What Happened to...

Jackdee

Active Member
Aug 19, 2011
650
173
Thanks for the info. Can I ask - why is silence worse than official retirement? Could this period of no work since last November's last title be something ....bad?? Worse than quitting (retiring?? I have no idea - like what?
Sorry to jump in. I agree with it being worse than official retirement due to the fact that you aren’t aware what has happened to someone you are a fan of. Perhaps she is ill, passed away, has mental or physical problems. Maybe the person suddenly wants to be off-grid and start a family or have a “normal” life.
Just my 2c
 

ding73ding

Akiba Citizen
Oct 25, 2009
2,331
2,065
Yeah what @Jackdee said, plus a million other possible scenarios.

In broad strokes, an active idol conclude her career in 3 general ways, (1) fading: she wants to continue, but there aren't enough job offers to keep her going; (2) moving on: she found a husband/lover, or a real job/business, or accumulated enough money, and leaves the industry for temporary or forever; (3) forced out: outside factor, such as health, accident (e.g. car crash), family crisis (exposed, doxxed), crime, addiction.

Type 2 is easiest, it's common nowadays (social media) that a "happy" retirement is explained. These kind there's a decent chance (I'd say 10-20%?) she might return to JAV, especially if fan support is still strong, and/or she burns up all her savings. So existence of explanation means some chance of return.

Type 1 is most commonly unexplained, partly because it's nothing to be happy/proud of, partly it's lack of fan interest. If there's a lot of fan support/interest/request there's much more likely to get an explanation. Type 1 non-official "retirement" is, I think, quite unlikely to see a return. So no message means lower chance of return.

Type 3 sometimes is explained sometimes not. Because it's neither industry decision, nor idol's own will, the motivation to return is high. If the external factor is resolved, the possibility to return is pretty good. Because of this, even when details/explanations are unavailable, and future is unknown, either the idol herself or the agency would put out some assurance (which really assure nothing, if you read the words carefully) or substance-free message "Don't forget me yet!" which of course tells you nothing and promises nothing. Sometimes the message is as little as "She's fine!" (means she's not dead, yet) or "She has not yet announce retirement formally". But then if even such empty messages are not given that really is UN-promising.

Thanks for the info. Can I ask - why is silence worse than official retirement? Could this period of no work since last November's last title be something ....bad?? Worse than quitting (retiring?? I have no idea - like what?

Sorry to jump in. I agree with it being worse than official retirement due to the fact that you aren’t aware what has happened to someone you are a fan of. Perhaps she is ill, passed away, has mental or physical problems. Maybe the person suddenly wants to be off-grid and start a family or have a “normal” life.
Just my 2c
 
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Parseval

New Member
Aug 8, 2021
4
0
I have a couple of actresses that I'd like to know what happened to, but their last movie is from 2011/2012 so it'd probably be useless to ask after so much time. It's just a pure curiosity to me, like knowing if they are fine and what they are doing now.
However, it seems really hard to find information in general about any actress. It's like actresses completely vanish into thin air when leaving the JAV industry. I mean, that's understandable, but there is no Japanese forum, fan page, wiki or similar that continue to talk about them? It seems strange to me, considering how the idol culture is well-established in Japan.
 
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ding73ding

Akiba Citizen
Oct 25, 2009
2,331
2,065
I have a couple of actresses that I'd like to know what happened to, but their last movie is from 2011/2012 so it'd probably be useless to ask after so much time. It's just a pure curiosity to me, like knowing if they are fine and what they are doing now.
However, it seems really hard to find information in general about any actress. It's like actresses completely vanish into thin air when leaving the JAV industry. I mean, that's understandable, but there is no Japanese forum, fan page, wiki or similar that continue to talk about them? It seems strange to me, considering how the idol culture is well-established in Japan.
If you write a post with so many words you might as well name the idols in your mind, right? You'd be surprised the long memories of some (minority) fans. My own avatar is using a JAV idol from that era also.

The vast majority of JAV performers do "vanish into thin air" because maintaining a visibility give (most of) them no benefits at all. A tiny minority of fans (including me sometimes) get some kind of voyeurism kick but the ex-idol herself is much more likely to get more hurt than love from the public. Exp. on anonymous platforms like 2ch, there is a kind of blood sport of cyber-bullying former celebs esp. anyone with a sexual history.

The positive side of "vanishing" is most likely nothing horrible has happened to them, if one ends up in prison, suicide or murder, there is a gossip rag industry of specializing in salacious scandals (real or whipped up or fabricated) to splash it everywhere.

Other than these, the "gentlemen" side of Japanese tradition is to respect the privacy of artists and performers and even politicians. Basically, quite unlike the West, if famous person X (politicians, super rich, mainstream idols, JAV idols) maintain a public persona and a private life. X's private life, from the most mundane to the most scandalous, is X's own secret. It's unseemly for gossip journalists to dig into X's private life outside of his/er public persona, it's unseemly for the public to buy and consume gossip rags, and therefore it's unseemly for idols to expose his/her private life voluntarily. All that is of course disrupted by SNS new normal.

