JAV Sales Report - May 2022
Hey everyone, welcome to this month's sales report. If you haven't already seen the DMM Yearly Report I highly recommend checking it out. There's a lot of great info in there and some sweet infographics (even sweeter than normal). Anyway, let's jump into this month's report.
Top Actresses
Sumire is an actress that has been flying off the shelves in recent months. Jumping up 33 spots this month is somewhat surprising to me, not because 33 is a lot of spots to jump up but because I can't believe she was 42nd last month. One of the things helping her is how popular she's become as it creates a positive feedback loop; the more popular she is the more opportunities she gets, and the more opportunities she gets the more popular she becomes. Sometimes it feels like the luck of the draw that you manage a good month or two and somehow wind up at the top. She had eight releases last month, many for prominent studios including Idea Pocket, which is actually quite surprising if you think about how they're a studio with typically purely exclusive actresses. I haven't personally joined the Sumire hype train but if you're at all interested in her now is the time to be on that train.
Aika is an actress who surprises me when she's not that popular. I think she's fantastic, and that really means something when a less busty actress (she has meager C cups) is touted so highly by me of all people. At any rate her being in 11th doesn't surprise me when I look at who's behind the name. Moving on, this month Aika's got a cosplay release with a particular bunny girl focus. I don't know about you but bunny girl stuff seems to be everyone's favourite (and we'll see that more in this post) so it's not at all surprising. Hopefully we'll continue to see Aika sell where I think she should, but at least for this month you can go enjoy all that hot bunny action.
I'm glad to see Alice way up on the charts because it finally gives me a chance to talk about her. She's been gaining a lot of steam lately and has been accordingly rising up the rankings. I haven't gotten around to posting a first impression of her yet but I have a suspicion that will be happening in the near future. Regardless she's definitely everything the sales indicate. She curvy all over, a great performer, and squirts as well as the best of 'em, not to mention that her short blonde hair makes her stand out. I've heard really great things about this VR film in general and knowing what I do about Alice, I'd recommend it. Don't be surprised to see Alice on our lists way more often as she's turned her career around and is now one of the hottest actresses in town.
Ruka is an actress that continues to have releases and continues to do well which is somewhat interesting. It's been a while since we've heard from her with those Twitter suspensions but Ruka announced she was taking a short hiatus. That was back in January where she said she'd be out of the game until at least April. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on with her because there just hasn't been communication, and with the way some hiatuses have gone it's hard to tell what the real game plan is. What's interesting is that Ruka continues to still have release at a time where you'd expect them to start drying up. Typically videos take about three months to release after they're filmed and at this point I would expect no more releases. Instead we've got releases like the one above that look absolutely incredible. Tell me you even bothered to read this when you could be staring at that eye candy instead.... At any rate I'm sure at some point things are going to have to slow down for her and it wouldn't surprise me if next month she's juts way down the charts.
Riho is someone I expect to start dropping down the charts. She's now an exclusive for a label over at SOD and it's just not going to the be the same. Riho has quite a number of good videos (you can check out my review of one here) and I think a lot of that comes from her freelancing. When the variety of videos and the number of videos is high enough there's just so many opportunities for good videos. As an exclusive she'll be producing one video a month and there's just going to be so many opportunities for lame videos. I find that I don't watch a ton of Riho and really prefer to wait for the one or two amazing videos, and I'm expecting at SOD that we just won't get the volume needed.
Nene Tanaka is an actress we also don't talk about nearly as much as we probably ought to. For whatever reason I didn't get into her the way others did, and while I wouldn't be placing her myself at rank 24 I know a few people who would place her even higher. She was definitely one of the premier 2020 debuts and she's definitely still holding strong on the list. If for some reason you still haven't gotten into her, her Moodyz omnibus is always a good way to do so. How do you go wrong with 8 hours of footage for such a low price? There's always such a strong emphasis on the monthly release for an actress but we see compilations starting to do a lot better as people come to the same realization that $/minute of video is a good way to spend your money. Definitely check her out if you haven't!
