J-Mate

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Ero Creators

Translated by Ex-S Woo

Interview with Soft on Demand director Chie Sugawara, one of the most talented people in the company -- since this interview was published, she's risen to the top level and now heads the company! Red what she has to say about Japan's adult video world.

Chie: As a female AV director there are times when I feel uncertain if a scene will make men horny.

Interviewer: What do you think the impact will be on adult videos with the wide spreading of DVDs?

Chie: Someone asked me this before, but I doubt that everything that used to be on VHS will be carried over to DVD. Though I can't say for certain in the long run, I think it'll be something like the cordless phones and the old corded phones. At the very least, our company treats DVD and VHS as completely different beasts. DVD is sort of like a digital floppy disk, while VHS is more of a stream. It's possible that our work will shift over to be DVD oriented in the future, however.

Interviewer: What do you think about the DVD works made so far?

Chie: Though I can't speak for the industry, I think the main problem with VHS is its short length, which causes producers to just focus on one theme. We have tapes focused entirely on blowjobs, for instance. A buyer is sure to want sex scenes as well when they see that, as well as a number of different scenes, which would then force the person to buy quite a number of different tapes. But the one thing DVD has is size, so you can put a lot more stuff inside it. That's probably the best thing about DVDs. In a commercial work, you'd put in a bit of story, some handjobs, some blowjobs, and sex all into one tape, but it doesn't sell well because people don't know what the tape is about. So it wasn't possible for people to just see what they want to see before, but DVD has multiple angles and other features that makes this possible. For example, someone that only wants to watch the breasts can have it so that he watches the breasts for the entire length of the work. So I think it'll be possible to make something that originally required five or six different works to pull off.Chie:

Interviewer: I really thought that DVDs would become your forte, Suguwara-san. You could have multiple language support, which really means you hire voice actors. There can also be multiple stories... there's a lot of ways you can play around with the format.

Chie: Well, you can also do it the way we're doing it in the "Handjob" series or the "Deep Kiss" series. I am thinking of some new ideas of course. I'll be in big trouble if other companies start copying us so I can't say much at the moment. So don't write too much about this (laughs). To tell you the truth we were tinkering around with a DVD release when the PS2's release was announced. We had three cameras rolling at once, but that in itself wasn't very interesting. So we tried to think of other stuff... but all we could come up with was the "Handjob" and the "Storytelling" stuff. So I guess we'll have to think harder about this in the future.

Interviewer: I think it'd be interesting if a work like "Fuckin' on", which got well known for its sexy sounds was to be bundled with headphones.

Chie: I guess so. The idea of hearing the sultry moans of the women as you watch does sound interesting.

Interviewer: So I guess you really are thinking of a lot of things (laughs).

Chie: Not really (laughs). (As she looks at a portable DVD player) Hmm, they have stuff like this too. I only knew about the Playstation. I guess you could watch stuff while you're away on a hotel or something.

Interviewer: (cold laughter) The fact that you can watch movies while walking isn't very good for a magazine.

Chie: Very true (both laughs).

Interviewer: Isn't the DVD that SOD will release in July... "Yurara" feel like that too?

Chie: Yep. Yurara had a very magazine-ish...guidebook-esque feel.

Interviewer: SOD has yet to set dates for their DVD releases, correct? Could you fill us in on the details?

Chie: If we were to release something, we would release three or four at once...

Interviewer: So you're trying to decide who will work on it?

Chie: Well, something like that (laughs). Filming it will take time too.

Interviewer: Sounds like a big project. You'll also need more cameras.

Chie: Yep. So we won't be able to pull it off correctly unless we take out time. We don't want to make a rehash of our previous works. We think that it'll be best to make something once we have everything set... so well, it won't be in June or July. We will have an adult anime series called "Kowaremono" but the plan does call for more DVD works than VHS ones.

Interviewer: You can probably do a lot with the storytelling ones. You can even throw in another language track.

Chie: Ah, we do have some people working on a Kansai-dialect version. I think it was released today, in fact. You basically click on the different provinces and you get different dialects so that might be interesting (laughs).

Interviewer: Then how about just multiple angles? How would you do it if you had four cameras to work with?

Chie: Anyway I want it? (Thinks for a while) Well, first the face. Yeah, and well, I guess it'll be obvious but face, breasts, thighs, and overview.

Interviewer: Wouldn't it be interesting to have multiple people? You can have 3 girls and have a camera focused on each one.

Chie: Oh, now that you mention it, we did a tape before called "The Sex of an Average 71.8 year old" where we had four men over the age of seventy and paired them up with four women in a hotel. We had only one camera back then so it was really tough to shoot it all. So people watching it had an idea what was going to happen next, which was part of the enjoyment. So what you're essentially saying is more than one couple having sex at once, right? I guess having bukkake scenes shot from more than one angle would be fun to do too. We do that already from time to time.

Chie: You still lose a good number of scenes though. You can't take a good bukkake scene if you take too long (laughs).

Interviewer: What is your opinion on adult works aimed at women?

Chie: That was the main reason I entered this field in the first place, and I really want to do it... heck, I've been thinking about it for the past two years but sales are pretty low as it is, and it's obvious that releasing such a product will be a flop. Sales is our utmost concern. That and the image problem. That's going to take a while. It might not happen during my generation, in fact. For example, we'll need some AV actress to become a really famous regular actress, or perhaps the other way around. So the image would slowly image from things like that. Of course, it could also work if a popular actor used to work in AVs.Chie:

Interviewer: To get back to DVDs, are the production side of DVD production already set?

Chie: Yes, according to what the people in the company tell me, everything in that area has been set. We also have retail stores, rental stores, bookstores, and electronic shops ready to accept them.

Interviewer: DVDs are probably easier to shelve for bookstores.

Chie: Most likely, since the setup is already there for them. The other stores seem to be having them too, all of them by the end of the year.

Interviewer: If you were the one to do them, is it possible that it'd be something else aside from the "Handjob", "Storytelling" variety?

Chie: I'd like to do a mixed work. All of mine so far had only focused on one theme so I'd like to do a mix. I guess fans of both types would be satisfied that way. Of course, I might get the exact opposite reaction when something like that does come (laughs).

Interviewer: With DVDs now on the market, how do you think the adult industry will change? What are you personal opinions on the matter?

Chie: That's a very hard question to answer. I'm not sure exactly, but it is a big deal to everyone. There are a number of companies that are interested, and with the PS2 around we are guaranteed a number of sales. I hear the people at sales were throwing the idea around, but just porting over a VHS release over to DVD for this reason alone is a bit silly. So we decided to first try Hot Springs guides and anime and look forward to doing adult releases.Chie: It's a very new media, so we can do a lot of things that no one's even thought up of yet. That's the feeling I get often. If we try really hard and make that DVD, someone not even interested AVs may watch it. Maybe even women. Our potential audience gets bigger now that bookstores carry it as well. We could theoretically make works targeted at women. We might show only pictures of faces, or just men... I'm not sure, but it's something I do want to try. Everyone will be trying out a lot of things to try to get new customers, so everyone should be able to look forward to it.

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