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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
When Anri Sakaguchi announced her marriage to a transgender man in June, it felt like just the latest chapter in the saga of a troubled celebrity, which had already encompassed arrests, a stint in porn, and time spent working as a hostess, stripper, and call girl.
Well, that sudden announcement that attracted a lot of attention quite quickly (in part because of Sakaguchi's previous notoriety, because she still enjoys a reasonable following, and because her husband is transgender) seemed troubled early on as Sakaguchi took to social media to vent her frustration about her new life ...
The recently retired porn star Nanami Kawakami has announced her pregnancy and marriage.
The 29-year-old shared the news with fans on August 1 via social media, though she says she actually married her partner on July 7. Her due date is next January.
The announcement tweet included charming pictures at the beach, with her partner (whose face is hidden) slipping a ring on her finger and Kawakami beaming at the camera with her ring on.
Kawakami, who has been candid about the financial pitfalls of her line of work, retired at the start of 2022 after a successful career lasting her ...
Here's that rare thing: a happy ending.
Anri Sakaguchi was initially famous for, well, being famous. She was the daughter of an actress, and gained some celebrity at an early age, joining the entertainment world in the late 2000s.
But financial debts forced her into porn, and she debuted in 2016 for Muteki, and went on to star in several AV titles (going by the name Anri). She also did at least one nude photo shoot during this time.
After retiring from porn, Sakaguchi (whose real name is Mizue Nozawa) ran into some trouble with the law, being arrested twice: once for attempting to exhort ...
