One question JAV fans ask all the time is why the women who appear in these videos are so beautiful, and why so many girls choose to enter a field that isn’t always viewed in the most positive light by society. In this post, let’s explore eight reasons why Japanese girls become JAV actresses in such large numbers, drawing on Japanese-language sources for maximum accuracy.
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What I Learned Visiting a JAV Set
Back when I was involved in publishing visual novels through J-List’s sister company JAST USA, I often spent time with presidents of our partner companies. One guy needed to go to a meeting at a JAV studio, and asked if I wanted to come along. I jumped at the chance to visit an actual adult film company in Japan!
There was no filming that day, so I just walked around checking out the energy of the office, which had a small shooting set built into one corner. That was when I noticed one desk that was overflowing with a special résumé form used in the JAV industry.
The Western tradition of writing résumés and CVs can be quite chaotic. The format is totally open, and you’re free to choose the font, the paper quality, and which details to include when outlining your background for potential employers. This is totally different in Japan, where all job applicants must submit a standardized form called 履歴書 rireki-sho, with boxes to fill in.
In the JAV world, there’s a special two-page version of this form that prospective performers must fill out. On the form, they list all their information: real name, current or previously used stage names, age, and which documents they’ve submitted as verification. They also note which adult film genres they’re okay with performing in. They must also attach a topless photo to the form.
Looking at the overflowing stack of papers made me curious. Why do so many Japanese girls want to become JAV actresses?
But Wait. How Can We Really Know Why Girls Join the JAV World?
The actual reasons girls join the JAV industry can be complex. When I wrote my post about why Westerners love JAV so much, based on comments from a Reddit post, a thought occurred to me. Basically, the reasons people gave for preferring JAV to Western adult content seemed a bit all over the map. It felt like an example of “post-hoc rationalization,” when our brains basically latch on to a thing or person we like, then create a detailed story after the fact to explain why we’ve made that choice.
We do this all the time, especially in politics. We choose a candidate or policy based on our gut feeling, then create an internal narrative after the fact that makes us believe we’re behaving rationally. If you burn your hand, you’ll believe you pulled your hand away quickly because of the pain. But the hand moves back as a reflex action, before any actual pain is felt, and our brains lie to us about what happened afterwards.
So, how can we know the reasons why girls want to work as JAV actresses? Won’t it be hard to separate our own internal biases as Westerners from the boots-on-the-ground reality of the girls making the choice to perform in JAV? In order to reduce this, I did all my research in Japanese. I checked out many articles and interviews given by current and former actresses.
Why Japanese Girls Become JAV Actresses: 8 Core Reasons
Let’s explore the reasons why so many girls actively want to work in the JAV field.
Economic Reasons. (Duh.)
First off, lots of Japanese girls want to work in JAV for the money. Superstar JULIA was working as a clerk in a medical office when a fire in her apartment put her in debt for 1 million yen (around $7,000). With no way to pay off such a sum, she agreed to perform in a video. She quit her medical job when she realized how much she could potentially earn doing JAV work full-time.
How much do JAV actresses even earn? Top names can make $15,000–$20,000 per video. They make even more money from fan clubs or licensing official JAV goods. Middle-tier names might pull in $2000-8000 per day of shooting. Amateurs get as low as $700 per scene in a kikaku (one-off video built around a specific concept) production.
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JAV Actresses Want the Spotlight
Another reason so many women are keen to work in JAV is to make a splash and “be seen” by a wider audience. A lot of girls grow up wanting to be famous idols or actresses, which can be a difficult goal to attain. At least becoming a JAV performer allows them to get up on a stage and dance.
One event I like to attend is held by TMA, the studio that publishes “anime cosplay JAV” titles. It’s like a dance club, but 100% of the songs are anime-related, and it’s great fun to get out and dance to our favorite anime OPs.
What’s even more fun is all the JAV actresses wandering around the event dressed up in outrageous cosplay outfits. It’s rare for them to get to talk to a foreigner in Japanese, and I’ve had some interesting discussions with the girls. What impressed me was how much they liked having fans on social media, interacting with those fans, and promoting themselves.
The funny thing is, a JAV career can be a doorway to wider fame beyond the industry. Quite a few famous names, including Aoi Sora, Maria Ozawa, Yuma Asami, Sakura Mana, and Yua Mikami, have retired from JAV and now enjoy careers as models, novelists, and in mainstream TV and films. And mothers! That is super cute.
