Difference between revisions of "Ranma Hentai Books"

Revision as of 18:17, 15 August 2010

Introduction

Ranma Hentai Books (at one time known as the Ranma Hentai Gallery) is a website and associated group of artists and fans of the world-famous anime series, Ranma ½. They have grown from merely collecting various Ranma hentai from across the web, to becoming a major producer of their own, topmost quality erotic Ranma art and fan-comics. They are a site made by fiercely loyal fans of Ranma hentai, for all fans of Ranma hentai, and dedicated to keeping Ranma hentai from fading into obscurity despite the ever-growing number of years since the end of the original manga and anime series.

The current system in use for releasing their original, high-quality, full-colour, English Ranma erotic comics is the Defenders System, which replaces the less cost-effective (but still open, for the time being) online bookstore. The Defenders System has its own page explaining how it works and the reasons for the change in detail, but is essentially a pay-site subscription.

Regardless, Ranma Hentai Books has been and still remains a non-profit organization; all proceeds from book sales and Defender subscriptions are used in the making of new books and art. The founders have never kept a penny of the revenue for their own use, and in fact have dug deeply into their own pockets on more than one occasion in the past, to ensure production of new books would continue.

History of Ranma Hentai Books

Prehistory: The Era of Stang

Exactly at what point the Ranma Hentai Gallery (as the RHB was formally known) first graced the web is unknown to anyone still associated with it. Its oldest known webmaster, who went by the handle of Stang, was not the site's original founder, but had, sometime in the late 1990s, taken up control of the site, and its then-mission to aggressively seek, collect and maintain every Ranma ½ hentai image ever drawn in a single place.

RHG was a free site with no income or funding (but neither did it produce any content). Stang hosted it on several different free host services, but they proved the old adage of getting what one pays for. The free hosts provided no service or even stability; the RHG site was demolished again and again, without cause , reason or excuse offered, forcing Stang to rebuild the entire site from scratch. In 2001, the site went down for the third time and Stang considered giving up.

However a long-time fan and supporter of the site, SHADE, not eager to see the site disappear forever, began asking around his various associates and connections. He found, as he calls it “The Great Mysterious Benefactor,” willing to host the site privately (but did not wish to accept the credit for doing so). And so Stang rebuilt the site one more time, and the RHG relaunched at the Ranmahentai.ranma.ws/ domain, on January 1st, 2002.

Despite the positive upturn in the sites fate, roughly two months later, Stang dropped out of contact and would never be heard from again. What happened to him remains a mystery to this day.

Early History: The Era of SHADE

SHADE would anxiously wait several more months for Stang to reappear, but finally, in April, as the only other person possessing the access codes and the full archive of hentai pictures, he was forced to dig into the site himself, despite no training or experience in html code, and try and get the site's numerous problems fixed. It was extremely challenging with no one to teach him, but he eventually became familiar with the basic functions of maintaining and updating the site.

In between hunting the web for Ranma hentai, accepting submissions from artists and cultivating relationships with like minded fans of Ranma hentai art, SHADE was also working on pet projects of his own, including his first original H-manga, Out of Character 1. There was no process in place for creating books yet, and SHADE struggled to keep organized and motivated an eclectic collection of volunteer artists to get work done on the book. In the end, SHADE had to do much of the work himself that had originally been delegated to others, several of whom “pulled a Stang”. From conception to completion, OOC1 took SHADE about five years to finish, and he released it in early summer of 2003.

Modern History: The Era of Deep Star

In February of 2006, SHADE was joined by another long-time Ranma fan, Deep Star. Deep Star brought a great deal to the table that had been sorely lacking; organizational skills, website coding ability, and practical experience in running a web business. SHADE, frankly, was relieved to have good help, finally.

And Deep Star proved his worth. They completed their first book together, Perils of Fighting Dirty in July 2006, and continued to produce more than 30 books of every-increasing quality and quantity in the next four years, and continue to do so to this day.