My own best source is playno1, but nowadays there are more and more Youtube channels or websites reporting on news and gossips from JAV world. They are all in Chinese but doesn't drift far from JAV industry+fandom.
 

Parseval

New Member
Aug 8, 2021
4
0
If you write a post with so many words you might as well name the idols in your mind, right? You'd be surprised the long memories of some (minority) fans. My own avatar is using a JAV idol from that era also.

The vast majority of JAV performers do "vanish into thin air" because maintaining a visibility give (most of) them no benefits at all. A tiny minority of fans (including me sometimes) get some kind of voyeurism kick but the ex-idol herself is much more likely to get more hurt than love from the public. Exp. on anonymous platforms like 2ch, there is a kind of blood sport of cyber-bullying former celebs esp. anyone with a sexual history.

The positive side of "vanishing" is most likely nothing horrible has happened to them, if one ends up in prison, suicide or murder, there is a gossip rag industry of specializing in salacious scandals (real or whipped up or fabricated) to splash it everywhere.

Other than these, the "gentlemen" side of Japanese tradition is to respect the privacy of artists and performers and even politicians. Basically, quite unlike the West, if famous person X (politicians, super rich, mainstream idols, JAV idols) maintain a public persona and a private life. X's private life, from the most mundane to the most scandalous, is X's own secret. It's unseemly for gossip journalists to dig into X's private life outside of his/er public persona, it's unseemly for the public to buy and consume gossip rags, and therefore it's unseemly for idols to expose his/her private life voluntarily. All that is of course disrupted by SNS new normal.

My own best source is playno1, but nowadays there are more and more Youtube channels or websites reporting on news and gossips from JAV world. They are all in Chinese but doesn't drift far from JAV industry+fandom.
Thanks for your reply. Yes, the sense of my message was to get some Japanese websites to find information. However you're right, I find it strange because I'm probably too used to our Western culture, where the private life is quite tied to the public one.
Anyway, the actresses I was referring to (yep, I could have written them before, sorry) were and Michiru Sakura (桜みちる) and Yui Azusa (梓ユイ). They didn't actually perform in lots of movies, but I remember them with a kind of affection because they were the first JAV movies I watched in 2010/2011 when I still was a young university student and they basically "introduced" me to the JAV world.

UPDATE

About Yui, after some searching with Japanese keywords I was actually able to find some information that I share, in case someone is interested.

This article from 2020 https://www.fuzoku-move.net/special/azusa-yui.html retraces her entire history in the JAV industry from her debut.
She started as an "erotic" idol in 2010 and turned to porn after some months. She started to gradually disappear from the scene from 2011, when she made her last solo-movie. In total, she performed in 10 porn movies plus a couple of erotic ones (at the very beginning). Then, she only appeared in some collection-movies and her last appearance was in 2013, even if she's never officially announced her retirement.
Now, it's supposed she's living a "normal" private life, since there is no evidence of her working in the adult industry in general (for example in a club).
The reasons why she decided to interrupt her career were multiple (in brief: less popularity than expected, the contract renewal conditions were not good, she got enough savings and her movies were exposed to her relatives). It's also said that she continued to do something after 2013 and was active as a "planning actress" (企画女優, what does it mean?), but I don't understand very well the translation of those parts and my Japanese knowledge is zero (if someone knows Japanese maybe could help).

Moreover, she also had a blog at the time of her debut that she stopped updating in late 2010, where she shared a little bit of her private life (cooking, events, etc...): https://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/yuiazusa. She hasn't any SNS beside this blog, apparently.
 
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Cyberstar91

New Member
Oct 31, 2019
2
0
What happened to Mana Sakura? Her IG last update seems on June and thats it. Usually she always came with 1 movie per month.
 

damper

Member
Aug 2, 2021
39
17
I really like Marina Matsumoto and I know that she is retired but today come accross BTH-138. It's only 38 minutes, Is this never published old shot or scene from some her movies. Or did she start again? :nangiss:

BTW does anyone know her real name?


h_1435bth00138jp-7.jpg
h_1435bth00138jp-14.jpg
 
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ding73ding

Akiba Citizen
Oct 25, 2009
2,331
2,065
"planning actress" (企画女優) is best translated as "freelance idol". Basically any active idol without at least one exclusive contract is a freelancer. This term covers a huge range in terms of prestige, income, ranking and fame. The top 企画女優 include super stars like Ai Uehara and Eimi Fukuda. The opposite end: bottom 企画女優 are so unknown that if one of them died of drugs or something, she won't be noticed.
 

ding73ding

Akiba Citizen
Oct 25, 2009
2,331
2,065
Thanks for your reply. Yes, the sense of my message was to get some Japanese websites to find information. However you're right, I find it strange because I'm probably too used to our Western culture, where the private life is quite tied to the public one.
Anyway, the actresses I was referring to (yep, I could have written them before, sorry) were and Michiru Sakura (桜みちる) and Yui Azusa (梓ユイ). They didn't actually perform in lots of movies, but I remember them with a kind of affection because they were the first JAV movies I watched in 2010/2011 when I still was a young university student and they basically "introduced" me to the JAV world.