Yua Mikami's latest propelled her into one of the top spots this month after a pretty poor showing last month. I know I was pretty excited for her April release but it turned out to be pretty bad. I guess this month fans were happy to see something a little more simplistic that was hard to mess up. I've never found massage themes like this to be particularly enjoyable but clearly I'm in the minority here. For this month I still say the biggest thing is that you can't really go wrong with it. Even if it doesn't have the potential like April's release did, it's at least going to be hard to totally mess up like they did in April (I really did not think it was good).
Shouko continues to be doing well for herself despite being retired now. What's interesting is seeing her way higher on the list than Hitomi considering they both retired around the same time. You'd think that Hitomi was far more popular but evidently that's not the case. It kind of goes to show you just how many actresses there are that are on people's radars. Even as actresses retire year after year it's hard for people to forget their favourites. This isn't the first time we've seen retired actresses do well as we've seen several like Aki Sasaki and Kaho Shibuya do quite well for themselves. When I look back I'm always reminded that these actresses have years and years of content under their belts, Shouko in particular has about six under hers. Unless she's one of your absolute favourites and you were watching her consistently every month there's a good chance there's a solid amount of content out there for fans to explore. Her top release this month is a VR film and I can't blame people for wanting to enjoy her in VR, what a treat.
Hitomi's all the way down in 30th this month, which is something I'm absolutely not surprised about in the slightest. We definitely knew this was going to happen considering how she's been dropping on the charts for a while. She's now retired and all of her releases are finally out. I say that last part because despite her retirement video coming out in April, Oppai had one final VR release come out last month. It's a pretty good video, and while personally not quite top 10 material Panking might beg to differ with his praise for it. If you've got VR it's definitely a far better send off than her actual retirement video. Not to mention, even though it's not listed as such it's essentially part of my favourite series. That theme definitely hits a little different when you feel like you're part of the mix. At any rate, it'll be weird looking at the upcoming reports and releases not seeing her name but we all knew this had to happen eventually. Maybe we'll see some compilation things in the future, especially from Oppai as they try to figure out what post-Hitomi life is like. It wouldn't surprise me if they pay a handsome sum to some busty actress like Yuria Yoshine or Misono Mizuhara to get an exclusive contract to fill the void. Do check out her VR flick if you're already missing her like I am.
Top Videos
Moe feels like an actress who just isn't getting the time of day she used to. Maybe that's because there's so many wonderful actresses but maybe it's because she's over at Faleno and they aren't doing quite as well as S1. Either way it's nice to see actresses like her still get a spot in the limelight every now and then. I'm not so sure about this release personally but it's got a couple of nice shots, including the cover shot, that I'm sure made people think twice. Especially with the way it lines up on the spine, that would definitely look great on someone's shelf.
Speaking of Faleno, we've got a banger of a release with a bunny girl video from their top actress Yume Nikaido (I still can't get myself to call her Ai Hongo, maybe one day...). They probably didn't need to do something this nice to sell a video of hers but if you give the fans what they want no doubt it will sell well. It looks like it's got a nice variety of content within it and I'm sure fans actually enjoyed it and didn't buy it just because that cover is hot.
Ria Yamate continues to impress month after month, retaining the top two spots on the digital charts this month. That should come as little surprise for those those that follow her as she's been popular month after month. We're starting to see her way up on the charts as she's now in the top 25 on both the physical and digital charts. I tend to enjoy debuts less than the average domestic viewer so I'm not quite as hype as they are, but she definitely has a killer body; you can read more about my initial thoughts about her here. At any rate, plan on her continuing to be at the top of the charts for a long time to come, especially when there's no Rara releases to compete with.
