We are late to write about this but Japanese media reported in August that retired porn star Nao Oikawa (及川奈央) had divorced her husband of five years.
She married the man, who is six years her senior, in December 2016 but announced in early August that she had divorced in the spring.
Oikawa was a top adult video performer from 2000 to 2004. Since leaving JAV and now aged 40, she has carved out a modest second career as a "regular" actor, appearing in a major NHK period drama, among various other credits.
Fans have called for her return to the industry, especially now that she is ...
The former porn star and now manga artist Nayuka Mine has interviewed Nanami Kawakami, the actor who this year set up her own agency and announced her upcoming retirement from adult video.
In the article published in Spa!, the two share stories about how they got into porn, both coming from rural parts of Japan and going to not especially reputable high schools before they were scouted. Inevitably, as provincials, they were awed by the idea of moving to be the big city and earning big bucks as porn stars.
In Kawakami's case, it was in Fukui Prefecture. Though she says her first release ...
Retired adult video star Kirara Asuka is hoping to build a second career for herself (beyond her successful YouTube channel and apparel line, CPITO) with a new venture.
She is "producing" a hostess club, which is set to open on August 2 in Ginza, the district of central Tokyo known for its luxury boutiques, restaurants, and, yes, hostess bars.
The club, J-Vogue, is now recruiting its "cast" of hostesses, offering hourly (yes, hourly!) wages of up to ¥30,000.
Asuka, who retired from the JAV industry in 2020, made the announcement on her official social media accounts on Monday, and it was ...
Another week, another adult video debut. Another month, another gravure or music idol quietly switches to porn.
Recently we had Rin Arai (Rin Asahi), Shizuku Taiyo (Minamo), and Ruu Yumemi.
Here's the latest. The 25-year-old, angel-faced Moko Nakagawa (那珂川もこ) launched her career as a gradol in 2018 but the G-cup minor star seemed to vanish in April.
Then came the reason: she had joined the T-Powers agency and was relaunching her career as a porn star, now called Kanan Amamiya (天宮花南).
She celebrated with a nine-page hair nude (full-frontal) spread for the weekly magazine ...
Things don't happen in a vacuum: even if the new porn star isn't already famous and making a switch from gravure modeling or another career to JAV (e.g., Ruu Yumemi or Shizuku Taiyo), the chances are she was doing something beforehand.
And being an underground (chika) idol is one. These young women inhabit the groups that etch out a precarious living doing small gigs and events, attended by a modest but devoted following of fans.
The chika idol group Miramajo (みらまじょ) made a sudden decision to disband in January of this year, giving no formal reason -- meaning it was probably ...
What is is like to be the father of a porn star?
We once blogged about an interview with the wife of a prominent Japanese male porn performer as well as the brother of two gravure idols.
Now the 32-year-old retired top Japanese porn star Kirara Asuka has released a video on her YouTube channel -- it seems that many of the big JAV names are also becoming YouTubers -- all about her dad.
The 20-minute video (only in Japanese), which is the first time her 55-year-old father has made such a public appearance, was published on April 28 and has racked up nearly 750,000 views.
It takes a while ...
In our continuing survey of what gradols and porn stars do after leaving their jobs, we now have the example of one of the most prominent JAV performers of recent years: Ai Uehara.
Having just won a high-profile diversity award, Ai is wasting no time in launching the next stage in her working life.
She has just started a crowdfunding campaign, aire (pronounced "eye re"), for a new of health and beauty supplement brand called AminoR-20+Zn. As the name suggests, the supplement contains zinc and 20 types of amino acids. The project is produced by Ai in partnership with a corporation, ...
Former top adult video star Ai Uehara is about to kick off her second career with a crowdfunding campaign later this month. The details are still a little slim, though it seems to involve launching her own photography brand. We hope to report more next week.
In the meantime, Ai has been in the news for another reason: she won the Miss iD 2021 award.
The 28-year-old was selected from 2,676 candidates and 194 finalists for the prize, which is now in its ninth year.
The finalists had to attend interviews to win over the the judges. Following auditions held online last August, the event to ...
It's a crowded market for minor celebrities and idols, especially if you come from the competitive ranks of AKB48 or its sister groups.
While a few former members have gone on to have major careers -- mostly the original generations of idols -- hundreds of others have faded from view or pursued careers like porn that they perhaps did not expect (but for which we are grateful).
That said, we think this is the first time we've heard of a former idol from the AKB-related groups turning to crime to make ends meet.
Juna Yamada (山田樹奈) was arrested on March 16 in Nagoya for fraud, ...
What can gravure idols do after their careers dry up? We have chronicled many intriguing responses to this classic conundrum. But how about becoming a politician?
That's what the one-time gradol and tarento Chisato Morishita is apparently trying to do.
Originally a race queen, Morishita was a big star in the gravure world and a fairly regular face on TV in the 2000s, winning popularity in bikini shoots that accentuated her slinky body and F-cup bust. After several photo books, however, her career stalled as she entered her thirties. She instead started teaching golf and published a novel in ...
