Porn star Cocona Yuzuki spills dark secrets about seiyuu casting couch

One of this blog’s ongoing obsessions is the open secret in the Japanese idol world, be it gravure, music, porn, or general tarento and celebrities: the casting couch.

And it really is rampant, it seems, in almost all corners of the industry. Even among seiyu/seiyuu (voice actresses).

The “sexy actress” (a euphemism for porn star used by the mainstream media) Cocona Yuzuki recently shared some of these secrets on television.

A former chika (underground) idol, seiyuu, and now adult video star, Cocona (or Kokona) Yuzuki appeared on a late-night TV Tokyo show on June 6.

She explained that if you are an “ex-entertainer” making your debut in porn, your fee per video release may be as high as ¥800,000, whereas an amateur making her debut may only get ¥200-300,000.

It works both ways. Many porn stars, major and minor, are also working in the sex industry. This gives them extra cash and the club will love it, too, because they can charge patrons more. An hour with a regular lady might be just ¥8,000, but if she is listed as a “porn star” the fee can jump to ¥40,000.

Yuzuki also confessed to having worked at a “kosai club” (交際クラブ) or dating club, which are part of the sex industry but a bit more high-end (kind of like “enjo kosai” compensated dating). You will pay for “dates” and it’s not always clear how things will go after the food and drinks are done. Again, though, it seems that certain well-known idols are earning extra cash from such work, which can net you as much as ¥200,000 for a single dinner date if you are famous. We recently wrote up a post with estimates for how much a date with a star would cost.

She also claimed that the seiyuu industry is actually the “darkest” in terms of makura eigo (casting couch or sleeping with people voluntarily to get ahead) practices.

Yuzuki is an intriguingly complex figure, since she has been vocal in the past about coercion and abuse among idols, but still made the decision to expand her own multi-hyphenated career into porn in 2019.