Hey guys, Oppaira here. Often times I get hit with a dilemma about actresses: should they specialize in an area they are good at and do only that, or should they be a jack of all trades? I'm here to spark a discussion today about my thoughts on the subject.

To start off let's talk about what I mean when I say specialize. An actress specializing means they have a particular theme or genre they do that they do pretty much all the time. It can really be anything, though there tends to be more physical specialties than anything. Examples of those are things like huge boobs focused videos (looking at you Hitomi) or MILFs (looking at you Madonna). There are also performing specialties that exist, typically of the hardcore variety. Studios like E. Lab tend to focus on those hardcore styles, and you often see actresses who fall down a rabbit hole, only doing things like anal and deepthroat.

On the flip side you have actresses who do a bit of everything. You'll see them in solo and group videos and doing all sorts of varieties of things, from schoolgirl or teacher to lesbian and gangbangs. You tend to see it a lot more with younger actresses who aren't at the MILF only stage yet, and those actresses do find themselves in MILF plots (even if it might not make sense).

Now the question that remains: should an actress specialize or not? I'm here to share my opinion on it.

The Downsides of Specializing

When you're a specialist you tend to have very low variety in your videos. Even if you're an actress at a studio like Madonna, Madonna tends to have a lot of videos feel the same. So many of them are a cheating wife theme, and while the narrative will be slightly different each time, when you compare that variety against what a video could be, it comes out being very minimal. I find myself looking at some of the middle of the pack Madonna actresses and just not wanting to watch their 10th NTR release.

The same is equally true of actresses who get shoehorned into rougher things. It's not uncommon for an actress to get stuck in a world where all the stuff she does is hardcore things involving insane deepthroating or anal sex. Even if they don't get stuck there it can often be difficult to fully get away from it or even have their career go to a reasonable place. They're much more likely to star in random multi-actress videos than they are to be the star of their own show. An actress like Honoka Mihara really comes to mind when I think of that group of actresses. Even if she did have non-hardcore videos she was definitely better at that stuff and doing it all the time, and a lot of her non-hardcore stuff was generic group videos for studios like Hunter.

I also find specializing tends to happen a lot with "big titty milf" actresses. It's very common for actresses a bit past their prime to be stuck working for lower quality studios that are focusing primarily on the physical niche they have. I can look at actresses like Miina Wakatsuki, Mako Oda, Miki Yoshii, or Eri Takigawa and accept that the physical qualities they bring to the table far exceed their performing skills, and that I'm far more likely to watch them because of their appearance than I am any other qualities. While it certainly sucks to some extent that an actress I like is down in the dumps like that, I also get that you get more bang for your buck on the lower quality releases. Even though Miki Yoshii has been one of my favourite actresses this past year or two, I fully accept that it's more so due to how much I seem to like her physically and definitely not due to quality content.

The Upsides of Specializing

Now, it's not as if specializing is necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of great actresses out there who are specialists or should be specialists.

First off specialists tend to be a lot better at the things they do. When doing my top 10 deepthroaters list I was largely excluding actresses who were super specialized at it; I wanted to pick actresses who had some mainstream appeal. When you look at specialist deepthroaters, oh boy can they be insanely talented at it. I could probably go and find 10 actresses just as talented as any of the deepthroaters on my list who got stuck in deepthroat hell. It's the whole practice makes perfect motto that I just always want to see from actresses. Like why would I want to bother watching a mediocre actress give a mediocre performance, I'd rather go watch them do what they're good at.

Secondly, a specialist actress is far more likely to have content you will enjoy each release. I look at prolific freelancers I enjoy and part of why I watch them as much as I do is because the chances of good content go up when they release a lot. They usually have a lot of duds in there but there's room for good things if you're releasing five or 10 times a month. When I look at exclusive actresses, I'm often skipping releases for months on end just because nothing they produce is interesting. That's exactly what happened when Riho Fujimori went to SOD as an exclusive actress, I just didn't want to watch her. Or honestly, that's what's been happening with Yui Hatano these days, where she just isn't producing enough anymore to offset how generic a lot of her content is. What's even worse is that exclusive actresses can do themes you might like only for them to just not be cut out for it. At least when I get a specialist doing what they're good at, I can count on it being good.

