Hey everyone, Oppaira here bringing you an interesting new series, JAV Sales Report. The Japanese porn industry is a huge industry and can be daunting for those that aren't familiar with it. In this series I'll aim to keep you informed on what's hot, both in and out of Japan. I'll go over the top actresses there as well as the top individual videos. I aim to do this every month, hopefully it will be interesting seeing the trends month to month. I'll be talking about what's contributing to some of the sales, looking over some data from previous months, and making some predictions going forward.

Before getting into it I'd like to just quickly talk about where all the data comes from. The data used in this post comes from two sources, DMM and R18, and the reports are generated at the beginning of every month. For those unaware, DMM (recently rebranded as Fanza), is the largest distributor for JAV. They distribute content for most of the top studios including S1, Moodyz, Idea Pocket, Wanz Factory, Oppai - the list really does go on. As a result, they also distribute the majority of content the top actresses in the business make. R18 is essentially the English localization of DMM. It's owned by the same company but has English translations for those who don't speak Japanese, or really those who don't live in Japan.

DMM, as a distributor, also produces the physical copies of videos (DVDs / Blurays) that are sold in adult stores around Japan. While digital sales, especially in these times, are more significant than the DVD sales, the domestic DVD sale business is still a big business. For these posts I will be sharing sales data about DVDs but I will try to focus on digital sales data where possible since it's a better reflection and better for comparing. It is also important to note that R18 sales data often lags behind DMM data because DMM offers pre-orders for videos where R18 does not, and a lot of people order videos weeks in advance of videos coming out.

With the charts you'll see either the actress name or DVD code for the video as well as the rank. Beside the rank in brackets indicates the change in rank from the previous month, green means the actress is ranked higher now, red means they went down. Anything showing 0 indicates no change and N/A indicates there was no data for the actress/title in the previous month.

Alright, that was a bit of a mouthful to get through. With that out of the way let's jump into it.

Top Actresses

First up is Yua Mikami, a staple in the top charts. 1st, 4th, and 4th is pretty impressive. Although she doesn't appear at all in the top 10 sales for DMM she has five videos in the top 100. Interestingly enough, four of those are in the top 10 on R18. Last month was actually her 5th year anniversary and I know there were some sales for her so it's unsurprising she's at the top. While I don't anticipate Yua continuing to be quite this highly on either list I'm quite sure she'll continue to make the top 25 and remain one of the most popular actresses.

One of the more shocking things is seeing Eimi Fukada in 6th place. You wouldn't know it looking at the fact she rose five spots this month, but last month was the first time she'd been outside of the top five in the past year. Eimi has quite consistently placed in the top five and it looked like last month was just a bad month for her. While she does have an upward trend going for her it does seem like people aren't quite as big on her as they once were. It's quite hard to predict where Eimi will land next month, especially with how the industry responded to COVID-19. There were some brief shutdowns of productions so trying to actually predict things as we enter the lull period will be difficult (videos typically release 3-4 months after the filming takes place). This is even harder to predict with her being a freelance actress as there's just so much volatility depending on if studios start delaying releases to try and tide them through the drought in content, or maybe they release compilations and Eimi appears in them.

I think the most interesting thing on any list is Melody Hina Marks in the top 25 on DMM's physical sales chart. To put it blunt: a white American actress making it big in Japan is a rarity, partially because there are so few of them. To see her not only make the list but make it that highly is crazy. From what I've been told it doesn't seem like she's moved to JAV permanently, she's just done a few videos, so I suspect she'll fall off the list in future months (probably even next month). It is interesting to see a western actress do so well, and maybe westerners in JAV is a really underutilized concept. There are some studios like Plush Mousouzoku that exclusively shoot with western actresses but they mostly shoot single videos with stars and don't have a ton of return actresses.

The western actress to look at is actually June Lovejoy. June has fully embraced the industry and found a nice home there. She's actually in the top 100 on both DMM's physical and digital sales, quite impressive. What stands out about June is her ability to work with major studios including Moodyz, Madonna, Fitch, SOD Create, and Hon Naka. June speaks Japanese unlike other westerners that have ventured into Japanese so she's really setting herself apart from others. I expect June to continue selling well and I wouldn't be surprised to see her break into the top 25 sometime later this year. She's still new to the industry (she's a 2020 debut actress) so make sure to check back later in the year when I do a review of some 2020 debuts as she'll definitely be there.

Another interesting actress to look at is Hitomi Tanaka. Hitomi is probably the most well-known actress outside of Japan and yet she's not all that popular in Japan. She's #3 on R18 but isn't even within the top 100 on DMM. Last month was actually an exception to the rule as Hitomi placed extremely highly on DMM at 90 in digital sales and 95 in monthly sales. While that may not seem that high Hitomi doesn't usually make DMM's top 100, in fact it's the first time I've ever seen it (that is not to say it has never happened but I've personally never seen it). I was curious to see if that was just a fluke or a change in trends domestically and I think we have our answer. Hitomi's June release wasn't that good and I think the domestic markets really need something better than that. I didn't think her May release was anything special either (although some would beg to differ) but I think the big seller was her VR film. Her VR was pretty good and when coupled with how unique of a body she has, I think VR is just a really good medium for her. VR does a great job of accentuating an actress' curves, for better or worse, and Hitomi with her massive breasts and slim figure is honestly a treat in VR. Also take into account that the VR didn't replace her normal video meaning she had an extra release compared to her one per month schedule. This also contributes to her jumping back up the charts on R18 after a surprisingly low month prior. I highly doubt we'll see her jump up that high again but who knows, I don't think this will be her last VR film either. 

