A company president of a Japanese AV talent agency has been arrested for allegedly forcing a woman to appear in pornography.
It was learnt on June 11th that Marks Japan was raided by cops and three of its employees arrested. Police also raided other related businesses, including two production companies.
The allegations stem from a woman who signed up to Marks Japan’s roster of talent as a gravure idol in 2009, but was then sent to a porn shoot in September 2013 despite knowing she did not want to appear.
Marks Japan’s talent includes everyone from relatively innocuous things like booth babes (“companions”) for events to full-on gravure, AV and more.
The scouts and other agencies that recruit women are notorious. Women picked up on the street are sometimes led to believe they are being offered modeling gigs, and instead end up as uncredited “amateurs” and extras in big porn features.
The line between gravure glamor models and AV is actually very slender. Though the big stars rarely cross over — with the notable exception recently of Shoko Takasaki — the minor idols are often forced into pornography by economics and their dwindling career, or by their agencies who treat them like cattle.
More and more women are coming forward to lodge complaints about these practices. Police say that illegal shoots are becoming normal as the industry tries to expand its output to content suitable for distribution overseas through online portals.
Moreover, it is an open secret that the gravure industry involves sleeping with managers to get ahead and make a break into the mainstream entertainment world.
A debate is raging right now in the media and beyond about Japanese pornography and exploitation. Critics accuse the AV industry of human trafficking; some defend it as allowing enough labor rights for the industry to work for consumers.
One AV star who was sued for refusing to appear in porn and won her case.
But the AV industry is so huge and involves so many performers, that it will take more than just one victory to force it to change.
This new development will only add more fuel to the fire for the time being as this issue continues to develop.
