Hello everyone, yfooCollector here with the January JAV News recap. The new year started off with a lot of exciting news in JAV such as the return of Ruri Saijou and S1's social media star debut but it also had a lot of retirements and retirement announcements. As for other news a notoriously private actress looks like she's planning to have a more public presence in social media, an update on SOD and DMM and interesting lists from Moe Amatsuka and Shimiken.

Ruri Saijou returns to JAV after 6 years

On January 13th, new studio Materiall suddenly announced the return of Ruri Saijou to JAV in their new film. This comes as a complete surprise as we haven't had a new release from her in 6 years and she seemed satisfied in her retirement. She looked like she had no intention of making a comeback aside from some cryptic tweets around 2020. Ruri is still very much active on social media and Fancentro despite her retirement from AV. It seems that Materiall wanted to make a huge splash, being a new studio and all, so they got a legend to return to kick off the new year. This is not a full-fledged comeback though as this was billed as one-time revival and there are no indications that she'd do more films.

[MTALL-012] Ruri Saijou's one time revival

As for the the film itself, I find it hard to review comebacks as it is hard not to make comparisons to old films, especially for someone as established as Ruri. Materiall took a safe approach though and shot something that is basically a debut film, which worked out in their favor as it focused more on the actress. Just like a debut film, the scenes are pretty vanilla but Ruri's performance is great as always and the threesome part was pleasantly surprising. I also think that Materiall got what they wanted from producing this comeback. They established themeselves with a big release and great sales as it topped the DMM sales charts for January 20 and I wouldn't be surprised if its top 10 on the monthly sales. 

Unpai makes her JAV debut for S1

S1 has now officially announced that famous Tiktoker Unpai would make her debut in February. The studio has been teasing her debut since late December and it wasn't hard to figure out that this was referring to the social media star Unpai. She is has over 3.7million followers on Tiktok, and looks like a typical e-girl to me. She has a fantia/Fancentro accounts where she does typical gravure teasing and censored cam girl type videos. It seems that S1 followed MOODYZ when they signed Youtuber Asumi Mirai and just as I said back in October, I think studios signing e-girls is a great recruitment strategy studios get actresses that are already fairly popular and know how to promote themselves over the internet.

[SSIS-312] Unpai's AV debut

Frankly, I think Unpai is a bit overhyped and her popularity is brought on by adept social media usage and a huge Chinese audience. Her face is a bit overdone with surgery for me, especially her nose, and her body isn't something to write home about aside from her huge breasts. I'm not down on her just yet though as I haven't seen her perform in a scene yet and S1 was shrewd to not put any sex scenes in the trailer for SSIS-312. I'm sure that this is part of the marketing strategy to keep how she acts a mystery to her fans as well as the general public who might have just heard of her for the first time.

SSIS-312 Cover image

As for Unpai's history, she was actually a gravure idol who went by Ito Sayaka(伊藤彩) but even then she was already using Unpai as her nickname and gradually just started using it as her stage name. Another interesting thing about her was that she was a finalist for the miss-id 2019 contest and in an effort to get recognized she brought a photography team overseas just to beef up her Instagram. She was also a top live streamer for 17Live which is a popular in China, Japan and Korea as she was able to speak the languages for those countries. Even though I think she is a bit overhyped and it is still exciting to see someone as popular as her make a debut in AV. I also curious if my opinion of her being overrated will change after we actually see her full length film. If you want to read more about Unpai's debut you can check out trapstar's article about her.

Iori Kogawa retires and a look into retirement trends

This January had a lot of retirements and the biggest of which was Iori Kogawa announcing her retirement at the end of the year. The volume of retirement announcements this month made reflect on how actresses are handling their exits out of AV. I was able to come up with the three types of retirements and this month there was one for each category. 

The Last Dance

The first category I came up with I will dub the last dance and has only been a trend fairly recently. This is the retirement where the actress would announce months(usually a year) in advance her intention to retire. I did notice however that actresses who do this types of retirements usually have a sizable fan base or have an extensive career. I think this types of retirements are great as fans are not blind-sided by the departure of the actress. This also benefits the actress' studio/agency as they can build up interest and drive sales until the actual retirement with special releases, merch and events.

