AV Female Staff Roundtable Discussion

Translated by:Ex-S Woo

Interviewer: What do you think is the reason why the top AV stars of 2002 got so popular?
Naito: I still get the feeling that it's all about the big boobs. Just look at Mitake Ryoko or Aoi Sora.
Minimo: Mitake Ryoko has such a nice body. I was doing some research on DVD warehouses a little while ago and while DVDs of popular models were popular a little while ago, with the owners of DVDs being a lot more wide-spread now, I hear that there's no specific genre is that particularly popular. There's a lot of DVDs made for the PS2 that are popular right now, so I think you can say that there is no real "in" actresses anymore. I do get the feeling that the "Older sister" type of actresses are popular right now though.
Mi: Even amongst the actresses with large breasts, it's only the ones with breasts that are nicely shaped of have a nice body line that are popular right now, I think.
Pinko: Still, it's the face that's the most important in the end.
Naito: I also got the feeling that 2002 was the year where a lot of the stars that got popular were the pretty ones. Sort of like the "older but cute sister" types. If i was guy, they would be the women I would think "Oh man, I can get into trouble for this..." (laughs).
Minimo: I think I'd jerk off to them too if I was a guy (laughs).

Interviewer: Pinko, you were talking about what type of actresses were getting popular a little while ago. Do you think there's a difference in how men view AV actresses and a women view them?
Minimo: I once had to choose which scenes to pick to use during the introduction of a new actress and the editor called me out and asked me why I chose the shots I did. I told him that it was because I thought she looked cute in this scene and he would just pick another one...one that I would never would've chosen.
All: That happened to me too!
Pinko: I also noticed that the type of girls a guy likes differs by age group. Even in my company the shots men in their 40's pick is totally different from what the men in their 20's pick. Men in the 20's tend to pick shots that look like they've come out of a magazine.
Naito: We tend to pick cute looking shots while the men tend to pick sexy ones.
Minimo: I had to write the descriptions of videos a number of times and I racked my brain trying to think of different ways to describe the acts but when I showed it to my boss, he told me to "change it to sound submissive". He told me it won't have the proper impact otherwise.

Interviewer: How about the age group that buys AVs?
Naito: There are more ways to attain AVs nowadays, like the internet for instance, so I think the age group has increased a lot more these day.
Minimo: There are also more types to choose from. There are now rental DVDs, DVDs for sale, and VHS tapes. This means that AVs in general are more available now than every before and it serves as free advertisements for our products. So a guy can now pass on buying a DVD but rent it instead.
Naito: Our companies are under the watch of censor committees for both the VHS and DVD stuff. The requirements are different for each type.

Interviewer: How are hard are the VHS censor rules?
Minimo: Pretty tough. There are a lot of Indies companies out there now and they're doing a lot of videos that we're not able to.
Pinko: They're so different from what we do. I didn't know that Indies stuff sold this well until I started working but I can see why. The mosaics on them are a lot smaller, for one...

Interviewer: I think they're really pushing the mosaics to the limits. Of course, there are lot of Indies companies and go under every year.
Minimo: We always have to keep a look out for the independent stuff since we're fighting for the same shelf space in a store. But mosaics is one area that we can't do a thing about...
Mii: For example, we aren't allowed to use the term Kangofu(Nurse in Japanese) in our VHS releases but Nurse is allowed.
Naito: We once had to get rid of a candle we were using for a scene because they complained it was lit too brightly. It was for a soft SM scene and they said it "would be too cruel on the woman"...but there are tons of products out there that are even more hardcore. I really don't know what they're thinking.

Interviewer: I guess that means that you have to spend more money on ads to make up for that.
Minimo:I think the Indies stuff have more advertising though.
Naito:We do have to spend a lot of time and money on the advertising campaigns though. Especially since the target user for a DVD Rental and a DVD for Sale tend to be different
All: very different.
Naito:For the rental stuff, we have to try to go for a more artistic approach to sell the girl while for the sales stuff we concentrate on what type of DVD or tape it is. There's a lot of times when the amount of money we spend on advertising is more than the productions costs.
Minimo:Like creating a racing team (laughs). There's also the problem of the Indies AV stars becoming very popular in the rental arena as well.
Pinko:Yeah, they have a lot of cute girls doing Indies stuff.

Interviewer: Is there anything different in the way you try to promote the actresses compared to before?
Naito:Well, there was this one time we took Kawai Yui on a promotional tour all over the country. She was a really nice girl to be with so it went well with the stores that participated. We also created a free "Making of" DVD for rental stores to give to their customers. I also sent her material to about 100 different companies to try to get them interested.
Mi:We're definitely spending a lot more time on promotional events than before. The fact that AV actresses in general are signed on for longer contracts nowadays helps make all this worthwhile.
Naito:Al the actresses nowadays are cute, with a really nice body to boot. That's why we're spending a lot of time to find someone that has that little special something to set them apart from the rest.
Minimo:I've been spending a lot of time on using our website as a way to spread news about our actresses. No one knows who an AV actress is before a tape is released, but if you use the internet properly, you can get the users acquainted before they even take a look at the tape.
All: that's a good point.
Minimo:From our side, getting the consumers to get in touch with our girls is our biggest goal, since then they'll be able to connect to them in numerous ways. Then we're able to focus on different aspects of a video. Instead of trying to sell a video for its contents, we would be selling it on the strength of a girl's appeal. I'm not sure how much the internet helped, but we've been getting offers to carry our videos recently from retailers that haven't done business with before. We're also hoping to put more time into special events, like special signings and the like. I think a lot of the consumers will realize what a nice girl these actresses are once they actually meet them.

Interviewer: Has DVDs changed the way you film videos?
Naito:The amount of stuff our girls had to do increased. What used to be a 60 minute video is now a 120 minute DVD, which works out to be 6 sex scenes filmed over a course of 2 days. The amount of responsibility on the girls increased in that sense. There are times when I worry about the girls pushing themselves too far because of that. I worry about them from the stance of a fellow woman.
Minimo:A lot of them have a professional attitude about working. When you see them actually do the work, it just makes you appreciate the final product all that much more. Spending time with the actresses changes your look on everything about the video. They're all just nice girls!! That's why I don't know how to respond when someone asks me whom I recommend.

Interviewer: Has there ever been a girl who you thought would get more popular than she actually did?
Pinko:That would have to be Shiina Kurara. She was really good. I think we should've pushed her a little more in terms of advertisement and she would've really taken off. A lot of the other makers also commented that she was really cute, so it's a shame.
Naito:There are a lot of girls who refuse to appear in photo books even if they allow us to have their ads in magazines. There were also some girls who were the opposite.
Mi:We also had a girl who was really picky about what type of things we could do to promote her, so she never took off. I liked her too...
Minimo:I guess it would be "Play Girl 7". We had a new girl who was debuting along with 6 other girls but it never became popular for some reason.

Interviewer: Finally, a comment on the year 2003.
Pinko:We want to continue making high quality products and spread our advertising to broadband. Oh, and our website is currently undergoing construction so be sure to check back in about a month!
Naito:Our Kawai Yui's always been interested in sex before she started working with us so the flavor of her films are changing every time we shoot a new one. I think she's definitely the one to watch out for this year.
Mi:I guess we'd be very Atlas-ish, in both the good ways and the bad. We used to be very relaxed about innovating but the AV world is moving at such a maddening pace. I think that you can count on us trying to to take a refreshing look on AVs in 2003. I hope the year that Atlas will be looked on as an innovating company will be near!
Minimo:We'll be continuing our V-Plus series of films, while trying to increase the connectivity between the users and the actresses. Oh, and update our while at it!