Porn star Nanami Ogura (小倉七海) may still be just 21 years old but has already amassed a prodigious output of releases since making her debut with S1 No. 1 Style in September 2021, including multiple bestselling AVs as well as two print photo books and several digital ones.
But that all seemed like a flash in the pan when she suddenly announced her retirement in October 2022, leading some to speculate it was due to the constraints placed on the JAV industry since the introduction of new porn legislation.
Thankfully, Ogura's retirement didn't last and she was soon back, under a ...
Former top adult video star Sola (Sora) Aoi has given her first on-camera interview in four years.
Once the most famous Japanese porn star, and popular also in other parts of Asia, Sora Aoi announced her marriage at the start of 2018 to DJ Non.
When she then announced she was pregnant at the end of that year, she experienced quite a lot of abuse on social media. Despite not appearing in porn since 2011, many trolls still criticized her for becoming a mother, saying it was "sad for the children."
Now aged 42, Sola Aoi has two kids with DJ Non. She gave birth to twins in May 2019.
She ...
The former Japanese porn star Shunka Ayami is said to be dating the male singer Ryoichi Tsukada.
The 36-year-old Tsukada is a member of the boy band ABC-Z, which is part of the roster of troubled (and recently renamed and soon-to-dissolve) agency Johnny & Associates.
Ayami reportedly introduced Tsukada to her parents last month, and they have supposedly taken overseas trips together.
Weekly Bunshun claimed the scoop when earlier this week it published photos of the two together traveling by Shinkansen. They certainly make a glamorous couple.
Tsukada took a well-publicized break ...
Aya Takanashi, the former porn star turned columnist on all things JAV, is back with another article about the porn industry.
This time, she's spilled the beans on why some performers have rules about which other performers they are willing to work with.
In her latest column for the monthly magazine Spa!, she enumerates some of the major reasons for why co-performers are "banned" by certain AV stars.
This is not insignificant, since while the AV industry is flooded with thousands of female performers, the number of men performing regularly is tiny. If you get on the bad side of one of ...
The tabloids are all of a flutter over rumors that recently retired top porn star Yua Mikami (30) is sleeping with not one but two boy band singers.
According to the Weekly Bunshun, Kento Senga (32) of Kis-My-Ft2 spent around three hours at Mikami's apartment on the night of August 31. A few hours later, he was apparently followed by Kento Nagao (21) of Naniwa Danshi. The report ignited something of a Twitter firestorm in early September.
It's not the first time that Mikami has found herself at the center of such romance rumors. She was previously said to be dating singer Yuya Tegoshi and ...
Earlier in the year, we wrote a short profile about Aya Takanashi, the former porn star who is now a columnist.
Her articles in Spa! are always worth a read, usually introducing certain aspects about the adult industry and her insights on them.
We spotted her recent piece about street scouts (known in Japanese as "scout man"). Such suited, flashily dressed figures are often seen hanging around certain neighborhoods of a big city. In Tokyo, this often means Kabukicho.
They go up to women and try to entice them with offers of well-paid work. Sometimes this is porn work, though the true ...
As announced earlier in the year, the immensely popular Japanese porn star Yua Mikami is to return in August and her final release has just come out from S1 No. 1 Style.
The 147-minute release (SSIS00834) comes out on physical format on August 15, following its streaming release at the end of last week.
The JAV stunner turns 30 this month and has enjoyed an eight-year career, which is very long by industry standards. She is also probably the most successful and famous example of a Japanese music idol who switched to adult video; in her case, SKE48, where she was known as Momona ...
Kaho Shibuya was a big name in porn during her time as a performer and she's also a rare example of someone who has managed to retain her fame since retiring from adult video in 2018 by carving out a successful second career.
She also takes no prisoners, prepared to spill the beans on the dark side of Japanese porn, and sue a production company for leaking her old videos.
Now active as a cosplayer, Twitch streamer, and author, Shibuya speaks English fluently, which has helped her a lot to keep an international profile.
She recently sat down with Tokyo Weekender for an interview about her ...
Last month, we reported on the controversy over a new gravure idol who was supposedly AI-generated but seemed to be just a slightly different version of a flesh-and-blood gradol. The publisher eventually withdrew its much-hyped photo book featuring Ai Satsuki.
As we noted in a follow-up post, artificial intelligence has major implications for gravure, making it possible to churn out cheap photo books with almost now overheads (no expensive photo shoots, no model fees, etc.). It has meant the market is currently flooded with cheap or even free photo books.
The issue of AI and gravure has ...
On Monday came news that Yua Mikami is to retire from porn after a stunning eight-year run in the industry.
The announcement isn't a huge surprise, given her age (she turns 30 in August) and length of time in the industry, plus Mikami had also done other things in parallel with her adult video performing, such as being a member of a K-Pop music group (comprising only porn stars), selling NFT art, and designing her own apparel.
As regular readers and JAV fans will know well, Yua Mikami used to be a member of the AKB48 spin-off group SKE48. She is one of many AKB-related idols who branched ...
