Alright we're finally into the first sales post of the new year. I'm interested to see how the new year shapes up and also excited for the first year with sales posts from the start of the year. I'm also excited about how the R18 actress data is much more consistent and accurate now thanks to some changes to my ingestion process. It was a bit annoying and tedious having to rework a few things to make it happen so I hope it's all works out and is worth it.

As a side note I'm still waiting for DMM to publish the yearly digital sales data so unfortunately the yearly post will have to wait.

With that said let's jump into this month's data!

Top Actresses

Hana Himesaki right at the top is unsurprising if you've been following her lately. She went freelance and has even perhaps been going a little overboard. She's had about one release per day since going freelance. PER. DAY. That's insane if you ask me and exceeds some other times where we saw actresses go crazy freelance. I really hope she isn't going too overboard and is making sure she doesn't burn out. She's got two videos scheduled on the 7th and four on the 13th of February, not quite one per day but still quite a lot. Even every other day is still 180 videos and is nuts to think about. As somewhat of a fan I do think it's nice seeing a large amount of videos since I can pick a couple I think look great and see if I really like her or not. My guess is that she'll probably end up becoming an exclusive actress sometime in the spring. She'll just release a ton of videos, get everyone interested, then cash in the exclusive contract at her peak. Oppai would be a good fit, she's got the right body for them and I'm sure they're looking for someone after they had a few exclusives leave (like Julia and Matsuri Kiritani). Hopefully she's taking care of herself and all is well, but all I can say is count me in for busy Hana.

Further down the list we see Hibiki Natsume, a 2020 debut for SOD. I don't recall her being on any of the lists earlier though she might have been a bit further down on them. I'm guessing that once her generic content was over people started to enjoy her. Her December release actually looks quite good and I could see why people would be interested in that release. Maybe she'll costar with fellow SOD short-haired actress Mana Sakura, that might be fun and interesting pair.

Another interesting name on the list is Saeko Matsushita. She's effectively been retired for over half a year now (her last video was May 2020) but she's still popular. I decided to go check out her DMM rankings and we see something I think is quite interesting - her physical rankings are better than her digital rankings! Typically we see physical rankings correspond much better to new releases, we've seen many more debuts on the physical ranking charts and by comparison more of the all-time popular actresses on the digital sales chart. Saeko bucks that trend as her physical sales are not only better but she's been on the list an extra three months. This isn't the only time we've seen people remain popular after retiring (and we'll even look at the case for someone else later on in this report) but I find it really interesting when they remain popular. It just goes to show that some really are that well liked. I'm curious what this chart would look like a year from now, and who knows if she continues to stay retired (people in the industry are apparently hoping for an unlikely return).

Nanami Kawakami jumped quite a few spots this month, all the way into a top 25 spot. I can't say she's someone I know much about but she's been around for eight years now so she's quite the veteran. Being a dual exclusive for Alice Japan and Tameike Goro is a really interesting pairing since Tameike is very narrowly focused on plots whereas Alice Japan is pretty wide open. She was also featured in a best-of for Alice Japan this month alongside some other big names like Yuma Asami and Yui Hatano so that probably helped her as well. There is, however, probably a different reason that she's up this high that I'll point out a bit later on.

Maria Nagai also barely squeaked into a top spot. She had a couple of months earlier without releases, a little over two months near the end of the year, so it's good to see her back to regular releases. Maria is someone with such an incredible body that covers just look good no matter what you do. I don't know if either of these videos look particularly great but I wouldn't blame anyone if they bought it just looking at the cover. Yeah sure there's probably some Photoshop going on like there always is but Maria's body really is hentai in real life. Another interesting thing to point out here is the discrepancy on release dates. For some odd reason, R18 often releases videos a few days earlier than DMM does. Case and point with CLUB-626 above, the Japan release date is January 1st but on R18 it released on December 26th. It messes things up a bit for posts like this when trying to point out when a release was, I guess R18 is just trying to entice more sales.

We also see Honoka Tsujii off the physical sales and onto the digital sales. I can't begin to tell you why that is but either way she's still doing well for herself. Plenty of great releases both with and without some costars. I mean, how do you go wrong pairing up with someone like Nene Tanaka who crushed it last year? I've already seen her Wanz Factory release and although I can't say it's that good it's still nice to see her in that series. It's such a great series for so many reasons and it's no surprise she's finally starred in it. Speaking of that series, Ai Sayama is starring in it next month and I'm super excited for one of my favourites in one of my favourite series. Anyway, I don't see Honoka going anywhere anytime soon, she's got plenty of good videos and lots of releases still to come.

