Alright everyone we finally have the last sales post for the year. Interested to see how the year ends off and what the top actresses for the year are. At the time of writing DMM hasn't published their yearly data yet but when they do I'll have a special sales post for that. Also, although I won't have results for R18's yearly data this year, I've been working on some stuff so I should be able to post it next year. I know that's a long way away but something to look forward to nonetheless. It should also generate some more accurate data each month which I'm excited about. Before jumping into it, December is always an interesting month because of the holidays. Lots of videos go on sale and people having time off tends to mean more consumption, so we can sometimes see some unusual shifts. Anyway for now let's go check out this month's report.

Top Actresses

Starting off the physical sales we see a new name on top, Kaoru Yasui. She's a new Muteki debut and a lot of people have high hopes for her. Someone I know described her as a busty Miku Abeno and I can definitely see that. That will probably raise some initial hype for her. Muteki is a studio probably a lot of people have forgotten about because it's been so damn long since they've released anything but people probably have high expectations because it's Muteki. They're known as the debut studio, often just having the first release of an actress. There have been a ton of major actresses who have debuted there, including Miu Nakamura, Nanami Matsumoto, Shoko Takahashi, Miharu Usa, Yuri Oshikawa, and most notably Yua Mikami. In fact, Yua won an award for best debut film from them a few years back. Considering Muteki has been a ghost town for a couple of years now people are very surprised to see them show up again. If you want to check out more about Muteki or Kaoru, take a look at WoodOfTheRisingSun's post.

There are plenty more debuts on the list this month, unsurprisingly. Aka Asuka, Hana Himesaki, Nene Tanaka, Yume Nikaido, and Riri Nanatsumori among them. I've checked out those five in my 2020 debuts post so I recommend taking a look at my opinion of them. Ai Kano is another I have my eyes on, she's incredibly busty and looks to be making a name for herself with results like this. I unfortunately didn't get a chance to watch her last year since she debuted very late into the year but I do think she'll make one of my 2021 New To Me posts. I've always kind of wondered what the thoughts are about late debuts. The actresses probably don't think anything of it but the studios/agencies have stuff to consider. On the one hand the actress won't be crowned newcomer of the year, and maybe delaying a month could change that. On the other hand, you can probably sell a bit better in December during the holidays. I'm guessing they prefer the latter cause sales are most important, and it wouldn't surprise me if they delayed her release a month to fit it into the holidays.

Outside of some debuts we see some familiar faces and a fair bit of shuffling. Shouko is up 44 spots, Nana 57, Saeko 53, Mana 35, and Aika 46. Quite a few names jumping up and down, although these are mostly actresses who have the potential to do well any time. I find physical sales vary a lot, often the quality of the cover can make all the difference, or a sale on DMM. What's more interesting are names that are new and continue to perform well. Rika Tsubaki and Honoka Tsujii stand out in that crowd. They're both somewhat new (Rika redebuting last year) and have been making names for themselves very quickly. What I find most interesting is that the pair has started to work together and has been a good pairing. They had releases together in both November and December, and I've seen the November release. Thankfully I write down all my thoughts about actresses when I watch them so I may feature the pair in an upcoming New To Me post.

Digital sales don't really show us a lot this month. Some shuffling at the top but only one name who was outside the top 50, Aika Yamagishi. She also jumped up quite a bit on the physical sales post so I'm going to chalk that up to her first release of the year looking like a banger. That cover certainly looks nice and I think fans might be excited about her release having a plot again. She's had a few recent releases with close to zero plot and I haven't personally been much of a fan of them. Her latest video did sell quite well when it was on sale during the holidays, though I wasn't much of a fan of it. There was also a VR film featuring Yuki Takeuchi that sold well during the holidays, which is probably what accounts for her digital sales being a bit better. It'll be good to see her have some good releases in 2021 so hopefully that first video starts us off right.

We also once again see Eimi Fukada at the top, Mayuki Ito rising up to second. Akari Mitani, Yui Hatano, Yu Shinoda, and Aoi Kururugi round out the top 6. Eimi at the top is something nobody should be surprised about, she always sells well and is commonly at the top spot. I think everyone else is unsurprising as well, Akari, Yui, Yu, and Aoi have all been in the top 10 for the past few months. I strongly suspect they'll be at the top of the yearly sales post. These are actresses who are just consistently fan favourites and always do well. I mean, Yui is arguably the greatest of all time at this point so I think nobody should ever be surprised when she's in a top spot. Mayuki, however, is someone I'm surprised at. Mayuki's had some VR and IV releases lately to complement her single monthly release at Kawaii, but she's had the same before without such stark rises to the top. I'm guessing people have just grown to like her over time, maybe she's finally blossomed into a great performer. It's been a while since I've seen her myself and hopefully she's seen some good improvement since. Considering how well she's been doing I think it's probably safe to say we should all go check her out.

