Japanese culture
What does Futanari mean?
Futanari is a manga and hentai trope: a feminine-looking character drawn with a penis, and the adult titles built around her; Japanese ふたなり reads two forms.
Definition
The word shows up as a tag. Futanari (ふたなり) is the feminine-drawn character who also has a penis, often a vulva on the same body, and the adult manga, anime, and eroge built around that figure. English clips it to futa in tags, filenames, and chat.
Some artists draw a scrotum; others leave it off, and the penis is often scaled for fantasy. The label holds because the object is a made-up body on paper.
The dictionary sense is older than the tag. Intersex people are born with variations of sex characteristics; that is a fact about human bodies, with its own clinical and rights language. Japanese adult video uses newhalf (ニューハーフ) for trans women. Manga fandom kept futanari for the 2D role. English glosses still print hermaphrodite; said of a person, the word is dated and insulting.
Origin
Futanari is Japanese ふたなり. The kanji spellings 二形 and 二成 read the same: futa (二, two) plus nari (形 or 態, shape, form). Jisho files the noun mostly in kana and lists two uses, the older sense and manga slang for a feminine character with that silhouette. The selected edition of the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten defines 二形 and 二成 as having two forms, especially a person with both sets of genitals, and cites the 病草紙 (Yamai no Sōshi), late Heian to early Kamakura: when the clothes were lifted, there were male and female roots; this is a 二形. The Kyoto National Museum holds the scene titled 「二形の男」. The same entry points to haniwari (はにわり) as an older pair.
History
The dictionary sense covered a real body and an androgynous figure. In the 1990s Japanese adult manga settled on a drawn woman with a penis, and the old name became a genre label. Toshiki Yui's manga Hot Tails is the title the West cites most. Jason Thompson, in Manga: The Complete Guide (2007), already treats that figure as a widespread part of the industry. Outside Japan the romaji and the short form futa became a tag on hentai, dōjin, and illustration.
How it emerged
The scroll and the dictionary already carried 二形. Adult fandom in the 1990s shifted the name onto a character type that exists only on the page. The short form futa grew from that international label, once the romaji left Japanese adult manga for English filenames and search boxes.
Usage examples
The folder tag was just futanari.
Futa, in the chat, was the short form.
Translations
- pt futanari / futa
- en futanari / futa
- es futanari / futa
Synonyms
- ふたなり
- 二形
- futa
- 二成