We're now almost at the end of the year, which means we're quite close to getting the top actresses of the year from DMM. I think we have a pretty good idea of who they are given the sales report data but should be fun to see nonetheless. If I was a betting man right now, I'd put my money on the top 5 digital actresses as being Eimi Fukada, Akari Mitani, Yui Hatano, Yu Shinoda, and Aoi Kururugi, just as a sneak peak at what we can expect. I'm also very curious as to what happens with Asahi Mizuno who recently announced her return, who is currently sitting at 33rd by my calculations. I don't think it will push her into the top 25 but I also don't have exact sales numbers to be too confidant in that. At any rate, I'll be doing another sales post once that information is available going over the top 100 actresses, so be on the lookout for that early next year.

Last month I also mentioned I would be starting up my posts about 2020 debuts, I just finished up all three of them and I encourage you to go check them out if you're interested in any of the debuts from this year. You can check them out here, here, and here. I've reviewed a number of actresses we've seen and continue to see, including Aka Asuka, Nene Tanaka, Yume Nikaido, Nozomio Ishihara, and Riri Nanatsumori.

Top Actresses

DMM's physical sales continue to be dominated by debuts, unsurprisingly. We are starting to see quite a bit of volatility among them. Nene Tanaka jumping up quite a few spots (probably because of her BBC release) while Riri Nanatsumori dropping quite a few. I do think it's quite healthy to see debuts jumping up and down because it tells us their ratings aren't entirely based on them being being new and are somewhat based on their results. As always, a lot of fresh faces on the list, this month highlighted by Ai Kano. I think the most surprising to me is actually Aqua Yamazaki remaining high up on the list. People may not know but her debut video was apparently not very good. I've heard they had to film over two days because she wasn't really ready to do sex on cam the first day. I skimmed it just to double check and they definitely cut the first scene early. Maybe her second video promises to be a lot better but I would have been very cautious about checking her out a second time. Then again, Japanese people do like when a girl is embarrassed, as said by former actress Emiri Okazaki, so perhaps they enjoy that and it makes them want more.

Kurumi Hanamaru (boobs on the left) might seem like just another debut but she actually has an interesting story to her career. Kurumi is the winner of the SOD Oppai Grand Prix. Essentially, SOD had an event where they took in submissions for boobs and let people vote on them. The photos had just the boobs on display no face. The winner, Kurumi, got to star in a video. Seems like a good way to scout talent if you ask me since it costs you nothing to run it and you get to test the waters out in advance. That, on top of the investment fans make by following it, makes it a really great idea. I would love to see them do it again or for other studios to learn from the success SOD had. I've heard Japanese businesses don't like to take risks but studios do tend to copy ideas from others (you see this with plots all the time), so here's hoping. I still say the rank two boobs (in the middle) are nicer, maybe some other studio will pick her up but I'm probably just fantasizing here.

Another surprise on this month's DMM physical sales are how many names jumped up the list. While everyone on the list was within the top 100 last month (barring the two debuts Natsu and Ai), we have 11 total names jumping up into the top 25. A lot of these names aren't surprising, like Suzu, Nao, Yu, and Julia. I remember pointing out last month that Minami was a very popular actress who would reclaim said popularity once she started releasing again and that seems to be the case. While a recent VR and Image Video are outside the norm for Minami I think fans really do just adore her. Hana Haruna is another interesting name on the list only because she's quite the anomaly with respect to domestic preferences. Hana is THICC, she's a BBW with some huge boobs, and that generally bucks the trend of what the domestic sales prefer. I wouldn't say Japanese guys hate big tits considering there are names like Aka Asuka on the list (and remaining at number 1) but they definitely have a preference for slim figures. Hana has actually rather consistently bucked that trend as well and I would say she's definitely the exception to the rule. Instead you're more likely to see names like Yume Nikaido and Yua Mikami, actresses with some boobs but not huge like Hana's but more importantly are quite slim.

The digital sales in Japan show similar levels of volatility as well, but like the physical sales, nobody jumping from outside the top 100 last month. Sakura Miura is an interesting name to see on the list since there were some questions about her career. I don't share the sentiment about her fans do, including calling her a "younger Julia", but it's nice to see her filming again after having four months off. Speaking of which, Julia also jumped up quite a number of spots. There was some confusion about what was going on with her career after she left Oppai. I'm glad to see Julia is still getting good work elsewhere, having shot for Tameike Goro and Wanz Factory, which was a concern after she was on loan to Hajime Kikaku. Anyway, I'll be very curious to see how next month turns out, especially with the holidays fast approaching. I'm guessing there could be a lot of volatility between holiday specials and sales.

ps. I recommend watching both of these videos

It seems like as a general trend, popular actresses tend to stay popular for a long time. There are several actresses on the list who've been around for along time, names like Tsubomi, Yui Hatano, Hibiki Otsuki, and Julia, all who have been in the industry 10+ years. Especially considering all of them are considered to be within the top 25 of all time I find it interesting seeing just how many familiar names we get every month. It's also interesting seeing other names that could compete for some top all-time spots down the road. Hana Haruna, Aoi Tsukasa, and Kurea Hasumi all score quite well all-time and could find themselves further up the list, but it's actually perhaps more interesting seeing names who aren't on the list that might one day make it there. Yua Mikami, Yu Shinoda, Akari Mitani, Eimi Fukada, Ai Hoshina, and Aoi Kururugi have made either DMM top 25 consistently for the past six months, so I think it's safe to say they're all contenders. Yume Nikaido and Nozomi Ishihara also both made the top 25 over the past six months, although as a debut it's hard to gauge long-term success. The only other two names to make it are Yui and Kurea, who we already know are very popular. I'll have to remember a few things from this:

• I should check if the yearly final results match with these findings of the most popular
• If Yume and Nozomi continue to be popular sometime in the middle of next year
• What the results look like over 12 months of data, which we'll look at next summer
• If we can guess the top 100 of 2021 at the end of 2021 before that information goes live

Wew, okay that was a lot to take in, moving over to R18 data now. We see Hitomi way up top again, I think thanks to a really great video from her this month. Panking gave it a really great score, which I don't personally think it was quite that good but it certainly was among her best this year. I think a lot of people have a tendency to just look at her boobs and nothing else but the quality of videos really does matter. I'll still watch her videos every month because she's my favourite but if she was releasing content the way Eimi Fukada was I would be thinking twice about watching it all.

R18 also had some really big jumps this month with Shouko moving up 140 spots and Sakura Miura moving up 146 spots. We already explored why Sakura Miura had a lot of popularity this month but Shouko is quite surprising. I honestly don't have a good explanation for her rise, it's not as though she was featured in more sales than other actresses such as Julia so it's quite surprising to me. Maybe Shouko did some more surgery and people like her new look (she has had quite a lot of work done over the years) but I don't actually know. I personally prefer her old look, but I do know some that prefer the new look.

Another interesting name we see on the list is Meguri at 19th. Meguri redebuted last December and released 8 videos before going on another hiatus during the summer. It was revealed the reason was to freeze her eggs and she would be returning next year, but that's also somewhat doubtful. Anyway, seeing Meguri climb the charts is something I had been hoping to see. There hasn't been a release since she's taking time off so it's quite strange to see her up at the top, although the particular video that sold well (MEYD-605) is quite good and I would definitely recommend it. Meguri's one of my all-time favourite actresses and she was quite popular in her prime but just hasn't had the same success since. I found it quite interesting because I've noticed the same happening to other actresses. Minori Hatsune stands out as someone else who never reclaimed her former glory, especially since jta points out she's 17th all-time. You would have thought fans would have been much more receptive to her, and I think she's been doing well for herself. I'll play a bit of spoiler for a future post that Minori does appear on my top 25 of the year. Even still I do find it very interesting that once the industry gets over an actress they seem to get over them completely. I'll be curious to see how Asahi compares.

Top Videos

A handful of releases that look quite good this month. The video in 1st and 6th looks pretty good when it's got Mana and Yuna in it and also features some interesting content. The pool was reportedly closed for shooting but videos are evidently still using the space. Is the pool actually closed and this video part of some vault of pool videos? Videos typically release 3-4 months after filming so I suppose it's technically possible, and studios might have incentive to slow down pool releases a tiny bit to stretch out the final videos with it. The video also has a bit of a Christmas theme which I always appreciate when they're quite rare. That also gives it a reason to release in December, so chances are the pool is really closed for good. We'll have a better indication of it next year when we see a lack of videos with it.

Yume Nikaido's video also looks quite interesting, looking at the screenshots. You wouldn't really guess that from the cover but it's nice to see her getting more interesting stuff. I reviewed her as part of my debuts list and most of her releases so far have been generic debut stuff. It's so hard to judge early on because of it so I'm glad to see her getting over that lame period and starting the more interesting stuff. Especially since Faleno as a studio has been quite bland, I'm always excited by any interesting release.

DMM's top digital sales look rather uninteresting this month for the most part. Aka being popular isn't surprising nor are the compilation videos Japan tends to love. Saki Okuda's release in third is a bit surprising since it's a year old. I went and double checked just to make sure I hadn't made some mistake in my code but it really is third on the list. It was on sale, even at the time of me writing the post, but I still find it surprising something that old could do that well. Looking closer at the sale there's a 7-day streaming option for just 300 yen so that's probably very enticing to a lot of people and explains it showing up. As a side note, you can tell it's quite old due to the ID being SSNI-606 in comparison to the recent Aka release being SSNI-914.

Looking at debuts we've got a couple of really busty newcomers in Kaori Momota (EBOD-784) and Ai Kano (JUL-404) that look promising. With one video under their belt it's hard to tell how good they will be, especially when a lot of emphasis is put on just a cover. Kaori Momota's boobs didn't look nearly as nice in the trailer I saw and I couldn't find one of Ai Kano, but Ai's do look much nicer than Kaori's in the stills. Unfortunately with December releases neither of them made it into my review of 2020 newcomers. If they turn out to be worthwhile I may check them out sometime in 2021.

The R18 front has a lot of the usual suspects on it. As I already pointed out, Hitomi's release was quite good and a big reason she jumped up, and the Meguri release (even if it's from the summer) is why she's up quite a bit as well. I would recommend both videos, easily one of Hitomi's best of the year and definitely Meguri's best of the year.

With that we have another sales post in the books. Hopefully we can get the final sales data sometime next month and can see this information on a longer-term scale. Until next time!