This month we've also got a couple of bunny suit videos in our top 10. Our first release with Karen is chock full of them, though the second with Sakura Miura only has one scene and instead has a cosplay theme with the student council president. Either way bunny suit videos have been on the rise and it's not hard to see why. Karen is an actress we've seen a bunch and will continue to see, no doubt (and you can see my review of her here) whereas Sakura Miura is perhaps a bit of an unusual face to see. Sakura's been MIA for some time in recent months/years but for those that know her from before her absence, they won't be surprised to see her on charts at any point really, active or not (and this particular video is actually a few months old). Anyway, I ultimately think the thing here is just the bunny suit given how many of them we've seen this month, so if you want a video to sell, just put on that headband and you're golden.
Up in 5th we've got an E-Body debut that looks rather nice, Mio Fujiko. Do I have high hopes for her? Not really if I'm being honest. E-Body debuts can be hit or miss as the studio hasn't quite been what it once was. That being said who can argue with a cover like that? She's got a slightly more mature look to her than most actresses seem to have so it makes me a bit excited for her.
Alright who told Rena Momozono she could turn back time and redebut? Okay well maybe that didn't happen but the actress in the 9th place release, Ran Takanashi, certainly reminds me of her. Maybe she's not quite as busty as Rena but Rena lite is still bound to be pretty good. At just 19 (if you believe the cover) she's got the potential for a lengthy career ahead of her, especially debuting on the main SOD label. We've already seen some other good debuts come from them this year such as Rei Kamiki (Shiori as she originally went by) so here's hoping SOD has some more bangers in the tank.
Continuing the short haired trend we have a debut for Dahlia of all places with Shiori Tokunaga. I can't remember the last time we saw a Dahlia debut and it's nice to see MILFs debuting at somewhere other than Madonna. What makes Shiori so interesting is that she's actually not a debut actress (despite what it says there) and is actually Suzune Mukai making a second attempt. We've seen a lot of great redebuts over the past few years, especially when they change their image as drastically as Shiori has. While she's only 27 and not quite total MILF age the fact that she's far more mature than when she originally debuted six years ago means all the world. I'll definitely keep my eye out on how her redebut goes.
Our 4th place release is quite the release as it's another one of those major compilation releases. It's got a whopping THIRTY FOUR hours of content featuring content from one of Dream Ticket's most iconic series. It's definitely got a bunch of older releases but there's nothing wrong with that when you've got actresses like Emily Okazaki, Honoka Mihara, or Natsuko Mishima starring in them. It may not be the kind of content for everyone but if you're up for something a little rougher than usual, this is one to take a look at.
In 9th place we've got a video from a relatively new studio Lunatics. They're about two and a half years into their studio's career, which might not necessarily sound like that new, but when you compare them to the studio we just talked about above, Dream Ticket, that's been around about 20 years more, it certainly sounds new. Anyway, this video is basically all about AIKA and her huge ass. For me, I've found that Lunatics hasn't quite hit their stride yet. They have some decent stuff but they've still got a way to go before they really get things down. I find their camera angles to be hit or miss and their camera angles tend to be the one thing they really care about. The plots always seem to be a bit on the light side and that seems to be the case here. I've seen other entries in this series and they can be a bit hit or miss, but honestly they're really not half bad, and you can definitely see the improvement from them. That all being said, the screenshots definitely do justice to AIKA's ass and I certainly don't remember it being that nice, so kudos to Lunatics for that. Maybe Aika is just the perfect star for this video.
I hope you've all enjoyed another sales report. Next month we'll officially be half way through the year, wow does time sure fly. I'll be paying a little bit more attention to debuts as I start preparing to watch them. I don't quite expect to start until close to the end of summer but trust me you'll like the content I've got planned for the end of the year. Until next time!
Comments
I for sure am looking forward to June's sales ranking on R18 - pure white noise.
And yes, that AIKA video is great, but personally I liked MMKZ-112 mor (Marrion and AIKA's ass, they came out like a day apart ), the Lunatics one happened to get a discount, the Marrion one didn't.
I hope that R18 is operational by the end of the month, my current backlog is 8 titles and I'd rather buy earlier than later. Also if the backlog gets too long, I may have difficulties digesting it all at once. The spirit is willing, but flesh is weak.
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