???FILL ME IN

History in the Making: The Era of The Defenders

In January of 2009, The Ranma Hentai Gallery, suffering heavy financial losses due to unchecked piracy (INSERT  % OF SALES/DOWNLOADS) scrubbed itself clean of the dirt of hypocrisy, still clinging to them from the site's long history of indiscriminate farming of Ranma hentai from anywhere on the web. They recreated themselves as Ranma Hentai Books; a site that would only add to their galleries with the express permission of the artists themselves, and whose main focus would be creating new Ranma hentai, . not hunting the web for it. A new name for a new mission.

Along with their new rules of self-conduct, came a new, more stable method to fund the creation of new books, and throw a couple more roadblocks into the path of those unable to wrap their heads around theft being a negative activity, not something to proudly pat oneself on the back over, or how the money they avoided paying was being used entirely to produce new books, not padding the webmasters' pockets as they cynically believed.

They named their subscription program the RHB Defenders, because in a very real sense, the true fans who subscribed are defending the site from being forced to shut down, and the future of extraordinary quality Ranma hentai comics yet to be drawn. The Defenders mascot is Ranma-chan wielding paladin-like sword and shield (and wearing decorative plate armour... some plate armour... Alright, very little plate armour) and represents the fierce commitment of the True Fans, who now have a name to call themselves.

The Defenders System is discussed in greater detail on its own page.

Contents of the Site (Public)

(A.K.A. The free portion of the site)

The General Galleries

The original galleries of Ranma hentai art from around the web, neatly organized by character, has been both streamlined and added to since the old days of the RHG.

The more professional policy changes that came with the site's name change dictate that new art is only added if submitted by the artist themselves, to prevent image piracy and the justifiably offence of artists who did not wish their work to be posted with the RHB for whatever reasons of their own. Despite RHB honouring the wishes of all artists who requested their work pulled from these galleries, and the much tighter new submission requirements, these galleries still remain quite likely the largest collection of Ranma ½ hentai art in a single place. New submissions of Ranma erotic art (by their artists) are always welcome, and RHB will be sure to accredit submitting artists properly, including links to their own art sites if desired.

The Artist Galleries

For artists who are big enough fans to draw more than just one or two pieces of Ranma hentai fanart (or anticipate drawing more in the future) RHB gladly hosts all their Ranma-themed art here, in sub-galleries under their own net-handles. At the time of this article's posting, there are 78 different artists with work hosted here, each with anywhere from 2 to 329 examples of their Ranma artwork available for free viewing to all.

Ranma 3D

Originally begun by site webmaster and founder SHADE who created the 3D models for several of the main Ranma ½ characters with the Poser rendering program (used for other well-known animation projects such as Dead Fantasy) as a cheaper alternative to paying a model to get into various sex-related positions and not move for hours. He still uses them for that to this day, but many other interesting side-projects and experiments have been created by SHADE and those he shared the models with over the years. Including, but not limited to, pin-up art, single-panel-per-page comics, and even short movies.

Reactions to the models have been mixed; some adore them instantly, others think the marriage of realism and anime-style art is positively alien (they are 3D-rendered anime characters still, not 3D-rendered versions of real human models as is more common). However, like them or hate them, they're unarguably an interesting and NEW way to make and see Ranma ½ hentai.

The Hentai Zone

This was a bonus project, funded entirely by fan donations to the site (as opposed to previous book sales or subscription revenues). It was released a page a week on the weekends in those periods it was actively running, at no cost to any of the readers. THZ was a spoof of the original Ranma ½ manga, redone as a sex comedy instead of a martial-arts comedy. Unlike the rest of the RHB's narrative comics, THZ is a sexy comedy story, rather than a funny pornographic story.

The project has a more detailed listing here: The Hentai Zone

Contents of the Site (Defender Only)

Original Projects

Currently this section contains a detailed listing of all Original Books produced by the RHB to be sold via the bookstore. Books released solely through the Defenders System, and not sold through the bookstore, are similarly detailed within the Defenders Tour.

Including, for each book: covers, large collages of sample art, and a large selection of reviews from those who already purchased the book (taken directly from the RHB Forums.

RHB Third Party Books are also listed in this section, but as they are not Ranma ½ related, will be discussed separately.

Each Original Book project has its own individual wikipage, found from the RHB's Comic Index. Eventually, this wiki index of the RHB's completed works may replace the Original Projects listing on the Ranma Hentai Books site.