Nanami Matsumoto is the last name I'd like to point out. I've been very underwhelmed by her in recent months and yet she continues to be at the top of the chart. If there's one thing that she still has going for her it's her rocking body. Nice large breasts and a great thiccness to her, plus a face on the cuter side that fans seem to enjoy. I can't say that video looks particularly good but when they point out 100cm I cup... While 2020 was a down year in my opinion I'm hopeful she can bounce back in 2021 with some good releases.

Right off the bat we see Hitomi jumping up quite a few spots, 14 is a lot to climb! This is actually mostly due to the changes in my ingestion process. You see, R18 actually updates this data daily but I was only grabbing the data monthly before, and it just so happened Hitomi had a relatively poor ranking when I pulled the data. I'm now pulling the data daily and averaging it out, so the rating should be more accurate and less volatile. She was actually 17th on their list on the first of the month but that really doesn't accurately reflect what her real rank is, especially given that her newest release came out in the middle of the month. Indeed, we see her rank peak at 2nd about a week after the release. You would expect most people to purchase within the first few days, so of course her daily rank this far out would be a little lower. One might conclude 7th for Hitomi is kind of low given how popular she is in the west, but when you think about who's ahead of her it's not surprising. The top 5 didn't even change last month, just Yu and Yui swapping spots, so it's really not that crazy that Hitomi's in 7th place. Those actresses are not just popular internationally, they're popular domestically too, all placing in the top 10 on DMM's digital rankings.

Looking further down the list we see Asahi jumping into a top 25 spot. She's newly back from retirement, January having her second release. She's not quite back to her old self either physically or as a performer but I wouldn't expect her to be after two releases. I've seen both videos, they're not particularly special, but I'll take any Asahi I can get right now. Unlike some other recent actresses coming out of retirement like Minori Hatsune, Meguri, or Chitose Saegusa, Asahi is once again climbing to the top. I found it particularly interesting that names like Minori and Meguri never came back to the spotlight, especially given how popular they have historically been. Especially considering Meguri looked just as great as before she retired and Asahi has put on a couple of pounds, it just seemed strange to me. However, the big factor is that Asahi was popular even while she was retired. Both internationally and domestically Asahi flat out made the top 100 digital sales every month she was retired - talk about Mrs. Popular! I have no doubt we'll start seeing Asahi higher up on the list in future months, just a matter of her getting back into the swing of things and perhaps getting back to her old figure.

Top Videos

In second place we have FSDSS-169 starring Yume Nikaido and Kaname Momojiri , two 2020 debuts for Faleno. Both of them shared some time in the spotlight during the year so it's no surprise to me that the two together would be up at the top. One of the great things about pairing two debuts is that if you've only seen one of them it's a great opportunity to check out the other. I never did get around to watching Kaname last year and I've been looking to watch more Yume so this looks like the perfect video to watch. It looks really interesting too as the pair are competing against each other, a concept I think is criminally underutilized.

Riri Nanatsumori is also still running quite hot with a 6th place release. I can't say I'm a huge fan of her personally but I'm the exception it seems. She's been selling quite well and is easily one of the more popular debuts from 2020. Even with more generic stuff like this soapland release she's still topping the charts. I'm curious to see where she lands at the end of her first full year in AV, especially now that she's no longer the new girl and the initial buzz for the celebrity in AV has died down.

While our first place release, FKONE-001, might look like it's an S1 release that's really a red herring. You see, it's actually something called a fukubukuro, or in English, a lucky bag. They fill up the release with a bunch of random assortments trying to get people to buy it because it's such good value. Interestingly with this one they list out all the contents, typically the contents are randomized so you're basically playing an AV gacha game and getting only some of a wide range of options. If you look deeper into it there's 15 individual releases starring a ton of great names like Yua Mikami, Arina Hashimoto, Rara Anzai, Aika Yamagishi, Aoi Tsukasa, Maria Nagai, Nanami Kawakami, Nanami Matsumoto, and more. The reason why it looks like it's an S1 release is that it has more S1 titles than any other studio. It's hard not to want to grab something like this when it's the price of one new release, the value is absolutely insane on this. When you do the math it's less than $2/release which is something you generally don't see. Outside of DMM's 10 yen sale that's probably the cheapest you'll ever pay for a Yua Mikami video (all her old content is still $12 or more on R18). Anyway, as I pointed out earlier with Maria Nagai and Nanami Kawakami, this is probably a big reason why they're up so high on the charts. They're likely riding the waves of other bigger names but when you consider they were both in the top 100 last month it's not all that crazy.