Admiration for Senior Actresses
When I write my blog posts giving details about JAV photobooks, I Google details about each actress. One reason often given why Japanese girls become JAV actresses is “because of admiration for” a famous actress like Mana Sakura or Rara Anzai. “Seeing her perform on-screen was mesmerizing, and it made me think seriously about joining the industry myself one day.”
I always take comments like this with a grain of salt. You never know if they’re being honest or are blowing smoke up the ass of their industry senpai to be polite.
What do you like about JAV? Read this post next!
JAV is Better Than Soapland Work
You don’t generally think of Japan as a huge hub of prostitution, but in reality, there are quite a few businesses offering sexual services for (mostly Japanese) customers. These include “soaplands” where a girl will clean your body, then give you a sexy massage. Or “image clubs” where you can scratch that itch to molest a girl inside a (simulated) train.
I’m sure any girls working in this industry are under a lot of stress. Compared to one-on-one sex work, doing a JAV shoot one or two days a month with professional staff all around you is probably a big upgrade.
Why Japanese Girls Become JAV Actresses: Getting Scouted
As we learned in my interview with Kaho Shibuya, there are fundamentally two kinds of girls working in JAV: ones who applied for work in the industry, and those who were “scouted” for their great beauty or style. Talent scouts know what kinds of features are in demand in the marketplace, and are adept at saying just the right things to get the girls to consider taking the plunge.
Why Japanese Women Become JAV Actresses: Moved to Tokyo from Rural Japan, Why Not Shoot Some JAV?
When you learn a language like Japanese, you naturally encounter some unique words. Some colorful words relate to travel, like 来日 rainichi (to come to Japan from abroad), or 渡米 tobei, literally to cross the sea to America. One common word is 上京する joukyou suru, literally “to climb to the capital” from a more rural part of Japan. Basically, to leave your hometown and head to the Big City to make your mark on the world.
Lots of Japanese leave their hometowns and travel to Tokyo to find themselves and start careers. Some girls in this situation find themselves enjoying freedom for the first time in their lives, far from home. If they get approached about starring in a JAV production, they often think, “Why not? No one I know will see it!” Before long, their work has morphed into a longer career. And they’ve probably realized the internet knows no boundaries.
Why Japanese Girls Become JAV Actresses: Using Their Body As “Personal Capital.”
An interesting book called AV女優の社会学 (The Sociology of AV Actresses) noted that many women enter JAV because of pragmatism. “I know I’m beautiful, and that’s one of the few things I have control over. So I decided to make my beauty into a weapon, and build a career I can feel good about.”
Everyone knows that certain face and body types are popular in the JAV world. A girl with the right balance of large, natural breasts, a certain kind of face, and genuine feminine charm would really be prized in certain industries. If a girl has a choice between earning a low salary working at a company job, perhaps being demonized by her female co-workers for being overly sexy, or getting famous in the JAV world, it might be an easy choice for her to make.
“If I’m going to get judged by my looks anyway, I might as well get paid for it.”
Yes, There Is Pressure to Join the JAV Industry
There’s a whole ecosystem of “high-income” jobs for women called Vanilla-kei. These are named after the company that drives advertising trucks all around Japan playing this catchy theme endlessly. The jobs advertised are generally legit. Positions like “cabaret girls” who pour drinks for male customers, or bunny girl hostesses at a men’s club.
But in reality, “Vanilla-kei” is basically a funnel that tempts girls deeper into sex-related jobs, ultimately leading them to JAV. Recruiters promise signing bonuses, talk up how much potential a girl might have in the industry, and apply other forms of soft pressure.
While there are some shady elements in the JAV world, things are much better today than they were a decade ago. Back around 2015, there was a big scandal in which several girls came forward saying they’d been coerced into filming based on sketchy fine print hidden in contracts, or after being threatened with huge “penalty fees” if they backed out by scary characters you might meet in a Yakuza game. About 15 talent agency and JAV executives were arrested, and the industry basically got dragged into the sunlight.
Today, there are standardized ethics rules, mandatory third-party contract checks, and a 1-year cooling-off period that lets any performer cancel a release for any reason. It’s certainly a lot better than the way things used to be.
Thanks for reading this blog post exploring the ten reasons why Japanese women become JAV actresses. What are your thoughts about the reasons women join the JAV industry? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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Great news! J-List is having a $40-off-$200-or-more holiday coupon you can use for all in-stock items shipping from Japan! (Except calendars and Lucky Boxes.) This means you can make a big order of ecchi products for men, manga and doujinshi, JAV DVDs and Blu-rays, or hentai products and save big. Start browsing here!
