Summer and the Olympics has come to Japan but it has been a slow news month this July. There are the usual transfers and rebranding, however it seems the summer heat has started a style trend among AV actresses. Starting this month I have added a section for other headlines to keep you up to date with other happenings in JAV.

Kitano Mina goes Freelance

In a tweet Kitano Mina has announced that she is going freelance. This is a change from her current status as an E-Body exclusive actress, which is also the company she debuted for. Mina was branded as the No. 1 hostess in Ginza in her debut just this April 2021. While it is common for actresses to move into freelance, some even debut as freelance actresses, it is still a bit interesting to talk about this move as it was done just 3 months into her JAV career.

Exclusive actresses are tied up via contract with a studio and only star in films for them, with possible exceptions such as collaborations with other studios. In exchange for exclusivity, the actresses are given a exclusive contract fee on top of performance fees for the films albeit the performance fee is a bit lower than average. The studios also treat their exclusives as signature actresses and would put more effort in promoting them and try to increase their popularity through handshake and autograph session events. The major downside with being exclusive actress is that it is harder to earn extra income as contracts usually only allow one film per month and also limits the number of events. Notable exclusive actresses are Yua Mikami for S1, Takahashi Shouko for Moodyz and Kana Momonagi for Idea Pocket.

Kitano Mina's captivating debut [EBOD-814]

Freelance actresses do not have any exclusivity contracts and can create films with any studio they want, the films they release are also less creatively constrained than what exclusive actresses do for their respective studios. They also have a potential to earn more as they can release multiple films a month and can appeal to more fans by the variety of their movies. The tradeoff is actresses lose the guarantee of releasing a film every month as studios might not be able to accommodate the shooting projects. They could also miss out on events as it would be the talent agency that would be mainly organizing the events and not the studios. Notable freelance actresses are Yu Shinoda, Ai Uehara and Eimi Fukada.

Although this move is quite risky, I think this move to freelance could only be good for Kitano Mina's situation. She is not as popular as I would like her to be and she has been fairly low in the sales charts. I also think that E-Body has relied on her "No. 1 hostess" brand a little too much for her films and having more creative freedom on her films would be great in boosting her popularity. The decision between going freelance vs. exclusive actress has always been a delicate balance between fame, creative freedom and potential income.

8manpro signs "new" actress Amakuni Ruru

Back in January, S1 announced the graduation of two of their exclusive actresses Hiyori Yoshioka and Nina Amin. Hiyori remained active on social media after her graduation and eventually transferred to Faleno after 3 months. Nina however vanished much like Saika Kawakita did a few years ago. There was no news about her next film or transfer and I even worried that S1 mistakenly tagged her last film as graduation instead of retirement.

Nina Amin's Graduation Film [SSNI-970]

However in late June, the 8manpro agency was teasing a new actress that they have signed and there were rumors that this was Nina Amin under a new name. This was late confirmed to be true when it was revealed to be her under her new name Ruru Amakuni. This comes 6 months after practically radio silence and graduation from S1, there was also no information as to why it took her so long to come back.

Although there is no information for this 6 month break we can speculate about this transfer, she was under Mines Pro agency while operating under Nina Amin and has now transferred to 8manpro. Name changes in JAV are pretty common as agencies, management, and naming rights can become a convoluted mess and rebranding under a new name with a "fresh start" is much easier. Contractual issues can also affect how long until actresses can return to work, a recent example is Arina Hashimoto taking a 4 month break highlighted in this article.

In my opinion that this rebranding is sort of weird as Ruru has only been in AV for a little over a year and has renamed after graduating from S1 immediately. This really hampered her growth in the industry as taking such a long break in releases is very risky. Even with all these worries though, I am still ecstatic for Ruru Amakuni's debut/comeback film which was revealed to be for Faleno to be released on August 17.

Actresses embrace short hair girl summer

The Japanese rainy season has gradually faded away halfway along June and slowly brought in an impending scorching summer. Regions of Japan are starting to get temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius and the combination of heat and humidity is quite uncomfortable for some people. With the summer weather it seems to have brought a hairstyle trend among AV actresses to survive the heat, the bob cut. Bob cut is a hairstyle where the hair is cut straight around the head and ends around the jaw level and I would like to highlight these actresses as some of them are quite surprising.

Yuna new hairstyle side by side with her debut film [STAR-854]

First up we have Yuna Ogura who we see in a bob cut for the first time. Yuna has gradually been growing her hair but it comes as a complete surprise that she would cut it to even shorter than her shoulder hair debut. She did seem to even cut her hair from her debut and it just grew longer and longer, in her latest VR work it was incredibly long.

Yua Mikami's bob cut

Her previous bob cut film [SSNI-780]

Next up we have Yua Mikami who is no stranger to the bob cut. Last summer she also cut her hair in a similar way and was highlight for me in her May 2020 release. I think it really suits her but she did say that this hairstyle is only temporary as she might grow it back over the summer.

Arina's lastest work where she still has her long straight hair [FSDSS-259]

Arina's new hairstyle

Last for this feature is shocking transformation of Arina Hashimoto. Arina has never rocked a short hairstyle but it really compliments her face here. She first tested out the bob cut with a few posts on SNS with a wig and eventually decided to do it for real. There are no films of her with this new hairstyle but it would be interesting to see how it translates into her JAVs, but there would be a part of me that would still miss her hair bouncing all over the place.

Other Headlines

This section is where I'll write down news that I don't have much to talk about or can't put an interesting angle on. This would usually just be headlines with little explanation. I'll also try to put all the retirements, transfers and revivals that I encountered over the month in this section.

Social Media and Other news

• Tsukasa Aoi re-opens her twitter account. She returns to twitter after shutting it down due to online harassment from her rumored affair with an actor.
• Nikaidou Yume creates an Onlyfans account and reaches 10k subs on her Youtube.
• Maria Nagai graces the cover of FHM.
• June Lovejoy was interviewed by Youtuber Sydsnap.
• Minami Kojima celebrates 10 years in AV and a lot of AV actresses greeted her for this milestone and you can check them out in this twitter hashtag.

Transfers and Revivals

• Rena Kodema transfers to Madonna after a year in S1.
• Eimi Fukada becomes a MOODYZ exclusive.
• Sara Kamiki seems to have graduated from Faleno as her next work is for MGS.
• Mari Takasugi silently made a comeback after retiring last march 2020

Retirments and Announcements

• Retirements: Mirei Aikawa, Sana Sanada, Shizuku Tsukino, Nozomi Haneda.
• Wakamiya Hono, Aoi Rena announced they will retire on December 31, 2021.