JAV Sales Report - January 2024

Welcome to the first 2024 sales report. I know, it's February and we've gotten one already this year, but don't forget we have a one month lag, so this is January's data.

Before I get fully into this I want to comment again on how someone at DMM is slacking off. They haven't updated some of the monthly pages in months and as a result we continue to have stale data. For this month I'm going to do something a bit different where I post the top 100 for the data that did get updated and comment only on that. Hopefully that will make for a more fun post as it will also give us the chance to look at a few actresses we often don't see highlighted.

With that said let's jump into it.

Ema Yano is a new debut and is starting strong in a top 10 position. They're positioning her as a gravure idol turned pornstar which is one of the more common entries into porn. Ema looks decent enough, decent boobs, cute round face, enough there for sure. I don't know that she'll compete with the likes of Yotsuha Kominato in our top spots, and honestly I don't think she's likely to compete on my list the way Rei Kamiki or Momona Koibuchi do, but I'm also not Japanese so my radar for what the domestic market likes is kind of far off. I'll be keeping a bit of an eye out for her as the months go by.

Ruisa Totsuki is an actress having a strong career right now. When she first left IP it was a little shaky but right now her career is as strong as ever with her peaking this month in our top 10. As a 2022 debut the focus was all on her physique but after having a year under her belt she's now gone in the direction of actually interesting content to compliment that. The left video is a deepthroat special and the right video is a lesbian video with Waka Misono. Both are excellent content that highlight just how far she has come as an actress and why she's so high on the list. It wouldn't surprise me to see her fall off the list again just because it would be rare to see content this good in a short time span but who knows, maybe this is the new Ruisa we can expect and we'll see tons of amazing content here on out.

Speaking of actresses with an insane glow up we have Mary Tachibana up a whopping 54 spots into 12th place. Some may know her as an industry veteran who debuted nearly 10 years ago, others might know her as being a member of JAV idol group Black Diamond, but regardless know is her time to shine. I think she's looked the best she has ever looked and the industry is responding the exact way they should. Wanz Factory 10 Minute entry? Yes please. Even better is her duo with Kyoko Maki, which if it's anything like the FFM threesome stuff I've seen from Kyoko in the past that features lesbian action, it's sure to be some quality stuff.

Nao Jinguji is a bit of a surprise to be within our top 25. She's certainly present quite a bit but always seems to be more of a middle of the pack. I guess this maid content she's featured in with her Moodyz release this month really shows how much of a difference good content can make even for a consistently good actress. Looking at these two photos I have to ask: do you want the front or the back? Nao's a pretty woman but I have to go with the back myself, Nao's ass is top 10 all-time material. I suppose I'm also not the biggest maid fan out there and her maid outfit just won't outshine how insane her ass is. At any rate, Moodyz seems to be the better home for her and I hope they can find some more visually appealing videos to let her star in, leaving the dramas for Madonna.

Erika Ichigo is a 2023 debut I had high praise for, however we see her dropping a whopping 46 spots this month. I tell ya, sometimes the themes just don't hit. I don't think the video looks bad on the surface and the theme (ベロチュー, which I had to look up and find out it means French kissing) is a theme I think can suit her. If you watch the trailer or look at the screenshots though, it's just not the video for probably anyone. It even features three guys trying to drop spit into her mouth simultaneously, I mean who comes up with trash content like that? It's a shame because Erika seems so much better than this. Hell, even the cover makeup seems bad on her and I don't know who approved all of this. Hopefully next month has her bouncing back because I personally really want to see her in something better.

Yotsuha Kominato continues to be a popular debut but surprising is way outside a top spot this month dropping 65 places. Part of me feels like this is just the natural consequence of being at the top for so long but it also feels like perhaps a mismatch on themes. She tends to be more popular when they point her out as a more glamorous actress living a fancy life compared to the more casual appearance in this one. Maybe it just doesn't resonate as strongly with fans? I can't say personally as I have yet to watch her (and I'm not sure I ever will, she's not really my type), but we'll have to see if she can keep it up in future months.

On a side note, I'm really disappointed in these images from SOD. Did you really have to watermark it with "Sample"? Really? It looks so tacky that I just can't fathom who in their right mind thought it was a good idea. These are the official images I got off of DMM, just for the record. Do better SOD, do better.

Niko Kawagoe is an S1 debut with an interesting culinary background. I always take those backgrounds with a grain of salt but it's fun to see more interesting stories. When you get a nursery school teacher like we saw with Yuri Manase, okay whatever you don't need really have anything visually to do. With Niko we have her actually cooking not just in these stills but in the trailer as well. It's hard for me to tell if she's a professional chef, she could just as easily be your average home cook given she's not doing some Michelin Star plating. I will say that it creates a nice juxtaposition, the idea of a pretty average profession turning into a porn actress is something that just works. I'm personally not that sold on her especially as she has to compete with so many great 2023 debuts from S1, but it will be interesting to see if she's a fad or has some staying power. For reference, she debuted at 16th place this month, behind two of our 2023 S1 debuts and five S1 actresses in total.

