Menhera can mean multiple things. It can be a neutral term for someone with mental health issues that can be used by anyone regardless of diagnosis (or lack thereof). And it can also be the name for an art movement/subculture about vent art and self expression.
Menhera as a term originates from 2Channel. The BPD board was one of the few places people with mental health issues could talk about their issues without judgement and saneism. But since the name said BPD because of lack of knowledge on mental health terminology and not everyone who has mental health issues has BPD, in 2000 the board expanded to a general mental health board. The new board name was just "Mental Health Board," which was shortened to "menheru" because of the katakana used to spell it. And to refer to the users, someone came up with the term "menheraa", the -aa suffix being similar to the -er suffix in English. This was then shortened to "menhera."
Before the term "menhera," there weren't any positive words for someone with mental health issues in Japanese, very few neutral. Most terms had connotations of "psycho" or other saneist slurs. So "menhera" was a term that some people found freeing. It was a term to describe their mental health that was not inherently negative. It's also a helpful term for some because things like diagnosis and psychiatric treatment and therapy are not easily accessible in Japan, so most people with mental health issues there are undiagnosed.
The art movement/subculture part came about later, in the mid to late 2000s, through artists with mental health issues and use related to characters with mental health issues.
While the term originated in Japan, anyone can refer to themselves as menhera or create menhera art as long you are doing so respectfully. While this is a simple overview, I suggest checking out this overview for something that goes a bit more in depth.
This is a very common misconception, unfortunately. A lot of people see menhera art showing dark themes alongside cute characters, and think it's trying to make mental illness seem "cute" or "cool." But this is pretty far from the case.
Menhera is a way for mentally ill people to express themselves. Not all vent art has to be ugly crayon scribbles or eldritch horror monsters, and to insist that someone's vent art being cutesy or cool or pretty means it's "making mental illness cute" is policing of mentally ill people. Which does real harm. There are many reasons why someone might make their vent art with a cute art style.
Some people who like cute things are mentally ill. Believe it or not, being surrounded by cute things does not magically cure someone of mental illness. And in kawaii spaces, you might especially see a lot of people with large collections of cute clothing, plushies, figurines, etc. who are mentally ill because the dopamine hit from shopping can be a (sometimes unhealthy) way people might cope. For these people, drawing cute characters in their vent art is portraying reality. They are someone who wears cute fashion, might even wear cute makeup too, and collects cute things, but is still suffering. Their vent art is about that reality, and it's a reality that deserves to be portrayed.
Another is that the cuteness can take the sting off of the issue for the artist drawing it. It makes it easier to process their emotions and less triggering to take the edge off with a cutesy art style. Which is perfectly fine, it's their coping mechanism. They get to decide the art style.
And then sometimes it's just their art style. That's just the style they draw in and draw everything in. In which case, again, it's their coping mechanism. They get to decide the art style.
If you're getting caugt up on the art style in people's vent works, that's most likely a you problem. Mentally ill artists should not have to conform to your idea that mental illness and mentally ill people should be ugly or hide themselves away for your comfort. As long as it is posted with the appropriate trigger warnings, it is not hurting anyone. No one who isn't already mentally ill and in a very very dark place will think mental illness is cute or cool because of cute vent art, and those who are in that dark place would have the same reaction to any other portrayal of mental illness as they would to cute vent art.
No, menhera can use any aesthetic or motifs, and sometimes medical kawaii art is just for the sake of aesthetic.
Yamikawaii is the term for the aesthetic of kawaii art with medical and sickness motifs. Though some people like to avoid the term because of Ezaki Bisuko*, a controversial figure in the yamikawaii sphere who trademarked the term, among other things that caused a lot of the JP communities for yamikawaii and menhera to stop supporting him. His trademark on the term means that a lot of Japanese artists cannot profit of yamikawaii content without risk of being sued.
While there is a huge overlap between yamikawaii and menhera, especially after the influence Ezaki's "Menhera-chan" comic had, they are separate things. Yamikawaii is an aesthetic, that can be used by anyone for any purose. Whereas menhera is an art movement around vent and self expression. Menhera art can use pretty much any aesthetic or motif the artist wants to. Not all yamikawaii is menhera, and not all menhera is yamikawaii. An example of non-menhera yamikawaii could be a cutsey drawing of an anime girl in a skimpy nurse outfit, and an example of non-yamikawaii menhera could be kawaii vent art using fairy tale motifs.
A lot of the most interesting and creative menhera art in my opinion is the art that leans away from the typical Ezaki-inspired medical and magical girl themed menhera and more into symbolism going beyond "mental illness is an illness, so medical supplies to represent illness."
