Aya Takanashi, the former porn star turned columnist on all things JAV, is back with another article about the porn industry. This time, she's spilled the beans on why some performers have rules about which other performers they are willing to work with. In her latest column for the monthly magazine Spa!, she enumerates some of the major reasons for why co-performers are "banned" by certain AV stars. This is not insignificant, since while the AV industry is flooded with thousands of female performers, the number of men performing regularly is tiny. If you get on the bad side of one of ...

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Last year, police in Hong Kong cracked down on foreign sex workers, arresting several women including former Japanese porn star Noa Aizawa. It's well known that active and former adult video performers do sex work. It can be especially lucrative to engage in such work outside Japan, particularly other parts of Asia, where JAV is immensely popular. If your career is flagging in Japan or you want a change of pace, you can enjoy a good lifestyle with affluent clients abroad. It seems that situation in Hong Kong is much the same, with media reporting the arrest on September 5 of 11 members of a ...

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The tabloids are all of a flutter over rumors that recently retired top porn star Yua Mikami (30) is sleeping with not one but two boy band singers. According to the Weekly Bunshun, Kento Senga (32) of Kis-My-Ft2 spent around three hours at Mikami's apartment on the night of August 31. A few hours later, he was apparently followed by Kento Nagao (21) of Naniwa Danshi. The report ignited something of a Twitter firestorm in early September. It's not the first time that Mikami has found herself at the center of such romance rumors. She was previously said to be dating singer Yuya Tegoshi and ...

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Japanese adult video fans will probably already know who June Lovejoy is, one of the most successful foreign performers working in the JAV industry. Lovejoy made their porn debut in early 2020. Not content to sit on her AV laurels, Lovejoy newest passionate project is now up and running. They have launched a rival to Tokyo Kinky. Just kidding. Tokyo Love District is (in Lovejoy's words) an online "guide of Tokyo and Japan in general with a focus on people working in the Japanese adult industry, JAV industry members, fetishists, artists, models, and anyone that is working in the unseen scene ...

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VR Instant Box Girls stars Ichika Matsumoto and, as the name suggests, is intended for watching with a VR device like the Oculus. As far as we can tell, this is a new series of AV by SOD Create and we presume will include other entries with different stars. Released on August 7, the 87-minute AV (13dSDVR01282) has an eye-catching cover with Matsumoto as a female action figure in a blister pack with accessories like lubricant and vibrators. Needless to say, the action figure is naked and doesn't come with any costume parts! This is recreated in life-size in the AV, which is filmed in a ...

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As announced earlier in the year, the immensely popular Japanese porn star Yua Mikami is to return in August and her final release has just come out from S1 No. 1 Style. The 147-minute release (SSIS00834) comes out on physical format on August 15, following its streaming release at the end of last week. The JAV stunner turns 30 this month and has enjoyed an eight-year career, which is very long by industry standards. She is also probably the most successful and famous example of a Japanese music idol who switched to adult video; in her case, SKE48, where she was known as Momona ...

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Japan's porn giant Soft on Demand seems finally to have recovered from one of the most bizarre and shocking screw-ups in their history. SOD Land in Kabukicho suddenly closed down in March this year after police discovered it was violating the law on fuzoku ("amusement businesses") establishments, which covers hostess clubs, brothels, and so on. Billed as an "adult theme park," SOD Land allows visitors to meet and interact with actual Japanese porn performers (and others like sex workers and hostesses) in various ways across five floors, including bars and a space for viewing performers in ...

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Kaho Shibuya was a big name in porn during her time as a performer and she's also a rare example of someone who has managed to retain her fame since retiring from adult video in 2018 by carving out a successful second career. She also takes no prisoners, prepared to spill the beans on the dark side of Japanese porn, and sue a production company for leaking her old videos. Now active as a cosplayer, Twitch streamer, and author, Shibuya speaks English fluently, which has helped her a lot to keep an international profile. She recently sat down with Tokyo Weekender for an interview about her ...

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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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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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