On Sun, 15 Dec 1996 ucchan@usagi.jrd.dec-j.co.jp wrote:

The Subjects are:
  Albert Lunde <Al  hentai/pervert

------- Message

It has seeemed to me that the connotations and/or cultural context of
"hentai" and "pervert" don't quite match.

In the US, it seems like even the excesses of adult heterosexuality, don't
usually get called "perversion".

People might call someone a "pervert" for pedophilla, or homosexuality, or
fetishes, or BDSM.

Since, in Ranma 1/2, the term "hentai" gets applied to Ranma (by Akane when
she's mad at least) it hasn't seemed like it quite fit right. But I'm not
sure of a better translation: it fits in some cases, but not all.

I'm not sure what _I'd_ call a strange person I found in a bathtub/hot tub
in _my_ house (if I had a hot tub).

I would call them loudly..  people in hot tubs don't like to leave them..

on a non-spam note, you may have hit it right on the head: Hentai 
translates as a CONCEPT, that of adult heterosexuality taken to an 
inappropriate extreme. 

unfortunately, as in many cross-culture translations, there is no 
word-to-word translation

SunDogg
caslern@chs.mat-su.k12.ak.us
http://chs.mat-su.k12.ak.us/authors/caslern.html