browse,” and a sprawling menu drops down, allowing you to check out content based on artist, subject, popularity, genre, relationship, situation, and length (just to name a few). Stop on “About,” and find an equally helpful drop-down menu ready to take you to their mission statement, category definitions (very helpful for the newbie like myself), and a place to submit material.

I find it particularly cool that they provide an easy and convenient process for collaboration. Clicking “Submit” will bring you to the site’s step-by-step instructions for getting your content considered for the Hbrowse. Just make sure you meet their manga qualifications, double-check their database to ensure you aren’t duplicating another title, archive and upload your work to any server, and then share it with them in their forum.

This Site Just Keeps on Giving

Speaking of their forum, it seems to be an impressively active one. With over 24,000 game uploads and nearly 8,000 videos submitted by users, I think it is fair to say that the sense of community over at Hbrowse is strong. I can’t say I’m surprised, though, seeing as the site is so well-designed and professional. I could easily see Hbrowse being the industry standard for hentai and manga lovers everywhere.

The impressiveness of the site does not stop there. View full issues of manga with the click of a button, and thumb through pages by clicking the right and left arrows on your keyboard. Need to quickly jump back 20 pages? That’s fine, just scroll down a little to find the page list and click on whatever page you’re looking for. Honestly, the online reader capabilities of HBrowse rival that of most literary journal online readers I’ve seen. My only complaint with their reader is that it lacks a full-screen mode—but the provided images are probably large enough for that not to be too big of an issue.

But maybe you aren’t one for reading online. You’d rather download your manga and throw it on your tablet or something. That’s not a problem either. Hbrowse.com offers two download options. Quickly download a library of manga of your own, either as a zip file or a pdf. You truly are in control of your experience with every aspect of Hbrowse.

Also found in the web-based reader is a list of archive information. Just scroll down past the page of manga issue you are currently viewing and find all of the information on it you could ever hope for: title, artist, length, origin, genre, type, setting, fetish, role, relationship, etc., and all of it is clickable. Say your manga falls under the genre of historic, for example, just click on “historic” and be brought to every other manga on the site in the same genre. Hbrowse really makes being a hentai fan simple.

Cum One, Cum All

Hbrowse makes themselves accessible to the first-time manga viewer and the veteran alike. Not satisfied with simple category database browsing? No worries…click into their advanced search and find precisely what you’re looking for. A list of hundreds of categories will appear. Click to include or exclude any number of them into your search. Now you will be able to find whatever specific fetish your nasty heart desires.

As far as ads are concerned: Hbrowse, sadly, does have ads. But, to their credit, they are few and far between, and many of them relate to Hentai or manga in some way. Furthermore, they keep them out of the way of your browsing experience, which is nice. When you do run into an ad, it isn’t until you’ve scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the page. And, as you know from your own porn adventures, it could be so much fucking worse.

But, again, this is to be expected from a website that has clearly put a great deal of thought into user experience and enjoyment. They address this directly in their mission statement: “…HBrowse aims to do differently. Why do adult websites seem to think they are free to avoid standard web etiquette? Here at HBrowse, we believe that it is possible (and beneficial) to sport a minimal website layout to maximize viewing performance.”

I couldn’t agree with you more, HBrowse. Cheers. Thank you for having the decency to take this into account. I think it’s fair to say that you’ve succeeded in creating a pleasant and user-friendly online experience.

All in all, if you’re a hentai fan, HBrowse should become your new go-to database. Aside from a couple of ads here and there, for what it aims to accomplish, HBrowse is damn near close to a perfect website in terms of design, layout, capabilities, and organization. I am really fucking happy to see an adult site setting the bar so high, and hopefully, other sites can learn a thing or two from HBrowse and follow suit.