Hen (manga)

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Hen

Genre	Drama, Romance, Hentai
Manga: Hen
Authored by	Hiroya Oku
Publisher
Serialized in
Original run	1992 –
No. of volumes	8 (Complete)
TV drama : HEN
Directed by	Mitsunori Morita, Miki Nemoto
Studio
Network	TV Asahi
Original run	April, 1996 – June 29, 1996
No. of episodes
OVA: Strange Love
Directed by
Studio
No. of episodes	2
Released	1997 February 12, 2002
Runtime

Hen (romanized as ＨＥＮ in Japan) is an H manga (commonly called hentai by non-Japanese) which was the first work created by manga artist Hiroya Oku, who is best known for Gantz. An apt English translation for the title "hen" (literally: "strange") in this case would be "queer" because of the double meaning of "strange" and "homosexual" [1].

Hiroya spent countless hours working on Hen. After Hen's production, many H artists and dōjinshi used "tit-motion trails", which were common in Hen. "Tit-motion trails" (or whatever name Hiroya calls them) were blurs that would show the movement of breasts. Hiroya jokes about this in some of the Gantz volumes.

Hen is largely comprised of two entwined stories. Neither is particularly explicit; they are focused on the characters. Each set of characters meets up with the other during the course of their respective tales.

(変) Suzuki & Satō: Ichirō Suzuki, a straight young man who becomes besotted with another guy, Yūki Sato, convinced his bishonen love is a girl trapped in a boy's body. Interestingly, author Hiroya Oku is one of the characters in the story, the best friend of Satō.

(ＨＥＮ) Chizuru & Azumi: Sexy student Chizuru Yoshida, to her utmost horror, falls in love with another girl, the innocent Azumi Yamada. This was by far the most popular of all the Hen stories. A prototype version of this story was published in 変(Hen)#2.

In 1996, Hen was turned into a live action television series. The first half starred Shinsuke Aoki as Suzuki, actress Aiko Sato as Sato, and Shigaya Kazuma as Hiroya Oku. The second half starred Asami Jo as Chizuru and Miho Kiuchi as Azumi. The video release had more explicit sex scenes than the broadcast version.

In 1997, the "Chizuru & Azumi" chapter was turned into a two episode anime OVA series. It was released in North America by Central Park Media under the title Strange Love.