Iori Kogawa Announces Her Retirement

(Credit to jwlim80 for first reporting this story)

Bad news today JAV fans. Iori Kogawa has announced her plans to retire by the end of the year. In a long video she walked through SOD (Soft on Demand) offices talking about how things have changed in her many years there as she made the announcement. Debuting in late 2012 she will be capping off her career with a nice total of 10 years in the industry. The long time vet is an SOD girl through and through, sticking with them for an entire decade through thick and thin. With her departing this leaves Mana Sakura as the last of the old guard of SOD.

Sad news for fans of Iori of which I count amongst them. Iori is great for her full slender body, fantastic acting skills, and oh so wide hips. Recently she has taken a more backseat role within SOD Star, the flagship label of SOD. She’s been splitting her titles between normal releases and VR titles. Her sales haven’t been as great as they were once before which is typical for long running actresses especially more so for ones exclusive to one studio. Actresses like Suzu Honjo, Yuna Ogura, andmore recently Minamo have over taken her as the new faces of SOD.

(Courtesy of the new Photoshoot)

On the bright side this continues the trend of retirement announcements in advance. Alongside the likes of Nanami Kawakami, Mikako Abe, Rena Aoi, and Minami Hatsukawa; we at least know in advance of their farewells. Less surprise departures is better in my opinion. And plus we get a whole other year of Iori. A final year that is hopefully very interesting. Actresses will sometimes lift their bans or get looser with their video choices. Perhaps a future IR, anal, or more lesbian titles from her. Or maybe she’ll just star in loads more videos like what Minami has been doing in her final year. At the very least I’m hoping for more normal releases than VR titles. With her final year, SOD also seems to be rolling out the red carpet for their long time star.

(Check out her Farewell Page here)

And roll out the red carpet they are. SOD has set up a separate webpage for Iori’s final year. There is a big end date of December 31, 2022 front and center. The page includes a farewell message, a special photoset, and a snazzy section to check out her entire filmography throughout the years. A pretty cool page for a soon to be gone actress. With a news feed and coming soon sections, fans should stay tuned to this page for future developments. As a fan her retirement is a big bummer but the announcement and her final year has made me more excited for Iori than in the past couple of years. I think this retirement is the shot in the arm her career needs as it winds down. I’ll have plenty more to write about Iori in the coming year with a series of Retrospective pieces on the SOD Star’s long career. She more than deserves it.