Madonna has really been up to some great stuff with their 20th anniversary content and this is absolutely the pinnacle of it. It's a great old time with a few group scenes ranging from 3-5 actresses up until we get to the final orgy with an insane 21 actresses! This is part two of their major project and is even better than the first one. It features all sorts of great lesbian content both in some of the individual scenes and the finale. It really is quite incredible and something I would highly recommend. For anyone interested in diving a little deeper I would recommend checking out Fried Chikan's post on the two mega orgy videos.

Ren Gojo is finally back in action. Yay! This calls for a celebration. Her debut video was so laughably underwhelming with how hard they tried to keep her tits under wraps. I mean I get what they were doing but as a fan I was somewhere between disappointed and angry at them. This time they're letting them be front and center and all I can say is the promo pics speak for themselves. Is it a bit exaggerated? Sure. Do I still think they're quite nice? Definitely. I don't know if this is the video I would want to watch as a Ren fan but also the several month void undoubtedly left a lot of people wanting, enough to make them grab this anyway. If you want to see my full review of Ren don't forget to check out my debut review of her!

Mana Sakura is the next on the list to star in a neet video. Give her a bottle of coca cola, a video game controller, a messy room, and you're good to go. This video highlights both everything that I love in JAV and everything I hate in JAV. On the one hand I greatly appreciate how they are willing to do interesting themes and speak to more average people, especially when hikikomori (shut-ins) are a thing in Japan that many of their viewers may relate to. Seeing it from a female perspective certainly does look interesting. At the same time every studio seems to be following suit on it. Last month I watched Himeka Iori's for Idea Pocket and I know Yuria Yoshine also had one for Lunatics. We see this trend all too often where someone does something and everyone copies off them. It's definitely that "can I copy your homework?" meme where you ask them to change it up a bit. It's a little too obvious when they all start flooding in and as a viewer I think I'm honestly on the side that it's bad. I can see doing a video or two while the iron is hot but I think I'd rather wait a few months between watching myself. Like maybe I watch Himeka Iori's, then maybe watch Mana Sakura's because I like her, but after a couple I'd probably just start passing on them even if I was decently enjoying them. I will say that I have more faith in Mana to do a good job than Himeka but I'm not convinced yet that this theme will be worth it when some of the results are quite poor.

If you go look at the cover you'll notice something interesting on Rin Hachimitsu's release: it says AI in big letters. Everyone's going crazy about AI now, even JAV started finding ways to do AI reality porn. This time around it's a simple theme that Rin is a sex robot, or I guess sex AI. I will admit that some of these stills paint a striking visual. She certainly has a plastic look to her that, combined with some great skin, could convince someone she was an AI. I guess I mean that at least compared to the average actress who will look way more real than her, Rin fits this theme visually about as well as anyone. I can't really say that I expect it to be a good video but I think removing some of Rin's mediocre performing might yield good results. I expect her to be a lot more stoic in a good way, so long as she doesn't get to Aka Asuka levels. And either way it's been a while since I've run into a video like this and it might be the right time to check one out.

Down in the final few spots we have Nozomi Shirahama's debut in 91st place. I'll spare you a trip to Google and let you know they are 100J. I'll also spare you another trip to my blog post (or, you know, you could go check it out) that her 100J tits are not quite as big as Himeka Iori's 100L tits. That being said I am a fan of more busty women and Idea Pocket feels like they're compensating for the void they had for a while. For a roster that has about 15-20 actresses on it I think having a couple that are my speed is a pretty reasonable amount. Sure, they have others with nice boobs like Momo Sakura, Sayaka Nanjo, and another recent debut in Mitsuri Nagahama, but there's just something about a boob that needs two hands to hold that I just can't say no to. I'd always be up for them getting more like her on their roster but I'm content right now and hopefully she sticks around for a bit like Himeka has thus far.

Don't forget to give Bookmate some love and check out their site!

Mitsuri Nagahama (長浜みつり) has been doing incredibly well for herself, first on Bookmate and a top 5 spot on DMM. To me it seems incredibly obvious, she has nice boobs and is quite pretty. At this point I have her high up on my list to watch in 2024 and I can just only hope I have my pick of the litter in half a year when I start watching debuts.

Satomi Ishibashi (石橋さとみ) and Hibiki Amemiya (雨宮ひびき) look like two promising debuts as well. They might not be as pretty as Mitsuri but they can certainly hold their own with her body (and are perhaps even better. The two of them certainly seem like they could make the list, but spots 22 and 23? Just like Mitsuri this is partially due to a sale that you can see here. I went and checked the price of Satomi's on DMM to do a quick comparison and we get some interesting results.

Satomi's video released on Bookmate on 1/23 and is on sale until 2/5. It's priced at 1500 JPY at 30% putting it at about 2143 JPY normally. That's very interesting compared to DMM that sells it at 2273 JPY after a 35% sale which prices it originally at 3498 JPY. DMM's sale is on until 2/15 so an extra 10 days at the discounted rate. That's an insane difference that Bookmate can turn a profit while selling it cheaper than DMM even disregarding the sale. I think a fair few people know the kind of rates DMM charges for releases but this is actually kind of crazy. Studios are probably out there selling at the same price to every distributor and Bookmate just decides to sell more volume by undercutting the competition. Honestly, they undercut DMM so much that if DMM wasn't the Amazon of Japanese porn they'd be out of business.

