JAV Sales Report - July 2022
Hey guys, welcome to the July sales report, sorry it's a little bit delayed.
We're now almost in the fall, can you believe it? That means we're now in peak debut season, one of the most fun times of the year. I've seen almost a third of the debuts I intend to review so it's great that things are coming along well. With us being in August now it's also almost at the point at which all the debuts I intend to watch will have debuted. I'm quite sure I've mentioned this before but I tend to avoid watching debuts too early on in their careers. I find debut videos to be extremely bland and the actress just isn't comfortable. While Japanese men might like that sort of shy, embarrassed personality, I'm all for the exact opposite. This means I'm usually waiting until the third or fourth video at least, and in fact the median is actually the 7th video. All that means is that there are a lot of actresses that have debuted recently who I'm just waiting on a good video to release before I take the plunge. I'm also really excited for what I have planned this year for debuts so be sure to check in during the winter to see.
On another note, if people haven't noticed yet, Prestige is back on DMM in limited quantities. It appears to only be for physical content but anything is better than nothing. It's been kind of sad seeing them elsewhere and not being able to chat about them. I personally haven't been too annoyed by it since very few actresses I pay attention to work there though if we're going to get things like Suzu Matsuoka moving to Kanbi (which, if I can add, is a very strange career move) then who cares.
Anyway let's jump into the actual report now that I've got some of those general updates out of the way.
Top Actresses
Airi is someone I watched trading actresses with Fried Chikan and I ultimately didn't become a fan of her. The industry hard disagrees with me when she's all the way up in 15th this month. If I had to guess it's because she's got three releases this month. For the past two months and next month Airi's been a shared exclusive for Idea Pocket and Attackers. That makes a lot of sense to me and has been something I've been critical in the past about Idea Pocket not taking more advantage of. The two studios are sister studios, owned by the same people, so you'd think they'd utilize that relationship a bit better. I think especially as they have such different focuses, it's a good way to capture a much wider audience for your actresses. At any rate, this month also has an image video accompanying her for Rebecca. What's even more surprising is that somehow it took Airi nine whole years to make her way to Rebecca. At any rate, Airi's time in the spotlight is probably just for the month and I would expect her to drop back down when she doesn't have the bonus third release.
Julia is an actress I have such a love-hate relationship with. On the one hand she's so attractive and one of my favourites, but at the same time she's often so underwhelming. I still find myself watching a surprising amount of her though and I think at the end of the day she's just so freaking attractive. Especially as she finds herself showing some signs of her age, like a bit of gray at the roots in these stills, she's maturing gracefully into the MILF we knew she would. Actresses can sometimes pass their peak but I find Julia always manages to keep me interested. Even if her boobs were bigger early on her career or her face has changed a decent amount, she still manages to captivate me. I think other people feel much the same since she's continually selling well. She's had some of her best releases lately and I'm still excited for what the future has in store for her.
Mizuki is someone I recently checked out and all I have to say about her is damn she has a nice ass. That's where her scheduled August release comes in as it pairs her up with a fellow booty actress in Alice Otsu, whom I also recently checked out. The pair look fantastic from behind and will drive anyone crazy watching this one. I have a lot of faith in Bi's Slut Heaven label doing justice to this, especially if they can let Alice go wild. If you read my posts on them but weren't sold then maybe the pair of them together is enough bang for your buck.
Riho is not an actress I would have expected to jump so much on the list. She's now an exclusive actress for SOD's Kirei label and it's super disappointing as a fan. She's such a good performer and was outputting quite a few videos, and honestly we had tons of great options before. Going down to just a single video that can be somewhat bland (like this one) is really not what I wanted to see out of her. That being said, I think there's an argument to be made about how big of a studio SOD is. Big studios like this tend to have large followings and it's not all that surprising that she's doing well as a result. I think the amount of people willing to check her out is very understated and this video probably strikes a nice balance between letting her show off a bit of a wild side while being tame enough for the average viewer. With Kirei being relatively new (it started during the pandemic) I think there's a lot of room for it to grow and I'll be very curious to see how it winds up performing.
One of these days Kurea's ranking is going to plummet like the number of releases: straight to bottom. I'm consistently baffled as to how she's been inactive for half a year and still manages to sell well. I can see it on the western side because western fans likely find themselves very attached to the few names they recognize but even the DMM digital sales show Kurea doing extremely well. I think I wouldn't be surprised to see this kind of general trend of the big names doing well in the western market (where Kurea is flat out first) when we look at what's going on at R18 and how this promotes this kind of trend in the results. Hopefully one of these days she'll stop drinking with men at her bar long enough to shoot another film. As a huge fan I think there are two things that really stand out about her current state. First and foremost is that you don't really know what her plans are and it's frustrating not knowing if she'll ever shoot again, especially with her still just casually posting on social media. Second is that her recent work has been some of her absolute best stuff and it's really disappointing to see her peak and disappear. They always say go out on a bang but I'd rather see them decline just a bit before calling it quits.