Defenders FAQ

This page answers common questions about the Defenders System, such as why it was put in place, why it is necessary, and where the subscription money goes. Eventually, this section may be replaced by the Defenders System wikipage, which contains the same information.

Defenders Tour

Much like with the Original Projects page, the Defenders Tour provides a listing for all the RHB's Original books, pin up collections, and any other projects that have been, are currently, or are soon to be released through the Defenders System.

The Tour page includes, for each book: covers, sample art (large collages for the narrative comics, several lo-rez sample images for the pinup books).

Defender-release books (because most are not sold through the bookstore, do not have specific review pages, but do have commentary pages in the RHB Forums where they are discussed page by page as they are released, along with final comments on the entire project upon the completion of its run. Specific links to each Defenders-released project are found on their own wikilisting.

In summary, the Defenders Tour outlines everything that is available to Defender subscribers, to present sound reasons for the value of becoming a Defender; and defending the continued creation of new and better, Ranma hentai art and fan-comics. The tour's purpose is to give readers enough information to determine if what the RHB does is worth defending to them.

Join the Defenders

Fairly self-exploratory; those who have perused the Tour and decided Ranma Hentai is something valuable enough to preserve, or even just that the numerous narrative comics, pin-up collections, and other bonus art and features found inside are worth a monthly payment, click here to sign up.

The RHB Community

About Us

A brief profile of the RHBs core members and primary art teams.

RHB Forums

The Anime Fanservice Image Gallery (see Affiliated Sites below) has offered the RHB their own little corner of their forums since their smaller, more obscure days as the Ranma Hentai Gallery. They have been fine, gracious hosts, and while the RHB might certainly have a large enough forum community to create their own, new forum at this point, there is no valid need to do so, and we would miss our old friends of the AFIG.

Affiliated Sites =

The RHB is not just one site run by a handful of dedicated fans, no. It is a large hub on a greater wheel of fans of erotic manga and anime everywhere! Our friends and compatriots, old and new, have supported us and helped the RHB become what it is today, and the RHB returns that favour by supporting their sites as well.

Justice Hentai

The RHBs younger sister site. Run by Deep Star Justice Hentai does for the Justice League, and other American comic book heroes what the RHB Defenders has done for Ranma ½. DEEP STAR PLEASE EXPOUND A LITTLE HERE, I'M NOT REALLY ALL THAT FAMILIAR WITH THE VARIETY OF CONTENT IN JH. COMICS, PINUPS, FAN REQUESTS, ETC

Anime Fanservice

The Anime Fanservice Image Gallery is a very long-standing site dedicated to the appreciation of those special and exciting moments in mainstream anime (as opposed to outright pornographic anime) when a well-endowed girl carelessly bends too far forward, or a sharp turn send that pleated school uniform skirt spinning up a bit too high. Their extensive galleries feature screenshots of panties, cleavage, and partial nudity from a huge number of different anime series. (WOULD BRADSTER CARE TO MAKE THAT NUMBER MORE SPECIFIC?)

Deep Star Books

Also referred to as our bookstore, this site was built by Deep Star specifically to transact the sales of the RHB's original books and projects, as well as RHB Third Party Books commissioned or produced by their affiliates and friends, and needing a home. The site itself has not proven to be the most cost-effective method to distribute online comics, and will likely shut down some time in the near future. Currently, it is having its “Going Out of Business Sale” and all books are severely marked down from their original prices. (CARE TO THROW OUT A RANGE OF MARKDOWN PERCENTAGES D.S.?)

Ranma Lemon Archive

Not all sexy tales of Ranma are necessarily told in Hi-rez full colour comic format. For one thing, producing such are surprisingly expensive, and for another, some tales are just better told in written words. St. Fan hosts the Ranma Lemon Stories Archive here, collecting all the erotic stories, Addventure episodes, Role-playing transcripts, and even the few sexy chapters of long-running Ranma fanfiction series that aren't purely sex-oriented.

No collection will ever be totally complete, not so long as authors are still writing tales of the immensely frustrated cast of Ranma ½ finally getting some, but St. Fan's huge archive has probably come closer than any other.