Is retired porn star Yua Mikami dating two male singers?
September 11, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
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 ...
An ex-porn star on Japanese adult industry street scouts
September 3, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
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 ...
Yua Mikami releases final porn video before retirement
August 14, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
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 ...
Interview with retired Japanese porn star Kaho Shibuya about new book
July 18, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
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 ...
Ex-porn star Ai Uehara releases AI photo book with digitally generated version of herself
July 4, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
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 ...
Japanese porn legend Yua Mikami to retire after eight years of AV releases
March 15, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
On Monday came news that Yua Mikami is to retire from porn after a stunning eight-year run in the industry.
The announcement isn't a huge surprise, given her age (she turns 30 in August) and length of time in the industry, plus Mikami had also done other things in parallel with her adult video performing, such as being a member of a K-Pop music group (comprising only porn stars), selling NFT art, and designing her own apparel.
As regular readers and JAV fans will know well, Yua Mikami used to be a member of the AKB48 spin-off group SKE48. She is one of many AKB-related idols who branched ...
Aya Takanashi, a former porn star turned scriptwriter and columnist
March 9, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
As regular readers will know, one of our preoccupations is the afterlives of idols: what happens to music, gravure, and adult video idols after they retire?
Aya Takanashi is a freelance columnist and writer. She claims she made her debut as a porn star in 2016 because "I had nothing else to do" and then left the industry after two and a half years. In a recent article for Spa!, she says she was able to return to the "daytime world" (meaning the non-porn world) as if nothing had ever happened.
After her AV career ended, she worked for a while as a scriptwriter for social network games before ...
Former porn star Kaho Shibuya sues production company over data leak of old adult videos
February 20, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
The ex-porn star Kaho Shibuya is suing a production company for ¥7.4 million (about $55,000) for mental distress, infringement of privacy, and harm to her reputation after it neglected to handle unedited data properly, resulting in a leak of footage.
In January 2022, Shibuya ascertained that two of her adult video releases made in September 2016 and released in 2017 had been uploaded to a video site in an unedited (uncensored) format not available commercially. In other words, the genitals on the content were not blurred out in the usual Japanese way (known as "mosaic," a custom in porn as ...
YouTuber mocks ex-porn star Kirara Asuka for plastic surgery, gets legal threat
November 22, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
We love parody -- and so does both the Japanese adult toys industry and the porn industry.
But when does spoofing go too far?
The comedian/YouTuber Chikuwa, who has over 180,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, was recently forced to apologize after she mocked the ex-porn star Kirara Asuka about having plastic surgery.
The controversy started on November 14, when Chikuwa posted a video in which she did an impression of Kirara Asuka. The former adult video idol, however, was less than amused, and tweeted that she was beginning legal action.
Chikuwa then responded with an apology video ...
Japanese porn star Noa Aizawa arrested in Hong Kong for prostitution
October 21, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
Hong Kong have cracked down on foreign sex workers, arresting numerous women on October 17.
According to local news reports, they included the former Japanese porn star Noa Aizawa (愛沢のあ), who has been working as a prostitute from a hotel in the city.
Police have targeted a prostitution ring that was promoting Aizawa's services as a sex worker on social media by using her past adult videos as promotional material. Along with Aizawa, another woman arrested at the hotel was from Thailand. They both entered Hong Kong on travel visas.
In all, 16 women were arrested in a series of ...