The second place release FKMDZ-001 is the same as above, another lucky bag release. This one also stars plenty of great actresses including Shouko Takahashi, Kaho Imai, Minami Aizawa, Yui Hatano, Hibiki Otsuki, Kurea Hasumi, Yu Shinoda, and many more. I honestly wouldn't blame people for buying both of them there's just too much value not to. I'm so used to grab bags like this being filled with the leftovers they couldn't sell but they put so much good stuff in it that you simply can't help yourself. Sure, it might not be filled with the most recent releases (instead it appears to all be 2019 videos) but that's still good value to me. The price is about 3x any individual release that's in it, so as long as you can find three videos to watch (and with the casts that should be easy), you're getting 12 videos for free.

We also have an Asuna Kawai best-of title in 6th place. Asuna has been missing from action lately so I think fans are just happy to grab anything from her. She's still plenty active on social media and for a change it's not all just cat pics either. She's been posting some photos recently that make it seem like she went back to shooting but it's not entirely clear. I know a lot of people seem to think she retired but then you get hints like this and you're just not sure. I say it would be odd for Prestige not to have a retirement video for her. Given release timelines we won't find out until the spring so let's try and remember to check back then and see where she's at. Also interesting is that the most recent best-of is from November but even more interesting is that the one people are buying is older, from a year ago. Like I said, people think she may be done so they're seemingly just grabbing something of hers before she vanishes.

Unsurprisingly Kaoru Yasui is still in the top spot, this month even adding her non-bluray disc release alongside it. I'm going to guess that people really were as excited about it as I thought they would be. Muteki showing up out of nowhere is pretty crazy and with an actress like Kaoru no less. I guess I wouldn't have expected any less from a studio known for spotting talent but it's still unexpected. Can Kaoru make the list again next month? I honestly wouldn't be surprised.

In third place we have Karen Yuzuriha, a debut for Oppai. As I mentioned above, Oppai is really hurting for good talent these days having lost some big names that were exclusive for them. My take is that Oppai is hoping she turns out to be really popular because they could keep her exclusive for them. Oppai isn't a studio I know for doing well with debuts but third place behind Kaoru given the buzz from Kaoru is pretty good.

In fifth we have Meisa Kawakita retaining a top spot. Faleno is a studio that has been doing extremely well for themselves both with debuts and veterans alike. When they burst on the scene there was a lot of buzz about how they had snatched up top talent from S1 including Moe Amatsuka, Arina Hashimoto, and Nene Yoshitaka. However, they've also had a lot of good debuts come through their doors as well. Like we saw above, the video with Yume and Momojiri, two 2020 debuts from them, is evidence of that. We've also got names like Natsu Tojo who already graduated from Faleno and is one of the hottest freelancers right now.

First off we see Yua Mikami not only taking both the top spots but also taking them with the two top videos from last month. Kind of crazy to think that in a whole month we can get new videos and still people are buying older videos. SSNI-888 isn't even a new release, it came out in October! I guess this is more proof that Yua is the real deal, not that anyone needed it.

DPMI-055 is a clothed-fetish video that stars Yui Hatano and Kanako Ioka. If you recall all the way back to 2019 Kanako starred in race queen themed video along side the other half of Hibihata (Hibiki Otsuki) for the same studio. I think two-actress clothed-fetish videos are probably much more interesting than solo ones. I find the content often feels repetitive very quickly so the variety brought on by multiple actresses seems like it would be really great. I'm not sure I would say this video was anything insanely special having seen it but certainly the premise for it would make people believe it's going to be good. I will admit though that with two actresses it does feel a bit different from other similar videos.

There's also Hitomi's latest, PPPD-896, and it's not surprising at all it's on here. Unlike a lot of her videos from 2020 this video was quite good. I'd say it's in the top three counting all her 2020 releases. I find Oppai always manages to give Hitomi generic releases so when they give her a plot she can actually execute on the results are obviously going to be good. It's not as good as her GES but it's still pretty good and certainly worth the watch for any fan.

That's the end of this month's sales post. I'm glad I have a much better way of tracking R18 data now so I can provide something much more stable and we can see it's already giving us better results. I'm also curious to see how a couple names in particular shape up over the next few months, Hana Himesaki as the breakout debut and Asahi as a prominent redebut. I'll also be keeping my eye out on Muteki to see if Kaoru is the reemergence of their studio or just a random pickup out of nowhere. I'm hoping that the data missing for top 2020 actresses from DMM is available sometime later this month, they have some data up but not all of it is available. I may end up doing only what I can if it takes them too long to publish the remaining data but I'll hold off a little longer. Until next time!