*Ezaki Bisuko has a lot of other controversies surrounding him besides the trademarking of yamikawaii. I could be here all day listing off the ones I remember, and that's just the ones I've heard about and remember while being so out of the loop on things at the time of writing of this. He is also known for spreading a lot of misinformation on menhera and yamikawaii to English speakers through his social media. While it's up to you whether to support him or not, I do not recommend supporting him.
Yes. If it's affecting your mental health in some way, like these things often do, then it's included.
Most physically disabled people, chronically ill and neurodivergent people have some sort of mental health issues. It just comes with the other issues sometimes, especially with how medicalized your life might feel with certain chronic conditions. There is also how experiencing ableism can affect your mental health, and ableism is very ingrained into society in many ways to the point of being inescapable for some.
And then with LGBTQ issues, LGBTQ people are disproportionally more likely to have mental health issues because of factors like LGBTQphobia, lack of LGBTQ-friendly education and healthcare access, and how being outside of the cishetero societal norms can at times feel very othering.
And then also, a lot of things that are not a mental health issue but some parts of society see as making someone "mentally ill" are often including in menhera in the JP menhera community, so I don't see why the EN community can't include them either. There is a lot of menhera art surrounding topics such as LGBTQ experiences, sexuality and even kink as all of these things have a stigma where some might view people as being "mentally ill" based on these things and such a stigma (and lack of accessible education on these topics) can very much affect someone's mental health when they're dealing with the confusing feelings that these may cause someone in some cases.
Though on this note, if you would like a movement that focuses on physical disability without as much focus on mental health to have more focus on the physical disability, I suggest looking into crippunk.
They are saneist slurs.
"Kei" means along the lines of "stereotype" or "type of thing." A lot of people mistakenly think "menhera kei" means menhera fashion because of the use of "kei" in jfashion, but kei is very contextual on meaning. While in the case of fairy kei, it means "fairy type of fashion" since it's a term about fashion, since menhera and menhera kei are terms about people, menhera kei thus means "mentally ill type of person." It came about from saneist people trying to twist menhera into an insult.
There are also people who mistakenly think that menhera is derogatory because of how most JP terms for those with mental health issues that are not a specific diagnosis are derogatory. These people may conflate menhera and menhera kei as terms or use them interchangably. Their use of menhera is incorrect, but it's no different from how in EN spaces there are people who use "autistic" an insult.
And then oh boy jirai kei... Jirai kei will get it's own little article on here soon, will update this with the link when it's done. But the short of it is that jirai kei is a slur against (usually assigned female at birth or fem presenting) people with a cluster b personality disorder. Disorders such as BPD, ASPD, HPD, etc. Jirai means "landmine," as in a literal landmind. It was also for some used in Japanese trigger warnings, people would refer to topics that could be triggering as "landmines" because of the phrase "I stepped on a landmine" to mean they were triggered by a topic they did not expect to see in something.
Jirai kei was coined in what is basically an incel magazine, and as you can probably guess means "landmine type of person." It refers to the "crazy ex girlfriend" stereotypes used to demonize and attack people with cluster b personality disorders, especially BPD. The term has been used in a lot of saneism towards people with BPD often.
Some people also mistake jirai kei for fashion. This is because of the term's association with a "cosplay" trend. For a while, there was a trend of "cosplay" videos in which people would dress up in dark girly kei fashion, do byojaku makeup and play up offensive and harmful BPD stereotypes to "cosplay" a "crazy psycho bitch landmine ex girlfriend." A lot of uninformed people have been mistaking the trend for a positive or reclamation one, but it is not. None of the people participating are doing so for those purposes, it is all people playing into saneist stereotypes to either be "uwu quirky" or create fetish content. It is no different from when English speaking pop star use saneist slurs they cannot reclaim and stereotypes that do not apply to them to be "uwu quirky not like the other girls" to sell, such as Ava Max and her "Sweet but Psycho" song.
The popularity of that trend has also given rise to anti-recovery movements using the term for self deprication that will be discussed elsewhere where I can put proper trigger warnings.
All fashion styles associated with the term jirai kei have been already named styles. The main one is dark girly kei. These fashions do not need a literal slur attached to them when people have been wearing them and enjoying them without slur association for years.
If you want to reclaim jirai kei or use it for yourself because you were under the impression the trend was reclamation, since it is a JP language specific slur it's iffy if westerners can reclaim it. And use of it for reclamation will only further make the term trend and thus amplify the inappropriate uses of it. So please at least keep your reclamation use of it private and only do so if you have a cluster b personality disorder. Heck, I've used it towards myself in self depriciating ways on private accounts and in private discords before, before there was English information about the anti-recovery groups using it for self deprication. So I don't judge too harshly on people who want to reclaim it because of misinformation on the "jirai kei" trend. But with how out of hand things with the term have gotten, I'd urge against using it even if it's just towards yourself.
Menhera, kawaii and furry artist. He/they pronouns.
