Profiling Riri Koda, retired porn star and top Japanese exotic dancer
We spotted a nice article about Riri Koda over on Nippon.com.
Koda is a former adult video performer from the 1990s, who then switched to pinku eiga (pink film, or softcore porn) in 2005. Since 2015, she has performed as an exotic dancer at the few remaining strip clubs in Japan — there are now just 20 in the country, down from some 300 in the mid-1970s heyday.
But interest in the clubs is growing again, including from increasing numbers of female patrons on the circuit.
“Each club has its own allure,” Koda says. “Some are small, but may have better lighting. I try to take advantage of the different features when I’m dancing.”
It keeps the fortysomething busy, working every day and dashing between the clubs scattered across Japan for rehearsals and nightly gigs. She also creates her own dance routines.
“Dancers usually strike poses that show off their most attractive side, but I prefer power poses,” she declares. “I design my program for the benefit of the patrons and to show my appreciation to them for making the effort to come and watch me.” For Koda, exotic dancing and striptease is an act of self-expression as much as for the benefit of the audience.
The profile also looks back at how Koda got her start in AV.
“In those days, a junior college-educated office worker like me didn’t make much,” she recalls. “I only ever planned for adult movies to be a side job, but it turned out to be good money. […] I was nervous about word getting out, but I took care not to appear in posters or magazines to keep my work a secret.”
Word did get out, though, and her regular job asked her to quit adult video because she chose to devote herself full time to porn.
Over the course of her pink film career — another industry that, like striptease, is slowly dying — she appeared in more than 120 titles in 10 years, most of them on film rather than digital video. It was from this time that she was known as Riri Koda (倖田李梨), having used other professional names during her AV career like Saki Sakai or Miki Iwashita.
Read the full article on Nippon.com.