I don't say this enough because I don't get enough opportunities to say it but shared exclusive actresses (those that work exclusively for only a couple studios and release for them each month) are great. It's all the benefits of the steady work with a quality studio and it reduces all of the downsides. The biggest downside I tend to have with exclusive actresses is that the variety is too low and there's way too many opportunities for you to skip a couple of months. With Karen I find they give her a lot of great variety because of her being shared between Oppai and Premium. What's crazy is that it's Oppai with the interesting videos, something you tend not to see out of them. They often phone it in with "big tits" selling a video (god how many times did we see that with Hitomi) but with Karen they've got more interesting videos like the convenience store one. It's definitely anything but your average convenience store video and you instead see stuff more like the infamous video from Yuna Ogura. Even if that video isn't the reason Karen is up top this month it totally embodies the spirit of why she is. It's also just a fantastic video that you ought to be watching.
Arina is definitely someone to talk about after the recent news. What news is that you might ask? Well, I'm just going to stall for dramatic effect to make you think the worst. Anyway she's leaving Faleno and heading over to Moodyz, plus she's changing her name to Arina Arata. The name change is kind of whatever but leaving Faleno is a big deal, I think. I've been very critical about Faleno being very mediocre and it's nice to see actresses actually leaving. I think seeing people leave puts pressure on Faleno to actually do something for a change. It's so easy to get stuck being complacent and I think this will make them be a little more adventurous. Maybe it was all money reasons and Moodyz was willing to shell out some cash, especially after Shoko's retirement, but it could also have been that she was bored at Faleno. Who knows what the real reason is but here's hoping that Faleno improves and Arina has some sweet Moodyz content.
If there's a silver lining of any sort to the mess over at R18 it's that we get a few unfamiliar faces in our top spots. Yumika is an actress I'm no stranger to but I think is a stranger to these lists. She's known for that snake tongue depicted and especially her deepthroating. While this month's top video is a much more tame entry I'm still glad to see her here regardless. I'd instead recommend checking out something with her deepthroating, like the second video listed, she's so insanely talented at it and you won't be disappointed (and if you don't agree you can come yell at me in the comments).
It will always be weird to me to think of Hitomi climbing 22 spots and just barely squeaking into the top 25. She's always been the western JAV actress to me and I think that reigns true for a lot of people. Love her or hate her she's been an iconic force in the west and is way more known than most others on the list. While I personally haven't been watching much Hitomi lately (partially because I've seen all her stuff already) I think her uniqueness is something that will allow her to stand the test of time. Kurea might be a fantastic performer and have an amazing ass but there are others that are great performers or have asses just as nice. When I look at Hitomi there's just no comparison, nobody has tits like hers on a body that slim, it's just unheard of. Once in a generation? Once in a lifetime? It's the kind of thing that you'll always remember and also always want to go back to. You might take solace in someone like Yuria Yoshine or her retired pal Kaho Shibuya (up in 11th this month) or even Hana Haruna (in 21st this month) but it's just not the same. I say that confidently as someone who's a huge Hitomi fan and hasn't found anyone that can replace her. I doubt I'll ever be surprised seeing her on the list but I also wouldn't be surprised seeing her much lower on the list.
Top Videos
Some things never change and that's S1's most popular actresses selling like hotcakes. Month after month we see their biggest names do well and if you had to ask me I would unquestionably say it was Saika (2nd), Yua (8th) and Ria (10th). Yua's the veteran at this point, Ria's still the newcomer, and Saika is somewhere in the middle. It's also interesting because they have different bust sizes as well (Ria is massive, Yua is big, and Saika is more average) which goes to show how diversified the S1 roster actually comes across as. Regardless it's not surprising to see anything they do show up on the list and I'll be following along to see if anyone can dethrone them. We actually saw Konan Koyoi up above show up a few spots higher than Yua but I think Yua's longevity is a huge factor for her, something I'm not sure Konan can ever compete with.
You know it's funny seeing this video here because of everything it represents. People always point out to me I should be more accepting of less busty actresses, and no matter how much I try I still keep going back to massive melons. Would Ichika having F cup boobs make her more my style? Probably, which means I guess it's bad the cover is just a tease. So the story goes even Ichika doesn't like her A cup boobs and uses push up bras and padding to make them seem bigger. I'm not sure what would be worse, finding out your girlfriend has A cup boobs when you thought she had much bigger ones or the fact that she lied to you about it. I guess the worst is probably that she felt the need to do it to make you interested / happy. At any rate, Ichika continues to be a force to be reckoned with and it's not too surprising to see her starring in something like this. People I know have thought about videos where her boob size was important for the plot and now someone has done it. Who knows, maybe there's room for some even more interesting content in this vein.