Lastly we see Nozomi Ishihara up in a top spot. I wasn't sure what would happen with her as she started to fall off the top charts. Going exclusive for Moodyz was a bit of a gamble for her considering how well freelancing was working. However, I'm positive she cashed in at her peak value so I'm sure it made a lot of sense. It's possible her Rebecca release is partially to blame but I would more likely attribute it to some holiday sales. I know SQTE-324 sold well during the sales and honestly that doesn't surprise me at all. Nozomi seems like the perfect candidate to pick up a video during the sales, either as your first to see what the hype is or a second to see how things are going.

R18, like the DMM digital sales, doesn't have a ton of changes either. We have a few names moving up a bit including Aoi Kururugi, Karen Kaede, Elly Akira, and most notably Matsuri Kiritani. There are still sales on a ton of her videos so that's probably a big reason why she's selling so well. A handful of them are compilations but there's also MEYD-616 which is not bad. I haven't seen Matsuri's entry but the others in the series I have seen were all solid. Going back a second, this isn't the first time we've seen Karen Kaede jump up a list, as she jumped up a ton back in October on DMM's sales. Maybe someone knows something I don't about her and why she's bouncing up and down. I was pretty unimpressed with her when I checked her out last year but who am I to argue with the people.

We see Hitomi's sales rather down, and even as they're climbing back up the fact they were ever down that far is certainly something to take note of. Hitomi's 2020 was worse than 2019 in my opinion (and in Panking's too) and so it's not surprising to see her generally down. I would much rather see an actress like Kurea Hasumi or Akari Mitani at the top when they've done well for themselves this year (and it seems like Panking would agree with me on Kurea). I highly doubt Oppai looks at R18 sales figures for anything but it would be nice if they did and could learn from it. Hitomi had a lot of mediocre releases and there's a lot of room for improvement from the studio. I would hope they stop giving her basic dramas and give her something a little more creative so she can act. Especially giving her more dominant things where her best performances come from, that would be nice.

Top Videos

Unsurprisingly we see the new Muteki debut up on top. People took notice, I mean those boobs look great and Muteki's track record with debuts speaks for itself. Covers can be a bit deceptive and the trailer is intentionally bad to make people buy to see anything so we'll just have to wait and see. In fact, they don't even list any images either. Definitely trying to be sneaky with this one, even if people already know who she is. Either way I am pleased to see them back in the fold and unsurprised people are up and about.

Yume Nikaido's Christmas-themed video also looks interesting. Good Christmas videos are hard to come by, although I did run into one this year. Still, I have been looking for a second Yume video to watch so this might just be the one. It appears to be centered around Yume playing Santa and delivering herself as the present to some fans. House visit videos can be very hit or miss but the Christmas theme probably adds just enough to make it enjoyable. I think I'm just glad to see one of the newcomers I saw turning out to be good.

We also see a swath of top videos from S1 here featuring Aka, Riri, and Yua in cosplay. It's really not surprising to see S1 doing well, we see that pretty much every month. It does seem like Aka is turning out to be the Rara replacement I had hoped she would become. I can't say I straight agree with that, Rara was certainly more attractive, but I'll take anything at this point. Who knows, maybe Rara will come back considering she's retired and come back a few times already.

The digital sales are a much more interesting story. For one, we have MIMK-078 up in first. It's based on a hentai manga and stars Yuria Yoshine. The plot is that there's a hairdresser who gives special service to her customers. I really didn't think it was anything special, but I think between the light cosplay, hentai adaptation, the actress in it, the mask usage being prominent (in these times), I think they all contributed to people grabbing it. I mean, I myself watched it so I can see what the appeal is. What makes me happy is that Yuria Yoshine is getting recognition. She seems like the kind of actress people might gloss over but I think she has a lot of potential.