Iori Kogawa's retirement announcement

Iori Kogawa's announcement falls under this category as she announced her retirement at the end of this year, which would also coincide with her 10th year in the industry. SOD has also made a special page for Iori to commemorate her contributions. In the video uploaded by SOD, she stated that she felt like her career has hit a dead-end and has naturally run its course. This announcement is not as surprising as Iori has recently slowed down her film production, only releasing once every two months in 2021, and she has been in the industry for a long time. This news is a bittersweet for me as I distinctly remember being excited for her debut when I first really got into JAV and I have been a fan ever since, but I wish her all the best in her future.

Short Notice

The short notice type of retirement is when actresses only announce a few weeks/days before they quit. These usually done by actresses who are less known and usually they wont have a retirement film/event. This month we have Anna, Nazuna Ioto and Ai Kawana announcing their retirements on a short notice. Kanon Yano/Konohana Narumi/Nazuna Ioto announced her retirement on the 15th and has subsequently deleted her social media accounts. Ai Kawana on the other hand announced her retirement in March while Anna's last film will be released on February. 

Anna, Nazuna Ioto and Ai Kawana

I still appreciate the short notice retirements as there is an definite answer when fans try to find out if an actress has stopped performing. I do want to talk more about Anna's retirement as she aired her opinions about the AV industry in her now deleted account. She stated that she was supposed to quit after her contract with SOD ran out but decided to give freelancing a try after transferring to T-powers. However she was disappointed with her low sales, income and lack of offers after going freelance that she just decided to quit. Personally I think this was a hastily made decision as she is new in AV and she hadn't built up a following yet. I do think that her decision makes sense if she had other options outside of AV that she thinks is worth her time and I guess she really didn't have the right intentions when she became an actress. She has since promoted her delivery health services under her new twitter account.  

Silent Exit

The silent exit is the hardest retirement to track as you would only know they stopped acting if you really follow the actress. These retirements are always a mystery as there is no definite reason given to why they chose to quit and it also runs into the possibility that the actress can come back and was just on a hiatus. This month I'd put Amakawa Sora and Hasumi Ten as actresses who silently retired. 

Amakawa Sora

Amakawa Sora hasn't released a new film since September 2021 and we have been left wondering what happened to her, well a few weeks ago she changed her Twitter cover photo as it previously had the Faleno logo on it. I don't know if she also listed AV actress under her bio before but it only says gravure now. With these details I guess it's safe to say that she has retired but I am still holding out hope for her return due to a few reasons. First off, even though she has been doing gravure and has recently released a photobook, she still links to her AV films on twitter. Another reason, which I also think is the main reason, was that from a picture I found over at Scanlover that she had gotten braces, which makes me think that she is just on hiatus until they are removed. 

Hasumi Ten

Unlike Sora I can certainly say that Hasumi Ten has retired. She has already gone into a full image re-brand calling herself Noa now. The only reason I was able to catch this was because I was genuinely interested in her career maybe due to some misplaced Filipino pride. Similar to Anna, she is now promoting a cabaret club that she joined. I did find it funny how I was unable to find her SNS accounts after she changed her name, until I tried looking for her Tiktok. On that platform, even though she has already changed her account name, the watermark for videos still said @hasumiten10.

Other Headlines

Social media and other news

• Some SOD titles have returned to DMM but only select titles, still no information on their full return.
• Moe Amatsuka lists her hardest films she's ever done.
• Shimiken listed his best new actresses of 2021.
• Former athletes swimmer Saki Shinkai and martial artist Gabi Mitake Marcia made their interesting debuts. (Yuna Mitake using a new name)
• Mia Nanasawa releases a new VR film in 3 years.
• Momo Sakura seems to be upping her social media presence as she is posting more and created a sub twitter account.
• Kitano Mina also makes an sub twitter and instagram account.
• Japan celebrated coming of age day(成人の日) and some actresses posted their pictures about it.
  • Riri Nanatsumori, Ono Rikka, Ishikawa Mio

Transfers and Revivals

• Tsubaki Sannomiya becomes an Attackers exclusive starting February. Frankly S1's roster was getting a bloated and this move is similar to Mako Iga who also transferred to Attackers.
• Nanasaki Miiro graduates from DEEP’S and will become a freelancer.
• Airi Suenaga graduates from SOD real married woman label.
• Hino Fuwari(日乃ふわり) has renamed to Yume Ayakawa(彩川ゆめ).

Retirements and Announcements

• Ruka Inaba goes on a hiatus however she stated that will return on April in the earliest.
• Yume Kana leaves her agency and goes on a hiatus, she might return under a different name.
• Gyaru actress Iroha Isshiki has announced her retirement in March.