Meeting Minami Kojima (and getting an art book out of it)

I still don’t know what was in that sauce I ate for dinner the night of my Hazuki Wakamiya event, but whatever its contents were I found myself waking up in the middle of the night due to stomach issues. Thankfully all I needed to do was unload the tank and take an antacid and I was soon right as rain (and not the chocolate kind), but I spent the rest of the following day pretty weak.

This was a bit of an issue, given that I had a fan meet event to attend on that day as well. Yes, my weekend was quite busy, as I went to meet Hazuki Wakamiya on Friday and Minami Kojima on Saturday, an event I was very much looking forward to.

The thing is, I probably shouldn’t like Minami as much as I do, because I personally am not a fan of the burikko “babytalk” that you find in various celebrities such as her. It’s very obvious that the high-pitched, squeaky voice that Minami puts on to appear cuter is an affectation. This isn’t to say that it’s fake, but rather that it’s like Macho Man Randy Savage’s promo voice. If you listen to Randy Savage in a more candid setting, you can tell that the distinct pitch of his voice was pretty natural. It’s just that when he was the Macho Man he exaggerated it until it became a cartoon, bruthur! Ya get me? It’s the same way with Minami, where I can hear that the actual pitch of her voice is pretty natural, but the babyish way she talks when she’s trying to sound extra, extra, extra cute, despite it supposed to arouse and endear me to her, it usually leaves me cold.

So why do I not only still like her, but like her enough to want to attend an event of hers? Because, when Minami is in the throes of passion in her videos, she drops the burikko voice and bellows. She doesn’t moan, she doesn’t squeal, she emanates a powerful howl, the kind that comes from deep in one’s belly and belies her tiny frame. The thing is, Minami is still cute as a button even when she bellows. She’s still a five-foot-nothing, adorably petite girl, but that bellow of hers makes her a favorite of mine. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say the contrast between her diminutive appearance and the voice that erupts from it make her even cuter. But that’s just me.

Whatever the case, I had thought Minami pretty much retired from JAV at this point. Apart from the occasional video out every now and then, she seems to be largely done with the JAV life, focusing her attention towards other ventures, like her idol duo business with Mana Sakura. As such, I’d assumed I’d never get to meet Minami, until to my intense, delighted surprise I stumbled upon an art book event she was doing in Tokyo. At the Shosen Book Tower, just across the street from the Ali Baba shop where Hazuki’s event was to take place, Minami would be selling and signing her new nude pose book.

A whole book of sensual pinup poses from a favorite actress of mine? How could I not be interested? And given how this event seemed entirely unlike any I’d attended before, it seemed just the sort of unique experience to warrant an article. So, after consulting and confirming with the big boss man, I bought a copy of Minami’s book online, thus reserving myself a spot in attendance for the event. All I had to do was show up on time, present the code I’d received from the Shosen Book Tower online store, and I would be allowed to meet one of my favorite actresses.

When I finally showed up to the tower, I wasn’t exactly in the highest of spirits. But the antacid had at least lifted me up enough to not be sick all over the place. I wasn’t about to have another close call like with the Sumire Mizukawa event. And while there was a bit of a mixup when I got the floor for the fan meet event wrong (by sheer coincidence there was another, unrelated JAV actress fan meet event going on that day in that building, the entry to which was on a lower floor, so by following the signs for the “AV Event” I wound up there instead), I eventually found myself right by the correct entryway to the event, which just so happened to be right next to the American comic book and English translated manga section of the shop!

A note about the premises. The Shosen Book Tower is, as you might have guessed, a tower. It’s a thin, multistoried building with a series of paired escalators in the center, and each circular floor not occupying much space, but the overall store having a pretty large selection of books, with a plethora of different subjects and genres. Perhaps the most noteworthy part of Shosen Book Tower is how only a small part of its catalog contains NSFW or JAV material, and the rest of it is stuff that you would find at your local Barnes & Noble or Borders or Books-A-Million! or whatever book retail store is in your area. Indeed, now that tourism is back in swing in Japan, as I found myself waiting by the English-language manga section I encountered a Nordic tourist couple who seemed entirely unaware that there was a naughty event to be held in the building. The only thing they seemed to care about was how the selection of translated manga available on that shelf merely included English-language manga, which seemed to sadden them quite a bit.

After they left though the door to the event opened, that door being the entryway to the back stairs. I’m not sure if these stairs were for employees only under normal circumstances or simply a fire escape, but they certainly didn’t have anyone besides us attendees walking up them. One by one our numbers were called and we were allowed into the stairwell, after which we ascended several stories before reaching the very top floor, which had another closed door whose opening we had to wait around for.

So we waited, and our patience was rewarded when the door was opened, and we stepped out onto the top floor proper. The windows gave us a nice view of the city, and we had a whole half-area of the circular floor for the event, the other half being set up for the other actress’ event, and the two halves divided by the escalators.

We then placed our bags on a table, and lined up in the little zig-zag formation that the retractable stanchions which had been set up earlier beckoned us to follow. I could hear Minami talking with her manager behind the little wall that had been placed between us and her, and could tell from her candid mode of speech that, yes, her voice really is that high-pitched in regular conversation. There was not a drop of hoarseness in her throat as she discussed last-minute details of the event, and when her talk finished, her manager came out from behind the temporary wall to bid us enter one at a time.

