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 ...

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Japan's obscenity laws about not showing genitalia apply to you, even if you are supposedly an amateur and not a professional porn production company churning out DVDs and streaming releases. On June 30, Japanese media showed police giving 21-year-old Yukino Kimura the perp walk. Her crime? She had sold unedited videos on Twitter to people who sent her a message on the platform. Her account was apparently reinya3_, which is still active at the time of writing but has not been updated since early June. The cutie worked by day as a company employee in Kyoto but had a Twitter account ...

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Before we had streaming and downloadable formats, we had Blu-ray and DVD. And before that, back in some period lost to the mists of time -- namely, the 1980s and 1990s -- we have VHS video tapes. The arrival of VHS marked the full birth of the Japanese adult video industry, hence the name. The new format had incredible commercial potential for widespread distribution of content and meant hardcore porn was no longer a niche but an easily accessible, widely consumed form of porn (as opposed to the simulated sex in "pink" sexploitation, whose decline was hastened by AV). VHS was the heyday of ...

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The ero-cosplayer Yuko Haruno (春野ゆこ) will make her porn debut in an adult video that comes out digitally on May 30, followed by a physical release in July. The epic, 217-minute AV production (1STARS00799), filmed in 4K, from SODstar promises to make much of her pale skin and beautiful, massive breasts (supposedly an I cup). The publicity is also emphasizing Haruno's versatility with cosplaying a wide range of characters, which puts her in good stead for different porn scenarios. They say that all newbies looking to break into an industry now need a platform to sell ...

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Let's do a quiz. How well do you know your Japanese porn stars? Can you identify an adult video performer just from close-ups of their body parts? The pics show only key parts of the JAV performer's naked body (namely, breasts, butt, bush, etc.). No faces, natch. The "quiz" has been doing the rounds on the Japanese interwebs recently and we thought we would share it with readers so they can try it for themselves. If we're honest, we think this is quite hard. Scroll slowly to avoid showing the answer before you're ready to check! Here's the first question. So who is it? The answer is ...

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Ah, April. The glorious month of the cherry blossom (depending on where you are in Japan) and new starts, because both the academic and fiscal years begin. During April, youngsters up and down the land enter school or college. It is also the time of year when the fresh intake of corporate hires kick off their careers at the company they chose. These people are typically in their early twenties and straight out of college. Many corporations hold an entrance ceremony of some sorts to welcome the newbies, who sit in formal suits looking forward to becoming corporate drones. In the adult ...

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You would think that a company as large and successful as Soft on Demand would have an army of lawyers and legal advisors on retainer, and that they would consult them carefully when launching a major and costly new project. Or perhaps they did and their team simply wasn't doing their job right. Either way, our proverbial jaw hit the floor when we read this news. On March 16, it was announced by Tokyo Metropolitan Police that the 40-year-old CEO of SOD -- the biggest porn producer in Japan -- has been arrested for violation of the fuzoku law. You might presume this is related to ...

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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 ...

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The ex-porn star Kaho Shibuya is suing a production company for ¥7.4 million (about $55,000) for mental distress, infringement of privacy, and harm to her reputation after it neglected to handle unedited data properly, resulting in a leak of footage. In January 2022, Shibuya ascertained that two of her adult video releases made in September 2016 and released in 2017 had been uploaded to a video site in an unedited (uncensored) format not available commercially. In other words, the genitals on the content were not blurred out in the usual Japanese way (known as "mosaic," a custom in porn as ...

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The former HKT48 idol Haruka Kodama recently appeared on a TV variety show where guests were asked to give their insights on how a couple can improve their relationship. She gave one suggestion that shocked (or delighted) fans: she said that couples should watch porn together. On the ABEMA show on February 7, where couples get advice directly from guests in the studio, a female comedian called Renachiru complained that her sex life with her boyfriend (a former host) had declined. She suspects she might be to blame, because she admits imposing a lot of rules on her lover, including blanket ...

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