Apr 10, 2017 Special report : today we are going to a talent agency to see how new or potential AV performer is recruited.
The agency we are at is called ACT, whose most notable properties include Shoko Akiyama 秋山祥子 and Aimi Yoshikawa 吉川あいみ. While Shoko and Aimi are pretty well known stars who've been to events in TW and CN, ACT isn't a particularly large agency. Despite having quite a few performers on file, only 3 are still active, after taking off Risa Arisawa (went off to strip dance) and Riho Hasegawa (left after some unpleasantness at some planning vid shoot). So they are in a bit of hurry to bring in new blood. After reviewing a number of reports sent by scouting companies, they picked a "Miho" for an interview.
Right there is a tidbit of commercial mechanism. ACT does post
wanted ads on their own website but in reality few young girls would browse such ads and come to an agency on their own initiative. In practice, small agencies such as ACT need to work with scouting companies to find prospective talents. Scouting companies post scouts at busy street corners to approach young girls or women with lines like "do you want to become a model?" Technically recruiting for sex work in public places is illegal (many consider it harassement, which is a fair complaint). Whenever the scout finds a girl who's tempted by making money with minimal effort, a report is sent to the many agencies.
You see the various functionalities are broken up to discrete companies. Then each entity can push any legal problem on to another. The scouts can say "we have no idea the agency is involved with porn" . The agency can say "we have no idea the scout is harassing innocent girls in public". In realities most girls come to an interview with no idea who the agency is, let alone doing some research or preparation beforehand (so the girl isn't likely to look up any allegations of nefarious practices by the less reputable agencies ). That's why it's not uncommon to see some high quality talents getting into a disadvantageous contract with some notorious agencies [to be further explained later].
Back to "Miho", the scouting report says she's a Chinese-Japanese mix (hafu) and can speak Chinese, which is a big asset since ACT has many business channels in Chinese speaking markets. Also Miho has a pretty face and above average height, so the two side made an appointment to meet at ACT office in Shibuya.
Like most talent interviews, we start with quite a bit of meaningless banter, only after Miho is seen to be less nervous , when ACT 's boss get on with business. "Please strip off all your cloths, including your bra, but keep your panty on."
Woohoo! Are we gonna have a "test drive"??
"Miho" is of course a bit embarrassed but she didn't come to the interview without any idea what's going on. So in a moment she's naked down to her panty. The agency boss (and a very quiet I) inspect her body up and down, left and right and front and back. Then the boss let her put her cloths back on. Privately I was rather disappointed no one get to do some "hands-on" inspection, but we are all professionals eh. ahem.
Anyway the boss explains to her "now we are sure you don't any tattoos or ugly birthmarks or any surprise that would ruin a photo or video shoot. So if you wish to join the industry there isn't any difficulty. But we have to ask you, what exactly do you want to do?"
The boss then lay out all the nitty gritty. The agency can arrange jobs according to the girl's preference. If "Miho" wants to do gravue modeling, she can make about 30-100 thousand yens per month. If she can shoot AV as an "amateur " the income is about 100-300 thousand yens. If she becomes a "fulltime professional" AV performer she can make 800 thousand yens a month.There's also the massage parlors, soapland, and delivery health, whatever your preference is we can hook you up. Not matter what, your pay is going to better than any OL or McJob you can find.
"Miho" thought about it and said she's not ready to have sex with AV studs on screen, so she would start with gravue. ACT boss said fine, go home and think it over, if everything's cool we can sign a contract in a week's time.
After "Miho" left, I asked the boss, that's it? No more persuading her to make AV?" Gravue isn't ACT's main line of business so ACT will have to refer her to another agency. The boss laughed, we take one step at a time eh, every prospect has her own personality. Only a minority of girls in some urgent need of cash would right away agree to make AV or prostitution. Most girls will need more time and effort to persuade. Even if some agents are long time veterans who have "processed" hundreds of girls. The failure rate is still higher than expected. The number of girls who ended up agreeing to do AV compared to the prospects developed by the scouts is less than half. And even as a girl agree to step into an AV, that's only the beginning of new challenges for the agent: they now have to find a matching studio to invest in an unproven talent and make a debut vid.
If and when "Miho" decide to enter AV, we will be sure to do a follow-up report.