Actresses I want to specialize

While I'll get to my thoughts on what I want in a minute, I want to take a moment to talk about a few actresses that I've come to want to specialize in various directions.

Kana Momonogi is a perfect example for me as someone who I want to do very specific things. Even though she's over at Idea Pocket and has a lot of flexibility, I find I want her to star in purely wholesome videos. She just has this wholesome aura around her with the way you see her at Disneyland all the time or taking cute photos with Pokemon foods and I just can't help but want to see the same replicated in her JAV. Honestly, I'd be inclined to watch a lot more Kana than I currently do if she was given more opportunities to star in wholesome videos that capitalized on it. If you give me Kana dating the new guy at school or starting a relationship with her virgin neighbour, I'd be all over it in a heartbeat.

Maki Tomoda is similarly an actress I want to do very specific things. Even though Maki is someone I've come to really enjoy, I just want her to be this kind, nurturing stepmother instead of whatever variety they give her. She's so good at that personality type that I'd rather watch her do the same scenario five times instead of seeing her be a slutty company president, convenience store worker, or whatever else they have cooked up for her. I'll still watch those videos of hers but she's just better at the more kindhearted personalities.

Love her or hate her I think Chitose Saegusa has long since been one of the best performers around. She's really good at taking the lead and giving you a more dominant, upbeat performance. That's why I think Chitose really needs more opportunities like that. Skip all this generic big titty MILF stuff that she gets and give me more of her being a slut.

My Take

Personally I've found myself enjoying specialists the more I get into JAV. The simple truth is that I follow too many actresses to have the time to watch everything. As a result I find myself more and more looking for videos that suit an actress rather than just watching whatever is coming out. Sure, there are some actresses I like so much that I'll just watch whatever it is I can from them but more often than not I'd rather have the video that suits them. I've gotten to the point where I don't mind skipping an actress I enjoy for a few months and watching content from other actresses that's just going to be better. Even when it comes to some of my favourite themes or genres it's just not always worth watching if the actress is going to flub it. Oppai has my favourite series of all time and I can often tell when an actress isn't going to produce good quality content simply because she's not good enough to do it justice.

Honestly, I wouldn't even be upset to have some actresses where 90% of their content is all the one thing they're good at. Yumika Saeki is a perfect example of someone I would have been happy to watch deepthroating all the time. In fact, I wasn't really big on her physically but she was just so good at deepthroating that it wound up not even mattering to me. Or I look at Akari Niimura, another fantastic deepthroater I recently got into, and I was super happy to just keep consistently watching deepthroat video after deepthroat video from her. I'm not even sure if it's possible for these two to have so much deepthroating content that I stop watching them.

I find when it comes to actresses that are far better at being dominant than they are at being submissive, I just don't want to watch their submissive stuff. Kurea Hasumi and Yuri Honma come to mind as a couple that I'd just flat out rather not watch them if the quality of their releases are bad. There was definitely a few years that Kurea had bad content and I wasn't watching her, and even right now Yuri Honma is someone I've almost completely stopped watching because of the quality of content she has. Even someone who isn't known for dominant stuff like Minori Hatsune has completely fallen off my radar because she just doesn't have any good content coming out.

I know I've complained about it before with actresses like Hitomi being underutilized, but Hitomi is one of the few actresses I was willing to watch every release regardless of what was going on in it. It's extremely rare, at least for me, to find an actress I like quite that much. And the thing is, whether she was getting better quality stuff wouldn't have changed how often I watched her. Sure, I would have enjoyed the releases more, but I was going to watch everything either way. Even with Julia being my favourite active actress, I haven't seen all of her releases even this year, which is more to show just how much of a unicorn Hitomi was for me.

Conclusion

I'm really hoping to spark a bit of a debate with this one. Maybe some people will come in here and agree with me about wanting actresses to specialize more. Maybe some others will come in here and tell me that I'm crazy and to let actresses do whatever they want. How would you feel if your favourite actress was doing the same stuff over and over again? Honestly, I wouldn't even be that upset these days if I knew everything they were doing was going to be a certain quality level. If they're doing what they're good at, I say keep doing it over and over.