Anime Bath Scenes

About

Anime Bath Scenes are a recurring staple in anime series where almost every well known series has atleast one scene showing a character bathing at some point. This can range from a simple bathtub or shower scene with a single character to having entire episodes dedicated to a chunk of the cast visiting a public bath house or an onsen (Hot Spring Resort) in a manner similar to the beach episode.

Origin

The earliest known bathing scene in anime is a shower scene from the 152nd episode of the original Astro Boy which aired on January 22nd, 1966. The scene was an adaptation to a scene from the Astro Boy manga which featured the criminal Mason swimming in swimming pool of golden coins and then he is seen getting out of the pool and showering in coins. The scene does not resemble the typical type of bath scenes anime would later be known for. The first of more traditional bathing scenes were shown in Speed Racer episode 4 in 1967 as the earliest shower scene, Sally the Witch in with episode 54 in 1967 being the earliest known bathtub scene in anime and episode 75 in 1968 being the earliest known hot spring scene in anime. Bathing scenes in Japanese animation started becoming more common because Japan already has a strong bath culture among the various bath house and hot springs across the country.

In the 1970s, anime and manga started using bath scenes way more frequently as more of a fanservice tool to show such iconic heroines like Lupin III's Fujiko Mine, Devilman's Miki Makimura, Dororon Enma-kun's Yukiko-hime, Cutie Honey's Honey Kisaragi, Majokko Megu-chan's Megu Kanzaki and Yatterman's Doronjo in a state of undress but among many of the various female characters that were frequent bath scene targets, the most well known and highest record holder of bath scenes in anime is _Doraemon_'s Shizuka Minamoto who is constantly peeked on while in the bath by the series the protagonist Nobita Nobi through accidents caused by Doraemon's inventions. The Doraemon bath peeping scenes has become the common formula many bath scenes anime have come to have especially in romantic comedies as well as Doraemon specially being called out for it's many bath scenes in other future anime.

After the conclusion to the original Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979, the series was re-arranged into a film trilogy where some of the scenes were re-animated and among the new changes was the Sayla Mass bath scene from episode 37 which was redone completely in the third film titled Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space and showed the nipples on her bare breasts as she gets out of the tub. This scene became infamous as it is often sited as the scene that inspired otaku culture with stories of fans coming into the theaters with cameras so they can take pictures of the bath scene. After the Mobile Suit Gundam movie series, the anime industry started applying more bath scenes featuring gratuitous nudity to more anime especially in OVA series like Gunbuster and eventually as it became more normalized in the 1990s and afterwards throughout the harem and ecchi genre.

Spread

Sometime prior to 2007, an internet user known as Watermaiden15 (sometimes as ClawfootQueen) started documenting anime bath scenes through a now deactivated freewebs site and a blogger account which got taken down in 2011. On December 3rd, 2009 the Anime Bath Scene Wiki was established through Wikia by Watermaiden15 which eventually had to move to the independently hosted animebathscenewiki.com after being kicked off wikia years later for posting too many images featuring nudity.

The site existed under the radar collectively archiving as many bath scenes as possible with most of the work being done solely by Watermaiden15 until it became viral through a reddit post Watermaiden15 made on r/anime at the beginning of 2015 titled "Top 10 Anime Bathing Scenes of 2014" where many r/anime users discovered that an Anime Bath Scene Wiki exists. With many Top 10 Bathing Scene lists were posted by Watermaiden15 for each year, anime bath scenes became a meme among the anime community with ironic posts of image macros putting bath scenes from american animation such as Shrek, Bee Movie and the Simpsons alongside bath scenes from Ecchi anime. Anime bath scenes featuring male characters have been put alongside Ecchi bath scenes in image macros as well.

Search Interest