Yuma Asami - The Crazy Life Of A JAV Royalty - Vol. 1

While doing my research for the blog, I stumbled upon a video thumbnail that looked alien to me, you could blame it on my reluctance to learn Japanese but wait! What caught my eye was that the thumbnail had Yuma Asami on it, so how on earth could I even ignore it, right? Like it has been a while since we saw her appear in a flix, definitely not the kind of flix you guys happen to watch on HBO so as I sat through the whole damn video, I gathered that she’d lived quite an eventful life and I couldn't help but share it with you guys!

So, in this particular interview posted on Youtube, the 37 year old former JAV actress spoke candidly about her tumultuous life. Being a former member of the Ebisu Muscats, she quickly rose to star status in JAV with her good looks, H-cup breasts and a naturally cheerful character. However, despite her spectacular career, most of her personal life, she has grappled with traumas to say the least.

Takasaki city nestled amdist the mountains in Gunma prefecture

So it all began when Yuma was born in an urban neighborhood nestled in Japan’s Gunma Prefecture. In the interview, she recalls how her parents ran a ‘Filipino pub’ in the city. It was entirely operated by relatives and had quadrupled to around four establishments at it’s peak during the economic boom of Japan's infamous bubble era. However, she had mixed feelings about the business of running Filipino pubs. In her student years, Yuma was really into singing. Often times, she would perform on a stage at her peer owned pub, surrounded by Filipino hostesses. Back then, her dream at the time was to study abroad.

Yuma, pictured above always had a knack for singing from an early age

Business was going fine until the economic bubble burst in 1989, and the entire country got slapped with what later came to be known as the 'Lost Decades'. Things were about to go downhill for the Asami household as the Filipino pub went bankrupt leaving her parent under heavy turmoil as the household was compelled to live below means.

Yuma states, “We didn't have any savings at home. When the bubble burst, the shop run by my parents collapsed and we were left with only loans. My okaasan was also physically sick, but she convinced herself to work in a factory.” Upon witnessing this, Yuma decided to drop out of high school.

She further states, “Even though I had no savings at that time, I really wanted to study abroad. But I had to earn the stipend to study abroad by myself. I had to work part-time while attending high school, but it was not enough to pay for my tuition. So I dropped out of high school after one year. I decided on my own, without consulting anyone."

From an early age, she felt a sense of "discomfort" in her home's atmosphere. Her dad couldn’t really cope with the pub business going bankrupt and ended up venting his frustration upon her siblings.

Throughout the interview, Yuma acknowledges that her dad had a certain affection towards her unlike to her siblings, “When I was little, my dad used to berate the oldest, saying, 'You're not ours, or 'We picked you up from the trash”.

Yuma would often think since she was the younger one, so her parents preferred her more. But somehow she felt it weird, that how could her dad who was kind to her, be so hard on her other siblings? It was indeed a fact that she couldn’t digest until she was confronted with a shocking truth in her early 20s and being the youngest of the household, this was certainly a major shock for her.

She states, “When I was 20, I had to get a passport and needed a copy of our register for the procedure. I was in Tokyo at the time and went to the Takasaki City Hall to get a copy. Unknowingly, I took a copy of the register for everyone, and not for me personally. That was the first time I found out that my older siblings had a different biological dad from me."

Apparently there was a remarriage which made Yuma realise that they were her step-siblings. She, on the other hand, was her parents only biological offspring. Now, her dad's attitude towards her siblings started making sense to her. Yuma recalls, she had called her okaasan after being aware of the fact, but her unexpected response is what left Yuma amused. She mentions her actual reply being, “In this day and age, you have to have at least two or three divorces to make it.” But she does credit her kin with an overall nonchalant attitude towards life in general as she recalls, “She's got a weird ruggedness about her. When I started doing porn, instead of stopping me, she said, It's your life, do what you want with it”

However, what was about to unfold in her life is way more horrible and ended up flipping the trajectory of it. Amidst struggling with a complicated household, everyday finances driven by loan repayments, Yuma spent the majority of her youth years immersed in part-time work in pursuit of her dream of 'studying abroad'. In her own words, she mentions “I worked two or three part-time jobs while attending an English school. I had one day off a week. I only had about an hour's nap every day.”

While ordinary high school students were busy with club activities and focusing on academics, Yuma on the other hand was rather busy working, but then a tragic incident occurred. Yuma recalls, one day when she had a day off from her part-time job, the police suddenly came to her house knocking and said, “There is a man who died on the rooftop, and I found a key in his pocket. We checked door to door throughout the flat to find a house with a matching key, and the key fits your house, so the deceased is probably one of your relatives. Could you please check?”

She was escorted to the roof only to find out that her older male sibling lying on the streets, apparently he had jumped off the roof of an apartment building. Yuma later found out that he was suffering from mental illness at the time, partly because he had been treated harshly by her dad. She found a note in his pocket that read "I'm tired of living". “I don't think it was all about his troubled relationship with my dad, but maybe because of that, he was suffering from a mental illness, so I thought it must have been really tough for him." Yuma mentions.

Her older sister had moved to Tokyo by then, for work. Following in her footsteps, Yuma chose to follow her to Tokyo. Being alien to the metropolis, it was certain she ended up staying with her sister in Shin-Okubo in the bustling Shinjuku right after her 18th birthday. Coincidentally, back then her sister was already working as a support staff in the adult industry and had pitched Yuma to one of her bosses who happened to find her fit for the job. “I always had big breasts and when I was in junior high school I had an F cup, so my nickname was 'F-chan'. I had developed an H cup when I moved to Tokyo, and maybe that's part of the reason why they asked me if I wanted to do gravure.”

Yuma worked as a hostess in her initial years in Roppongi

It wasn’t like she wanted to do it at first but it was entirely luck that she stumbled upon AV. "Gravure alone was not enough for me, so I was introduced to a club in Roppongi by an agency and ended up working there as well.” But six months into the job, Yuma got homesick and wanted to go back to Gunma. So, when she notified her boss about it, he encouraged her to consider doing AV.

Talking about her early days in AV, she recalls how she was a bit hesitant about it & had fallen ill. She couldn’t even let her sister know who had got her into AV but then when Yuma realized the fortune she could possibly make in the industry, she gave it a second thought. “I thought about my peer's financial situation and the fact that I was going to study abroad, which made my heart sway. I didn't know when I would be able to save enough to study abroad, even if I worked hard while doing gravure."

Back then she was 18 and now that she reflects upon it, she mentions "Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had stayed away", but then her manager ended up persuading her into it by convincing her that it’s not a job for everyone but she had the talent to pull it off. But Yuma's reason to do it was entirely distinct since back at home, they were running out of savings and she wanted to make things easier for her parents. On top of it, her dad's health was getting worse day by day. So, Yuma ended up convincing herself that it was not a time to be shy but rather to take responsibility as Yuma cites, “I didn't want to do it half-heartedly. I didn't want to do it just for the fat paycheck either.”

Indeed so. In the follow-up column dropping next month, we'll delve into how Yuma was on the fence about shooting in the initial days of her career, her transition to being a full time Ebisu Muscat idol that spiraled her into the spotlight and a disease that ended up changing her life forever! This and more, until next time. Keep an eye out for the follow-up column, drops this May.