We see Aika Yamagishi back in 4th place with a familiar flick. I find it really interesting to see it jump back to the top of the charts considering it was way up earlier in the year. It was the first place digital release back in September but it has actually been doing well for a while. It was actually 41st on the physical charts in August and 33 on the digital charts again in October, so that's three months in a row it was a top video aside from the fact it now is up in the top 5 once again. I still maintain that the video is selling just because of the bang for the buck people are getting off of it. It's like when you buy cheap beer because it gets you into it at an effective cost, this one gets you off at a cheap rate, especially when on sale.

I think also it's worth noting that Nozomi Ishihara is once again selling well but with an extremely old video. Nozomi started as a freelancer and this was actually her third video. She cashed in at the height of her career by switching to a Moodyz exclusive, where she has been since November. Her other releases are still doing well, in fact her latest digital release is in 31st place. That being said, I find it quite interesting seeing such an old release selling. I know it was on sale during the holidays, so that almost certainly played a part in it. Like I mentioned, this month would be an interesting case because of all the sales. I know earlier I mentioned that a different release was selling well, I guess just a lot of Nozomi sold well during the holidays. I imagine a lot of people were buying into the Nozomi hype and checking her out, or perhaps people grabbing a second video after her debut. Japanese tend to love debut videos so I imagine a video close to her debut would also be very popular among fans. I will be very curious to see where Nozomi goes next year since she was definitely one of the best selling debuts of this year if not the best. Especially when compared to some of her contemporaries since there are a variety of career paths. It would be interesting to compare exclusives to freelancers and see how the industry reacts, especially when we can compare Nozomi having changed course.

Unsurprisingly the Muteki debut is the top debut but I've spoken at length about that already. More interesting we still see Ai Kano at a high rank. Feels like she's the real deal if she's still selling this well, although time will tell. I still personally haven't checked her out but that's just a matter of time. If anyone has taken a look let me know what you thought in the comments.

The number 6 and 9 spot is interesting since her standard and blu-ray both made the cut. Her name is Mio Shiromine (spelled Shiramine on R18 but I'm going to trust that's a misspelling given the name is on the cover) and it looks like people are really enjoying her. It also looks like she might only be half Japanese from her looks, especially the back cover. Either way, Idea Pocket is a good studio to debut for (and they have another in third place) so I'll be checking next month to see if she's still selling.

It's interesting to see the industry come up with a lot of half or foreigners lately, I think the last year or so has had a large influx of them relative to past years. Maybe I'm just paying more attention to it now that I've started these posts but it seems like there's always a lot. Outside of the Idea Pocket debut there's also the rank 8 and 10 actresses that both look like they might be half Japanese. Rank 10's name is literally Lemon Sawa, doesn't sound very Japanese to me.

We see three returning videos this month, one interestingly starring Meguri. I pointed out how rare that was last month considering she isn't appearing at the top of the charts but somehow her video is still selling lot hotcakes. I think it's a good sign for her because I think Meguri is extremely underrated (and that video was quite good).

We also see a lot of Yua Mikami on the charts, she always sells well. Seeing that there are some older videos from her these are very likely the results of sales. There are always a lot of S1 sales so it really doesn't surprise me at all. Yua is just the kind of actress that always sells well, there's a reason she's one of the perennial fan favourites. While her career is still too new for her to break the top 30 all time she'll absolutely make it as long as she stays in the business long enough.

What does surprise me is seeing Amu Amatsuka's release in 9th with Ai Kano's release in 10th. I think the covers speak for themselves, especially in the international market. Even domestically we saw the opposite results with Ai Kano being more popular. She's way up on the charts this month and her video was 4th on the DVD sales last month (and the top debut video). Even this month it continues to be one of the top videos so R18 is kind of the one bucking the trend here. Maybe that means there's something special about Amu but I'm going to press X to doubt on this one.

Lastly I'll just point out Hikari Sena's release in 8th place. She was one of the debut actresses I watched last year, you can see my thoughts on her here. Something tells me people got bamboozled by the Cherries Rebo release because she's not that busty. That studio is one of the more notorious photoshoppers and it really shows with that cover. She's listed as 95cm G cup elsewhere, 97cm H cup another place, but 103cm I cup on that cover, so it's hard to get an accurate read on her but certainly they're embellishing her for sure.

I hope you all join me for a future post where I go over the top results from the year. I still am not sure when that will come out, it all depends on when DMM publishes that data. Until next time!