After they retire, most JAV porn stars disappear into obscurity, though a prominent handful have remained in the public eye in other roles, such as writers and photographers.
Yua Mikami is pursuing a career in modeling and apparel, though has faced some criticism over her association with other brands, and former adult video star Minami Aizawa recently announced she would no longer use her performer name in her post-JAV career.
Among the many things that porn stars have expertise at, understanding about hygiene, physical health, and STDs and STIs surely ranks near the top.
As regular ...
The former Japanese porn star Minami Aizawa has announced that she is to go on hiatus and fully retire her old performer name.
Aizawa worked in AV from 2016 to 2023, and has continued to use her name since retiring.
However, in social media posts on August 25 to her hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and X, the 28-year-old announced in English and Japanese that she would stop using the name Minami Aizawa because she was fed up with the limitations of being always introduced as a "former porn star."
It makes her feel like she is, in her words, "clinging to past glories" and ...
When Yua Mikami retired last summer at the age of 30 and after carving out one of the most successful careers in Japanese porn ever, speculation was rife over what she would do next.
For a start, she appeared to date two male celebrities at the same time.
She has since focused on developing a line of apparel under the brand name MISTREASS, as she had announced she would last year (and a long-term passion project for her). She models for the brand too.
Sadly, some things have not gone quite to plan.
Mikami announced on social media yesterday that she was going to take action against the ...
As regular readers will know, we are as interested in the current professional activities of Japanese porn stars as we are in their post-career lives: What do they do are they retire from adult video? What jobs do they do? Can they settle down with a partner and start a family?
An interesting example of this is Suzumi Suzuki, who used to work as a porn star under the name Ruri Satoh in the mid-2000s.
She then got a graduate degree from the University of Tokyo (she also holds an undergraduate degree from the equally prestigious Keio University) and launched a career as a sociologist and ...
Porn star Nanami Ogura (小倉七海) may still be just 21 years old but has already amassed a prodigious output of releases since making her debut with S1 No. 1 Style in September 2021, including multiple bestselling AVs as well as two print photo books and several digital ones.
But that all seemed like a flash in the pan when she suddenly announced her retirement in October 2022, leading some to speculate it was due to the constraints placed on the JAV industry since the introduction of new porn legislation.
Thankfully, Ogura's retirement didn't last and she was soon back, under a ...
Former top adult video star Sola (Sora) Aoi has given her first on-camera interview in four years.
Once the most famous Japanese porn star, and popular also in other parts of Asia, Sora Aoi announced her marriage at the start of 2018 to DJ Non.
When she then announced she was pregnant at the end of that year, she experienced quite a lot of abuse on social media. Despite not appearing in porn since 2011, many trolls still criticized her for becoming a mother, saying it was "sad for the children."
Now aged 42, Sola Aoi has two kids with DJ Non. She gave birth to twins in May 2019.
She ...
The former Japanese porn star Shunka Ayami is said to be dating the male singer Ryoichi Tsukada.
The 36-year-old Tsukada is a member of the boy band ABC-Z, which is part of the roster of troubled (and recently renamed and soon-to-dissolve) agency Johnny & Associates.
Ayami reportedly introduced Tsukada to her parents last month, and they have supposedly taken overseas trips together.
Weekly Bunshun claimed the scoop when earlier this week it published photos of the two together traveling by Shinkansen. They certainly make a glamorous couple.
Tsukada took a well-publicized break ...
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 ...
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 ...
Earlier in the year, we wrote a short profile about Aya Takanashi, the former porn star who is now a columnist.
Her articles in Spa! are always worth a read, usually introducing certain aspects about the adult industry and her insights on them.
We spotted her recent piece about street scouts (known in Japanese as "scout man"). Such suited, flashily dressed figures are often seen hanging around certain neighborhoods of a big city. In Tokyo, this often means Kabukicho.
They go up to women and try to entice them with offers of well-paid work. Sometimes this is porn work, though the true ...
