ecchi

• etchi

From Japanese エッチ (etchi, “dirty; perverted”), which is derived from English aitch (“name of the letter ⟨H⟩”), which is an initialism of the romaji of Japanese 変態(へんたい) (hentai, “pervert”).

エッチ (etchi) is not a genre in Japanese; this is a development in English.

ecchi (comparative more ecchi, superlative most ecchi)

1. (of Japanese animation) Erotic, lascivious, lewd, naughty, sexy, suggestive.

ecchi (countable and uncountable, plural ecchi)

1. (uncountable) A genre, especially of anime and manga, featuring playful, tongue-in-cheek usage of sexualized scenes and situations such as double entendre or flirtation, while remaining non-pornographic. Often used to differentiate from hentai which features overt sexual themes.

   The manga fan was disturbingly proud of his extensive ecchi collection.

2. (rare, countable, chiefly proscribed by fandom slang) A situation within a story, especially anime and manga, which ventures into the ecchi genre.

   There was a moment of ecchi for comic relief in the otherwise serious story.

• hentai