On a related note these sales also explain why we often have inflated results from debuts. I'm betting they use debut videos as somewhat of a loss leader to attract people. It's like Costco's rotisserie chicken, though at DMM's prices they're probably still making bank.

Kana Kusakabe (日下部加奈) is showing some strong success at 27th place and I'm all for it. I've been saying she's super underrated for a while, you can't just be that well rounded with amazing boobs and not be popular. I've been really digging her being freelance and working with studios like Oppai, Wanz Factory, Fitch, and this time around Honnaka. Considering she was in Attackers hell for a while it's nice to see her getting the right appreciation. She still needs some time to build up a catalogue of releases but with stuff like this it won't take very long.

Okay I know what you're thinking: why does Yu Kawakami (川上ゆう) have yogurt in her mouth? Wait that's not what you're thinking? Well, either way the video is about Yu swallowing her stepson's semen. Leave it to JAV to come up with creative themes like this, especially all the creative ways he gets her to taste it. I feel like this is the interesting kind of content Yu needs to really shine these days. She hasn't really had the former career she used to in quite a while, and I think if you were newer to JAV you'd have no idea she's in the top 5 all-time for number of releases. Yes, she has worked that long and that hard. These days she is releasing one, maybe two videos a month, and all for lower tier studios, so the quality just isn't there. Yu is honestly an actress I wouldn't have expected to see on this list but I'm glad to see a true 20 year veteran like her get a bit of a spotlight.

Natsuki Hoshino (星乃夏月) is someone I wrote off before when she retired rather early in her career. Turns out it wasn't a retirement and she's been back in action. The pair of videos above aren't her latest but having double hentai adaptations in a single month is nice. She certainly has the body for it, especially when she fills out the part of a busty schoolgirl quite well. My opinions when I first reviewed here were largely predicated on her face not being that great which hentai adaptations might be a good option to watch since there may be various costumes to make her look different. Whether you like her or not, whether you agree with me or not, I think we can all agree that her career has started blooming and I'll be curious to see where it lands and if I give her another chance.

Arina Arata (新ありな), perhaps better known by her old moniker Arina Hashimoto (橋本ありな), rose to make our list this month. She has always confused me as an actress because I think people like her in this kind of content despite her not really coming off that way. Definitely more like a Minami Aizawa (相沢みなみ) type where the point is for her to be innocent and naughty at the same time and Minami just always won out over Arina (including when they were side by side in Beauty Venus). This month's video might be something special though because it's directed by none other than my favourite director: Nao Masaki. It's one of those weird videos where you don't quite care for the actress but recognize the potential and get drawn in. I doubt I will watch it myself but if there was ever going to be an Arina video that would convince me to watch her again, this would be the one.

Yua Mikami (三上悠亜) has garnered a lot of attention lately with her comments about an ideal marriage partner and dating a fan. She mentioned she wouldn't want to date an obsessed fan and I can certainly understand why. It must be tough for someone like her to find true love in a world where so many people recognize her as the top pornstar in a country of over 125 million people. Now that she's retired maybe that can change, but one thing won't be changing soon: her fame in the porn industry. She's still going to remain in a top spot for some time to come, especially as S1 keeps putting out omnibus titles like the one this promo pic comes from. I expect her to continue to show up on our sales report for a while, wouldn't be the first time we've seen retired actresses. She's down 30 spots on DMM's list which puts her just outside the top 50, but that's still a healthy spot for a retiree like herself. Maybe sometime in the future we'll have to take an actual deep dive into how some retirees have fared.

Like Yua, our 93rd place actress Yui Hatano (波多野結衣) is no stranger to the claim of top pornstar in the country. I could see you arguing for Yua based on her success but it's hard to argue against the career Yui has had. Hatachan has been around for 15+ years now and has more videos than any other actress out there. Even though she's not pumping out videos like she used to and isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread anymore she still manages to be a top actress after all these years. This time around I would guess this more interesting video starring Lauren Karen (ローレン花恋) is helping her out. With Yui's resume she needs more interesting videos to keep fans coming back and a lesbian video with a white woman would do it. Alright, alright, please don't get mad at me Lauren fans, she is half Japanese, but as she put it "I'm a hafu that looks more white than Japanese, so let me use two generic white girl names" as a friend of mine mentioned to me. Whether it's true or not I could see it because I honestly didn't realize she was half Japanese the first time I saw her either. Anyway, the point isn't to focus on Lauren looking white but what it takes for someone of Yui's caliber to stay on top these days. She made her fame by being the greatest workhorse the industry has ever seen and I'm glad she can still compete without overworking herself. She's still a favourite of mine but there's a vast difference in her works now compared to years past. Hopefully we continue to see Yui get some more interesting content and stay in our top 100.

That's all for me this time folks. I'm still kind of annoyed DMM hasn't been updating data but it does give us a great opportunity to look at some more interesting data lower down the list. I'm also excited to see where 2024 takes us and if we can get the sea of insane debuts that we had last year. Until next time!