>>1400857>ecchi is how Japanese say the letter H. which is short for hentai. technically ecchi and hentai are the same thing but the guys at 4chan didn't know that when they made the boards. so now people think that ecchi is like playboy and hentai is XXX.No. The issue was decided on USENET way back in the prior century. Prior to even that, there was just hentai and people on the FTP Gopher sites knew that "ecchi" was the pronunciation. Fans were not desensitized back then, so someone showing naked breasts was HENTAI. Over time, the FTP boards yielded to USENET and the much greater volume of images. The volume created a problem because now there were hentai and extra-hard hentai images being lumped together. Someone maintaining one of the FAQs used his dominant position to try to restore some order and set down that "ecchi" would be the "softer" stuff and hentai would be used for the "hard core" stuff. Many agreed and many disagreed, but over time, the dual naming system won out as many of the primary contributors would designate things as ecchi or hentai. The biggest single group that championed organization was The Black Squadron (fans of Wing Commander). Some were artists such as Acid Junkie and some were game image rippers and posters such as Colonel Paladin.
As the flood of new people entered the suddenly fashionable anime scene, these were different from old fans who had overcome the initial difficulties. It's a shame the ease made so many new people take things for granted and they didn't read FAQs or care much about organizing or doing. They were "fans" only because it was easy. But eventually enough of them were convinced and at that point, so many people differentiated between ecchi and hentai that it became the standard.
That was so long ago that Colonel Paladin is prolly a grandpa by now.
