Interview with translator and porn star Riasu Mizutani

Regular readers will remember the porn star Riasu Mizutani, the translator who moonlights in adult video (or vice versa).

She was recently included in a book about intelligent JAV performers but also announced her pregnancy, which is likely to mean the end of her career (about 17 credits and counting).

Bunshun Online recently published a two-part interview with Mizutani, who was born in Boston, was raised partly in the UK (where her father was working), and made her debut in the industry in 2023.

In it, she talks about her comfortable upbringing and what she was like as a child, which seems fairly typical for a boyish and confident young lady. She also mentions her ability to blend in with different culture.

When I traveled to Europe and was asked where I was from, I replied “London” and people said, “That’s London English.” I was so used to it that even now, when I go abroad, I have the special ability to blend in with the local young people. When I go to China, I can speak to them in Chinese. [. . .] No matter where I go, I don’t look like a tourist, so I’m a mysterious Asian.

Things get more interesting as she gets older and the interview focuses on her experience of education in two countries, including the different pedagogical styles.

She passed the entrance exam for Keio University, one of the most prestigious colleges in Japan, though only attended for a single semester before transferring to an American institution, Grinnell College in Iowa.

After returning from the States, she took the test for Keio once again and got into the Faculty of Business and Commerce. She is still technically a student there, though currently on leave due to starting a family. She jokes in the interview that she doesn’t know when she will finally stop being a student.

In the States, she particularly valued doing gender studies.

As she explains in the interview, this is related to her decision to launch a career in adult video, where publicity has emphasized her 140 IQ.

Before doing adult video, I explored various underground erotic scenes and experienced prostitution from my time in college, but the motivation behind those experiences was my major in gender studies at Grinnell College. I always felt like a stray cultural anthropology fieldworker. As an outsider with no work experience, I thought something was wrong about continuing to study sex work and Japanese sexual culture. I personally found books written by people who were integrated into that world more interesting, so I wanted to immerse myself in a world that I could immerse myself in.