Third place has a rather unusual trend in seeing an older debut video rise quite far up to the top. You really don't see that kind of change, especially for a video that never even sold that well in the first place. Reading a bit more into it I think this is more so a case of unlucky timing. Tamao debuted back in January and if memory serves that was before SOD rejoined DMM. She might have been wildly popular and people just missed the mark on her. What I do find interesting is that she never peaked on the debut chart even once, not even this month. It looks like the tags on DMM don't actually label it as a debut video despite the cover clearly saying AV debut. In fact, the series it's in is called AVdebut.... At any rate, if you were looking for some more debuts that were flying under the radar, I guess Tamao is what you're looking for.
Rin Hachimitsu continues to do well on the reports. Say what you want but even fake H cups are going to be relatively nice. I think especially because Idea Pocket tends not to have actresses this busty on their roster she stands out quite a bit. This also goes back to the comments I made about Riho at SOD and how there are likely a lot of mega fans of certain exclusive studios, especially Idea Pocket and S1. I'd be willing to bet there are people who only watch Idea Pocket and are loving that they have a super busty actress on their roster now. It's been a long time since Idea Pocket has had someone super busty, I think the last one I can remember is Mia Masuzaka who quit around three years ago. It's also funny that they're getting another even bustier actress in September (at a whopping 100cm L cup) who will probably siphon a lot of viewership from Rin. I suppose we'll have to wait and see but that's my prediction anyway.
Gravure turned JAV is always a fan favourite and that's the name of the game with S1's latest debut Kaede Hinata. 20 years old, 90cm G cup boobs, slim figure - what's not to love? I particularly find that S1 has an easy enough time finding G cup actresses and the ones that really stand out to me are often slightly bustier than her. That being said, again, hard to really complain about that. Only time will tell if she stands out.
Okay look, if you wanted to entice me with a cover you've done it. Natsuki Hoshino's boobs aren't particularly bigger than Kaede's above but they look so much bigger just by virtue of the way the bra sits on them. Either way it's hard to argue with how nice they look in the stills as well, a really nice shape to them. You best believe I've got my eyes on her and hopefully she debuted just in time for me to be able to watch her at the end of the year.
June Lovejoy continues to, in my opinion, be a very interesting actress. She doesn't always find herself at the top of the charts but she's definitely on everyone's radar. Being successful as a white, American actress can be difficult, but June being fluent in Japanese certainly helps. I think what makes this video in particular do well is how rough it is. There aren't a lot of studios doing this kind of rougher thing and it tends to star actresses who aren't very well known. I think especially when you think about the stereotype of western women doing anal or having sex with BBCs, it creates a stereotype of that content being extremely rough, and makes June's video feel right at home. I certainly feel like this video has a lot of potential to be quite nice and I wouldn't blame anyone wanting to see her get roughed up quite a bit.
I'm really glad to see Eri Takigawa (formerly known as Misa Arisawa) in 7th place because she's an actress that absolutely does not get any limelight. As you can probably make out from the cover she's got K cup boobs, and if your eyesight is particularly good you might catch the 110cm bust she has. That alone makes her worthwhile in my opinion, though I am absolutely 100% biased. She plays a horny MILF who finds herself with a younger man, definitely the dreams of a lot of younger dudes. Certainly worth checking out if, like me, you're into busty MILFs getting creampied.
Hope you've been enjoying the summer months of JAV. Hopefully this new AV law nonsense doesn't cause too much turmoil in the fall and we can keep enjoying the sales reports. Until next time!
Comments
Next week it will be 3 months of R18's circus (since June 1st), you'd seriously hope that given the overall conditions of the JAV industry they'd try to sort it out (not like it makes sense to leave it zombified, but times are particularly tough).
Yeah I know Kurea's been saying that but no official word. Probably her management got told that she's done but they're not willing to accept it. I know they didn't want to announce Saeko Matsushita's retirement because her management thought they could convince her to stay. Kurea is a really big fish to lose.
And yeah, R18 has lots of problems that aren't easy to address. I'd be surprised if they flat out weren't trying but it's not the kind of thing you can sort out overnight. Especially as the Western side of the industry moves in a direction that Japan isn't following, R18 gets put in an awkward situation.
Per not sorting overnight, just laying it out that we got approved for at least one of our non-CC billing options in less than a day. :)
Well the western side of the industry is trying to crack down on sensitive areas it doesn't like whereas Japan doesn't care at all and still does its own thing. R18 doesn't really have a choice in the matter since they're putting that inappropriate content from one region onto a platform in the other region.
It's about the type of content featured in JAV. Japan doesn't seem to care about international standards about what is or is not okay to put in a video. You can see from some of the topics they cover or even the words they put big bold letters on their covers. I think you can probably guess a handful of topics that are not okay. We stray away from a lot of topics the way the West does but Japan does as Japan will. The JAV industry doesn't seem to care about what shouldn't make its way into videos. It creates difficulty for companies like R18 because there's a lot of content that they realistically can't or shouldn't publish on their side but is being pumped out from the studios.
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