Many music idols have rules, explicit or implicit, that prevent them from having romantic or sexual relationships to keep up the pretense that fans have a chance of dating their favorite singer. If you think music idols are not having sex, though, you've pretty naive, as the various dating "scandals" have demonstrated over the years. Some idols are even more sexually active than you might suspect, including having secret porn careers. Tsumugi Mugino was recently fired from the Hokkaido idol group Icecream Square after her alleged appearance in an "amateur" porn release came to ...

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The backlash against former porn star Yua Mikami's attempts to build a mainstream career for herself in fashion has continued with viral and divisive criticism of her wearing a wedding dress. Mikami was appearing as a guest at a public talk that was part of a boat racing event in Yamaguchi on July 27. A twentysomething married woman who wanted to wear the same dress design for her bridal photos wrote a vitriolic post on X on July 27 about how her plans were no ruined by the ex-adult video performer. It got a surprising amount of attention (120.5 million views, 152,000 likes, and 3,3000 ...

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The adult video star Tsukasa Aoi has announced her retirement. One of the biggest names in Japanese porn, Tsukasa Aoi posted on Instagram on July 20 that she would retire on August 17. The 34-year-old wrote that she would no longer work as Tsukasa Aoi and that her exhibition at Gallery Le Déco from August 5, would be her final work. The wording of her announcement does leave open the possiblity that Aoi will continue to work in porn or make a comeback later under a different performer name, which often happens when performers switch agencies due to contractual restrictions on using ...

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Yesterday we published an article about Neru Nagahama's comeback photo book, the Keyakizaka46 music idol's first such release in eight years. Nagahama is a rare case of a music idol from an AKB or Sakamichi group who has maintained a career after graduating. Most of the more minor members disappear into obscurity -- to say nothing of the many, many other wannabe idols who audition but never even get into the minor ranks. And some wind up doing porn. Netizens have identified a former auditionee for Sakurazaka46 (as Keyakizaka46 is now known) as a new porn star Nagi Yasaka ...

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In January, the Japanese porn star Yuki Takeuchi had announced that she would retire from the adult video industry at the end of this year, but she has now said that she will delay her retirement by a further year. Many fans had hoped she would do this because she wanted to keep making JAV productions due to audience demand, and while that may be true in part, Takeuchi recently revealed the real reason behind the extra 12 months. Takeuchi was the victim of a financial scam that saw her lose her savings, she shared on an episode of Abema's Hyena of Love 4 (the same show on which ...

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The former porn star Emiri Okazaki has announced she is pregnant. Now 36, Okazaki made her adult video debut via Muteki in 2011. She also worked under the name EMIRI and was a member of the JAV idol music group Pinkey, which was produced by the late Kishin Shinoyama, famed for his nude photography, and active from 2012 to 2015. Prior to her porn career, she was gyaru-style model. Since her retirement in 2016, she has been a YouTuber and entrepreneur with a business selling supplements. Okazaki's announcement was accompanied by some maternity photos (weirdly also featuring her dog, ...

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Given the huge volume of porn produced in Japan and, thus, the large number of women involved, it is inevitably that many of the performers will have families after they retire from the industry. The question of former or current adult video stars raising families is one that occasionally appears in the media, often with a degree of sympathy (for the abuse they can suffer online) and curiosity. Spa! recently featured an interview with AiRis, an up-and-coming gravure idol and singer who is also the daughter of 46-year-old former porn star Mariko Sata. Single mom Sata was active in the ...

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As regular readers will know, we have a strong interest in the afterlives of music idols, gravure models, and porn stars. The situation is particularly tough for the latter, who face discrimination and criticism if they go public with personal details like pregnancy or attempt to branch out into more "respectable" professions. The former adult video star Yua Mikami had one of the most successful careers among performers of her generation. She already reinvented herself once, graduating from a career as a music idol in SKE48 to JAV, where she known by her birth name, Momona Kito. Since ...

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Japanese adult video often employs referential parody formats, from recent cultural productions (anime, TV shows, etc.) to incidents (scandals, crimes, etc.). In a culture where parody and satire is not as common as, for instance, the West, JAV frequently feels fresh and exciting in this regard, and the potentially limitless source of scenarios that can be parodied is another reason that porn is so prolific in Japan. The most recent example of porn parody we have seen is an AV starring Rima Arai that parodies The First Take, a YouTube channel in which singers record a song in a single take ...

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It might sound like a contradiction in terms but Japanese adult video is transnational. By which we mean that Japanese women aren't the only ones working in the industry. There are plenty of foreign performers too, including white women (especially if they look exotic). Though Caucasian and biracial beauties often have the most success, you can also regularly find examples of women from other parts of East Asia. The latest in this long and alluring lineage is Tiny Lu (胎尼), the fun-sized Taiwanese influencer and model who is making her Japanese AV debut this month. Tiny Lu's first ...

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