About

Ahegao (アヘ顔) is a drawing genre in Japanese Hentai comics, in which the character (mainly female) is showing, during sexual intercourse, an intense amount of pleasure translated by her facial expression.

History

Definition

Ahegao is defined in several blogs and online user-made dictionaries' articles, which list these features below.^{[3][18][19][20][21][22]}

• Rolled-up Eyes
• Stuck-out Tongue
• Got wet by tears, snot, drool or semen or other body fluids
• Flushed Face
• Ridiculously strange moans: eg. Nhoooh! (んほぉ!), Aheee! (あへぇ!), Iguuh! (イグゥ), etc…

Etymology

In the name, "Ahe" comes from Japanese onomatopoeia of "Aheahe" (アヘアヘ) describing female’s flushed breath and moaning in sex and her sexual excitement, and "Gao" (顔) means "Face". According to a forum post in Nico Nico Pedia's entry for Ahegao^[1], it's confirmed that the term had been already used in porn magazines to simply explain porn actresses' face of pleasure in early 1990s. Used in the same context, it also made appearances on a handful of posts in 2channel and its sister board community for adult contents BBSPINK as well as descriptions for porn videos on adult e-commerce sites in the first half of 2000s. The oldest 2channel post in existence that includes this term was posted to a thread in /company/ (tip-off) on November 4th, 2001.^[2]

Meanwhile, according to 2008-2009 Japanese blog posts WebLab.ota's "Ahegao History"^[3] and "Ahegao Chronology" (shown below)^[4], and Himajin no Dabun's "Chronological Analyze of The Ahegao Genre in Adult Games"^[5], it was around 2003-2005 that some hentai manga and anime creators began introducing extremely exaggerated face depictions of women's abnormal orgasms by unwanted sexual intercourse, hardcore BDSMs, rapes or other sex assaults. Another blog post by Bar Rikashitsu no Bibouroku^[6] suggested that Japanese ero guro^[7] mangaka/painter Suehiro Maruo^[8] had already introduced this kind of depiction to his works in early 1980s.

Ahegao Timeline (WebLab.ota, 2009)

Following these prior researches on the web, Japanese bishoujo comic researcher Rito Kimi (稀見理都)^[9] compiled "Genealogy of Ahegao" in his 2017 book The History of Hentai Manga (エロ漫画表現史).^[10] In this book, he points Hiromitsu Takeda's 2008 manga "I ♥ Scraper" (あい♡すくれーぱー) is the first commercial work where a character utters the word "Ahegao" in a meaning of this facial expression (Shown below), and it suggests Ahegao had established its own concept in the hentai subculture at that point. He also analyses that image board communities Futaba Channel (2chan) and Pixiv, where its users started to heavily use this technique for pure jokes like Ahegaokin around 2007, also had a critical role to spread the concept on the internet.

Man: "Even your mom would have noticed by THIS Ahegao"
Woman: "Ah!" "Huff..Huff!"

Ahegao in today's meaning was formed by increase and evolution of this drawing style in the middle of 2000s, and its spreading to the otaku community via 2chan, 2channel/BBSPINK which became to host Ahegao-themed threads around the middle of 2007^[11][12], and matome blogs reprinting threads in those online communities. And in around 2008, it had enough spread to be recognized as one of famous drawing techniques for orgasms. The first Ahegao-themed doujin comic anthology "A-H-E" was released in the winter of that year (Shown below, left). In 2010s, major publishers had released Ahegao themed comic anthologies (Shown below, center) as well in its first half and even porn videos became to occasionally feature the facial expression (Shown below, right), along with popularization of hentai fetishes in the real-life sex industry.

Additionally, Ahegao, Ahegao-like silly faces, and its derivative Ahegao Double Peace became to be sometimes featured even in normal anime titles in the non-sexual context (Shown below).

From top left to bottom right:
Fuse Kazakiri from A Certain Magical Index (2010), Miwako Mizukoshi from Hen Semi (2011),
Honoka Kousaka from Love Live! (2013), Toko Fukawa from DanganRompa (2013)

Online Relevance

Against the backdrop of the large popularity in the otaku community, which had been developed in the late-2000s, Ahegao has earned a lots of online visibility as both a hentai art technique and fodder for parody illustrations. In its early days, Ahegao had been a popular style in the Collage culture in 2chan and 2channel. And Japanese illustrators communities Pixiv and Nico Nico Seiga which were launched in the same period have been popular Ahgao-sharing services since its beginning. As of June 2017, Pixiv holds over 20000 illustrations tagged under Ahegao^[13], and Nico Nico Seiga, which doesn't have the adult section, also has plenty of illustrations featuring the face.^[14]

On the Westerners Web, this particular facial expression is called in not only the original name, but also translated terms "Fucked Silly Face" or "Mind Break Face".^[15] Tagged under these names, lots of Ahegao illustrations have been drawn by DeviantArt users^[16], or reprinted to Tumblr and Danbooru. Urban Disctonary's article and Reddit's subreddit /r/Ahegao were launched in June 2010. Besides, Instagram's hashtag also has tons of Ahegao selfies by female otakus and cosplayers.^[17]

Related Memes

Ahegaokin

Ahegaokin (アヘ顔菌, lit. "Ahegao Bacillus") is a series of exploitables for the face. Triggered by an illustration which was inspired by 2chan's Ahegao photoshopped image of Suiseiseki from Rozen Maiden, lots of illustrations of characters being infected by the bacillus were uploaded to Pixiv in 2008-2009.

DESU DESU

DESU DESU is a derivative of Desu meme and an Advice Dog spin-off which reused that Suiseiseki's Ahegao face. As early as April 2010, this series became to be shared on Meme Generator.^[23]

Ahegao Double Peace

As well as the face itself, its derivative Ahegao Double Peace (アヘ顔ダブルピース) is also one the iconic poses in the hentai subculture and online parody illustrations. This quite weird pose had established its concept in the middle of 2011.

Baan Face

Baan Face (バーン顔) refers to an Ahegao-inspired face and pose struk by Iroe Gennma a.k.a Nee-san in Japanese manga +Tic Elder Sister (+チック姉さん). Since its web anime series was published in 2011, this silly pose has been occasionally used in a motif for parody illustrations.^[24][25]

Ahegao Fingers

Ahegao Fingers is series of photoshopped images which came from Reddit's /r/dank_meme in May 2017.

Search Interest

External References