Ryona [リョナ] refers to the genre, sexual complex, or scenes in anime, manga, and other works where female characters are punched, kicked, abused, or harmed physically or psychologically.
Originally, the term was created because the moan of agony sounded similar to a moan of sexual pleasure, but today it is used in any scenario where a woman is being harmed.
Any scene from a manga or anime where a girl is beaten counts as ryona. Scenes where the heroine is kidnapped and tied up are also called ryona because there is “anguish” psychologically.
I would like to make it clear that I completely disapprove of anyone who has an interest in this type of genre, who takes pleasure in seeing girls get beaten or scream in pain. This article is for informational purposes only!
Table of Contents
What Does Ryona Mean?
The word ryona is not used for real people. It is strictly an internet slang used for fiction, that is, only anime, games, manga, and novels.
To summarize simply, as explained at the beginning of the article, ryona refers to scenes in anime where women are harmed physically or psychologically.
It is just an internet slang that for some reason has a good amount of monthly searches, which motivated me to write this article.
We cannot understand the meaning of the word without understanding its origin and also the different types of Ryona. Are you ready to understand these bizarre things?
The Origin of the Slang Ryona
Like most internet slang and memes, it originated in forums like 2chan and 4chan. This word emerged because of a rather strange fetish.
It all started with an NSFW post titled “The Best Games with Moe Screams That You Like.” In this post, members commented on games and game scenes where girls screamed and moaned in pain or discomfort sounding like something sensual and erotic.
After this post, some others emerged, revealing people who took pleasure in seeing girls scream in pain to the point of m@sturbating. Some games like Resident Evil were highlighted in the discussions.
The word Ryona is a combination of the word ryouki [猟奇] which means a strong interest in strange and unusual things. Along with the verb onaru [オナる] and onanii [オナニー] which means m@sturbation.
It all started in discussion forums when the expressions ryouki onanii and himei onanii began to circulate to refer to people who m@sturbated with scenes of girls being mistreated and their screams of despair.
Different Types of Ryona
There are categories and types of ryona, some can encompass others like torture which is present in different types of ryona. Let’s try to talk a little about each:
Beat ’em Up – Violent Fights
This term refers to a popular genre of fighting or street brawl games. It generally counts as ryona when the female character gets beaten and loses.
Highlighted scenes are in games like Street Fighter, which shows an image of the defeated character covered in bruises and blood after the fight. We can also mention the scenes and fatalities of Mortal Kombat.
Of course, this type of Ryona does not refer only to the genre of the game, but to any type of fight and brawl involving women.
Generally, anime fights are not called ryona because there is hardly a sense of a character being killed, defeated, or anguished with brutality.
In many cases, bruises are never drawn, despite all the punches. Even in the early games of the Street Fighter series, the only female character appeared without injuries.
It is categorized as ryona when there is such a horrible battle that results in permanent injuries, like loss of limbs, loss of an eye, teeth being pierced, broken bones, scars, and others.
Harapan – Punch to the Stomach
The term harapan [腹パン] means punch to the stomach which can also be categorized as a type of ryona. There is this distinction because a punch to the stomach is particularly brutal.
The stomach is unprotected by bones, a blow to this location is powerful enough to make the character double over during the impact, falling to the ground in agony.
Hiropin – Heroine Pinch
Hiropin [ヒロピン] means “heroine pinch,” scenes where women go through troubles, are cornered, and need to be rescued by someone.
It can be a girl trapped by tentacles, tied to a chair, locked inside a dungeon, or any humiliating situation where she cannot fight or escape on her own.
Ryona no kane – Tied to a Bell
Don’t ask me why this was categorized as a type of ryona, but it is quite specific and refers to girls tied to giant bells to be hurt.
Generally, in this specific scene, the girl gets hit in the stomach with a wooden log about 108 times referencing the New Year’s bell, a Buddhist tradition in Japan where the bell is rung 108 times on New Year’s Eve.
Monster Attacks
Many ryona scenes involve attacks by monsters, supernatural creatures, aliens, and even robots. There are different scenes that can be categorized as ryona:
- Being eaten alive by an animal or monster;
- Getting pregnant by something non-human and giving birth;
- Being part of an experiment by a mad scientist;
- Being dissected alive by aliens;
- Being turned to stone by a medusa;
- Being frozen alive by an ice attack or another element;
These are just a few examples of ryona involving monsters and supernatural creatures.
Other Types of Ryona
- Torture – Goumon [拷問];
- Torture by Drowning – Mizumeme [水責め];
- Wooden Triangular Horse – Sankakumokuba [三角木馬];
- Being swallowed whole by a monster – Marunomi [丸呑み];
- Robots being destroyed – Robotic Destruction
- Parts being ripped off;
Types of Psychological Ryona
In some cases, things like fear, trauma, and distress can cause psychological damage that can be called ryona.
For example, being confined for a long period brings psychological damage. Psychological damage in Japanese is called seishin-teki na dameeji [精神的なダメージ].
When characters are captured, sometimes they undergo brainwashing, which counts as ryona because brainwashing is psychologically harmful.
Sometimes anime and manga characters may exhibit vacant eyes (虚ろ目), lifeless eyes like tuna (マグロ目), or even the eyes of rape victims (レイプ目).
Here are some related Japanese words that can be called ryona:
- Trauma – Torauma [トラウマ];
- Incontinence (peeing from fear) – Shikkin [失禁];
- Fainting – Shisshin [失神];
- Insanity – Kyouki [狂気];
- Brainwashing;
Scene vs. Ryona Genre
Ryona scenes can be present in any anime or game, but when we talk about the ryona genre, it usually refers to hentai anime or games.
The fact that an anime has a ryona scene does not mean it is an adult anime or that it involves sensual scenes or even violence. Most of the time it is just a scene, it can be something innocent or a fanservice.
When talking about the ryona genre, expect erotic animes with girls being tied up, beaten, trapped in tentacles, raped, and others.
Ryona vs. Gore or Guro
Gore or guro is a genre of anime involving violent horror scenes, where the vast majority can also be called ryona.
The main difference between ryona and guro is that ryona focuses on villains or monsters inflicting harm on female characters, while guro refers to anything grotesque.
For this reason, we can consider that most ryona scenes can be gore, or vice versa, but they are not the same thing; one of the terms is more specific.
Gyaku-Ryona – Girls Hurting Men
The term Ryona refers only to girls being hurt, but there is the term gyakuryona [逆リョナ] which means Reverse Ryona referring to men being hurt.
It is common to use the term when there are girls hurting boys, but it can refer to anything, an animal, another man, or an inanimate object hurting a guy.
Of course, this term is not commonly used; perhaps its use applies only to forums or dialogues involving bizarre fetishes.
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