UPDATE

About Yui, after some searching with Japanese keywords I was actually able to find some information that I share, in case someone is interested.
This article from 2020 https://www.fuzoku-move.net/special/azusa-yui.html retraces her entire history in the JAV industry from her debut. It states that she's never officially announced her retirement but she gradually disappeared from the scene from 2011, when she made her last solo-movie. Then, she only appeared in some collection-movies and her last appearance was in 2013. Now, it's supposed she's living a "normal" private life, since there is no evidence of her working in the adult industry in general (for example in a club). The reasons why she decided to interrupt her career were multiple (in brief: less popularity than expected, the contract renewal conditions were not good, she got enough savings and her movies were exposed to her relatives). It's also said that she continued to do something after 2013 and was active as a "planning actress" (企画女優, what does it mean?), but I don't understand very well the translation of those parts and my Japanese knowledge is zero (if someone knows Japanese maybe could help).
Moreover, she also had a blog at the time of her debut that she stopped updating in late 2010, where she shared a little bit of her private life: https://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/yuiazusa. She hasn't any SNS beside this blog, apparently.
Seems you found a great site for retired idols. Just want to say if she's active as a "planning actress", than it's contradicting the earlier statement (last appearance in 2013), of course there's also possible it's the double-talk that "Yeah I'm a (Hollywood) actress, only I'm working in Starbucks until I'm discovered". Some idols who received fewer and fewer job offers would not declare retirement, and never terminate her contract with the agency. But agency had stopped promoting her, and studios don't see a reason to name her specificly for any more films, then it's just hangs there. She's doing nothing for JAV, JAV is doing nothing for her, but she never formally detached herself from the role of "JAV idol".
 

Parseval

New Member
Aug 8, 2021
4
0
"planning actress" (企画女優) is best translated as "freelance idol". Basically any active idol without at least one exclusive contract is a freelancer. This term covers a huge range in terms of prestige, income, ranking and fame. The top 企画女優 include super stars like Ai Uehara and Eimi Fukuda. The opposite end: bottom 企画女優 are so unknown that if one of them died of drugs or something, she won't be noticed.
Seems you found a great site for retired idols. Just want to say if she's active as a "planning actress", than it's contradicting the earlier statement (last appearance in 2013), of course there's also possible it's the double-talk that "Yeah I'm a (Hollywood) actress, only I'm working in Starbucks until I'm discovered". Some idols who received fewer and fewer job offers would not declare retirement, and never terminate her contract with the agency. But agency had stopped promoting her, and studios don't see a reason to name her specificly for any more films, then it's just hangs there. She's doing nothing for JAV, JAV is doing nothing for her, but she never formally detached herself from the role of "JAV idol".
Thanks for the clarification, now it makes sense. Actually, as far as I understood from the translation, she is not active anymore as a planning actress but she did it for a while after 2013 before definitely disappearing without any official announcement (maybe she earned too little compared to movies).
Anyway yep, I was quite lucky to find that website.
 

darksider59

Akiba Citizen
Feb 24, 2014
2,708
1,924
Yep, Misato is active, she's one of the girls I follow. Underrated girl for sure.
 

pukimai

Active Member
Jan 11, 2013
234
53
Seems like Suzumura Airi has another problem with her management ? now suddenly her twitter and IG are gone, and there is no new video of her for next month, around 2 years ago, she also had similar situation, hopefully, this time she will back like in the last 2 years, but can someone here confirm my theory? thank you
 

jbjr

New Member
Nov 9, 2014
14
2
rika mari and yui nagase announced impending retirements which is either a kick to each ball or two kicks in the balls however you want to look at it. rika essentially said she enjoyed her second stint sorry it was so short but shes going to start a new life and her twitter will close. yui said she was inspired by the olympics and wants to start a soccer career, not sure if that was a joke or not. rena aoi also announced a retirement at the end of the year, ive recently become more appreciative of her after not really paying attention to her for years.
 

ding73ding

Akiba Citizen
Oct 25, 2009
2,331
2,065
What happened to Koharu Suzuki? I know she has retired but anyone know her latest update?
Plenty has been written by her and about her. How much did u know or need to know? You can probably learn much by just searching in this forum. I will just give a summary of the latest:

In 2018 she wrote about depression and showing the anti-depressant pills she is dependent on. She posted a pix showing scratch marks on her forearm, was she harming herself or suicidal, it's not clear. In 2019, some random nobody claimed that a young woman who killed herself on Tokyo JR train tracks was in fact Koharu Suzuki, but there's no way to verify the claim. Nothing had been heard from her since around the same time. It's likely coincidence, because she was a high profile AV idol, if she was really that woman and or died in some newsworthy way someone would have splash it on the news or tabloids. OTOH if she was alive and watching internet she would have notice the rumor of her death, yet she chose not to disspell the rumor.

In June 2021, Playno1 went around the industry to ask about her situation, specifically if she's still alive. Everyone in industry replied "I don't know", not bothering to add any empty kind or well meaning words, like "she's probably fine".
 
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