And so the line proceeded as it had at the Hazuki Wakamiya event, and indeed at most of the events I have attended. Someone would get their time, we’d move up a little, and then when their time ended we’d get to move up a little again, and so on and so forth. This continued until at last it was my turn, and I spent my time trying to read the English written on the t-shirt of one of Minami’s goons. Alright, perhaps goon is a rude term. But he and another fellow there were very big, mean-looking chaps whose only job seemed to be to remind us attendees of what would happen, should we get fresh or too forward with the lady we were all there to see. And, look, he looked just like the sort of guy who’d yell out “It’s da bat!” in a Brooklyn accent as the caped crusader crashed in through a window to foil the plans of an evil archvillain. Don’t laugh. There are plenty of Asian men living in Brooklyn, you racist. I suppose that would make Minami a bat-villain though, which doesn’t quite fit. But I’m getting off on a tangent that’s neither here nor there.

Anyways, the goon, for his part, was actually quite pleased to see me squinting at his shirt, as he’d simply bought it for the picture of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein’s monster on it, and didn’t actually know what the words beneath that picture meant. They were some sort of primal self-help mantra. The sort of thing you’d expect a Rajneeshee to espouse, which confused me, as I couldn’t see just what that kind of message had to do with Frankenstein’s monster of all things, but I informed your goon of the words’ meaning as best as I could, and he was terribly amused. His laugh was frightening.

I was then called up, and at last I came face to face with Minami herself. As expected, she was amazed and envious of my height, and that subject occupied the brief amount of time we got to chat to one another. She wrote a little message for me in the book, and I got to take some pictures of her before time was called and I was shuffled back to the other side of the temporary wall.

Upon my return to the table where my bag was I was also greeted by other event coordinators, who presented me with three smaller picture versions of shoots Minami had done for the book, one of which I was allowed to take home. They were all great, so I picked one at random, and an event coordinator put it in a little bag with my newly-signed book. I then put the little bag in the bag I’d come to the store with, and was directed to the exit, at the center of the circular floor, the very top row of escalators. After that, it was just a slow ride down each floor of the building, until at last I returned to the first floor (ground floor for you Commonwealth folks) and made my way out the door to get some dinner. Something without spicy sauce this time.

So, now that I’ve gotten my book, and I can actually peruse it, unlike the DVDs I get for other events, how is it? Well… it’s good, but it’s not quite what I, or I suspect you all, expected. It’s a collection of nude photoshoots of Minami, and you get to see every inch of her body (except of course her cunt, given Japanese censorship laws) displayed in 5 sections of the book: RELAX (Ideas for Casual & Relaxed Poses in Daily Life. Funny poses also attract.), ART (The Rich Images feel solid with Special Shading Effects. It would be interesting to make your own drawings, paintings, or even sculptures based on what the light makes visible.), COOL (Various Poses with High Heels. Wearing high heels dramatically makes woman’s legs look longer, lifts her bottom and makes her look more attractive. Please don’t miss the wonderful silhouette in a pair of high heels.), SEXY (Sexy Triangle Pubic Hair on Silky Skin. Collect your favorite images, focusing on bust and buttocks as you like.), and BASIC (STAND UPRIGHT, SIT ON A CHAIR, ON ALL FOURS). Yet despite the book’s cover espousing the notion that “WOMAN’S BODY IS THE ULTIMATE BEAUTY OF FORM” (a sentiment, I confess, I wholeheartedly agree with), this isn’t spank bank material. It’s somewhat sensual, but it’s far too focused on showcasing Minami at all angles to show her at the most titillating angles. Even in the “SEXY” section, this all looks more like reference material for a visual artist to study (which makes sense given the full title of the “ART” section), rather than the sort of lascivious magazine material you once could find on the rack of every Japanese convenience store (Are they bringing that back? I heard they were bringing that back but I’m not actually sure). I mean, just look at the images I’ve showcased here in this article. These are great if you want to draw a woman who looks like Minami Kojima, but it’s definitely not the sort of thing I’d expect to find in Ali Baba, or Kaitori Max, or any of the other smut stores I’ve visited in all my time attending JAV fan meet events. Still, I suppose I now have an answer as to why this event was at a regular book store, instead of an adult shop.

Of course, while I have that answer, I find myself now with a new question, the question being just what sort of career a JAV actress should be expected to pursue after her days of performing in adult videos are over. I hear all the time from those who criticize the adult industry that these women should get a “real” job, but of course those same people are the ones who are inclined to hold a woman’s past employment in sex work against her when she does go looking for the exact sort of “real” job a “respectable” woman should be working. And just because you stop being the new hotness that is all the rage, eventually reaching a point where you can’t make as much bread in JAV as you once did, you may still be interested in eroticism and exploring an erotic career path. So I can understand why Minami might still want to do something that utilizes her body as a career, even if her JAV output has significantly lowered in recent times.

Perhaps then, this sort of thing is simply a continuation of Minami’s career in erotic content. Maybe she doesn’t want to do JAV anymore for whatever reason, but this allows her to keep doing something similar while having an easier schedule, something I’m sure she appreciates. And who knows? Maybe her idol career with Mana will take off and she’ll end up becoming a musician. I used to be baffled at the thought of Mao Hamasaki becoming a DJ, but as the years have passed and she’s kept at it, I can see she’s quite serious about that line of work. So who can say where Minami’s post-JAV career will take her? I certainly can’t, but I know that wherever the answer to that question may be, she’ll always be one of my favorites. Good luck to her.