Rara Anzai at #2 on the physical sales isn't surprising, she always does well, but seeing Rion at 18 is extremely surprising. I assume most people know but Rara is actually Rion, she returned to the industry late last year with a new name. The names of actresses are typically owned by the agency they work for so if they switch they need to take on a new name. Rara actually returned to her old agency so she got to reuse her very first name. Anyway, physical sales are usually dominated by new releases so it's surprising to see her older works selling more. Are DVD stores in Japan putting her old works at the front? That might explain the stark uptick in those sales.

Another good indicator of how the physical sales are dominated by new releases is to look at how many 2020 debuts are on the top list: Nozomi Ishihara, Yume Nikaido, Mei Miyazima, Rikka Ono, Ibuki Aoi, Urara Kanon, Nana Yagi, Melody Hina Marks, Kaname Momojiri (sp)  Natsu Tojo (sp), Sora Amakawa, and Hana Himesaki... that's half new debuts. It always seems crazy to me how big debuts are in the industry but Japan really loves new debuts. Yua Mikami won an award for best newcomer and one year later won the award for best actress. This one might be explained by the preferences of Japanese men and how they like the shy and embarassing personality newcomers inherently have. As ex JAV actress Emiri Okazaki put it "some men say that they don't get turned on unless there's a sense of embarrassment", so newcomers really have a free pass there.

A notable exclusion from the top charts is Ai Uehara. Ai has spent the last 9 months straight on the top 100 digital charts and has suddenly dropped off the list. I think we all saw this coming with the amount of takedowns she has had lately. As JWL pointed out in his blog post last month, Ai has been taking down video after video. Ai was actually in the top 10 in March, April, and May this year, and to see her not even make the top 10 now is rather unfortunate. She's one of the best of all time and it's truly sad to see what's happening. The top 100 list does have quite a number of beloved retired actresses including Asahi Mizuno, Rika Mari, Misaki Honda, Sakura Kirishima, Aki Sasaki, and many more. None of them have been retired quite as long as Ai Uehara has, although Ai had her stuff removed earlier than the 5 year mark. I really hope this isn't the start of a new trend of removing videos but only time will tell.

I otherwise expect all of the perrenial favourites to stay on top of the digital sales. 16/25 from DMM were in the top 25 last month and 13/25 from R18 were in the top 25 the month before. While there's always a bit of movement it seems like we generally get half of the top 25 remaining month to month. It will be interesting to see how this remains amidst the pandemic, especially with the temporarily closure. We've known for a while the summer months would show a bit of a dip from releases so I'll be watching closely to see what happens. My guess is that popular actresses with huge catalogues will be at the top in the next couple of months. I find personally that it's hard to keep up with everything those actresses release, and especially with how many different actresses I watch, I inevitably don't watch all their stuff. So with a lack of new releases those actresses will see surges in people watching their content. Expect names like Yui Hatano, Hibiki Otsuki, Kurea Hasumi, Yu Shinoda, and Julia to do well next month.

Top Videos

First up we have Rara Anzai's latest topping the DVD charts yet again. I guess it's hard to argue with how pretty she is, plus she has some of the nicest breasts you'll ever see. While pretty everyone agrees she isn't a good performer I admit that eye candy on a DVD cover looks great on display. I suspect we'll see Rara's video show up on R18 next month after the lag, especially with some more open spots with Yua's sale being done.

Unsurprisingly we see S1 actresses running away with the top DVDs this month. Counting Arina Hashimoto and Nene Yoshitaka who recently transferred to Faleno, 13/40 of the videos above star current or recent S1 actresses. While Yua's sale does contribute to that a bit I actually don't expect a huge change to this next month either. Clearly their ability to sell older content is there and I wouldn't be surprised if they made a push to try and sell some of that content during the drought. They have five compilation DVDs set to release this month including a best of Aoi, best of Rion, and best of Kirara Asuka. I wouldn't be surprised to see Rion retain a spot next month and I also wouldn't be surprised to see Kirara show up on the charts again. Even though Kirara retired back in 2018 she was one of the most popular actresses in town, and I think she's more of a familiar face on the charts than anything. Her 16 hour best works title is sure to bring her fans to the yard.

We also see KATU-072 in 4th place on R18's list which stars Arisa Hanyu and Yuri Honma. If you like 'em thicc this is an impeccable pair. It's nice to see Yuri becoming a household name once again. Yuri had a pretty lacking 2019 as she had infrequent releases and didn't wasn't really working with major studios. This year has seen her star with some better studios such as E-Body, Fitch, and SOD Create. She's had a number of VR releases as well, at least one of which is really great. I'm very much looking forward to her Madonna release next month where she costars along Yuria Yoshine. Similarly it's nice to see Arisa Hanyu get some love. Arisa spent the last two months off of DMM's top 100 but she's back on it this month at 81. While Arisa may not be a good performer she's got one of the nicest all-around bodies you'll ever have the pleasure of watching.

For debuts I'm quite interested in checking out Hana Himesaki, the actress in the rank 2 video. She's got an impressive I-Cup rack and you better believe she's sexactly the kind of actress I want to see. I haven't seen her yet and I generally am not a fan of actual debut productions but there's hopefully a few releases before I post about all the 2020 debuts so I'll be able to find something a bit better before then. The only video to remain in the top 10 debuts section is FSDSS-043 starring Kaname Momojiri. Faleno (denoted in DVD codes by FSDSS) is an interesting case because they distribute on DMM but also run their own streaming platform as well. On top of that, they distribute digitally on their platform well in advance of the full release, so it's unsurprising to see Kaname's debut remain on the top 10, and I'd be more interested to see what happens next month.

Anyway, that's all for now. It's been fun analyzing the trends in JAV and I look forward to sharing next month's reports with you. Until next time!