2025: The Worst Year for JAV Retirements?

Published : June 29th, 2025 Written by Fried Chikan

Bad news everyone, today’s topic is retirements. 2025 has been brutal for JAV retirements as actresses big and small, names who have been around for ages, have decided to hang it all up. Retirements in JAV is nothing special as people come in and out of porn is the normal. Hundreds of new and naked faces come in every year and leave pretty quickly. However, the number of high profile career and upcoming actresses leaving, point to a troubling trend. We’ll go through all of this and more in 2025: Worst Year for Retirement.

Akari Mitani's goodbye

2022 retirements

https://www.zenra.net/blog/2022-a-terrible-year-for-jav-star-retirements

First, a look back at the last time I bemoaned about actresses leaving, and looking back, yeah, 2022 was a terrible year for retirements. We had long time legends like Hitomi, Tsubomi, and Iori Kogawa leave. We also had great veteran names like Touka Rinne, Makoto Toda, and Honoka Mihara leave, with promising newbies like Mahina Amane and Uta Hayano bowing out. It’s also funny to see Karen Kaede in that piece because she is once again toying with retirement (and fans’ hearts) now. But 2025 is shaping up to eclipse 2022 in terms of terribleness.

2025 Retirements/Retiring

Mitsuki Nagisa

Sora Amakawa

Konan Koyoi

Aya Ueha

Amiri Saito

Ami Tokita

Wakana Hono

Mariko Sata

Arina Arata

Ichika Seto

Yuki Hiiragi

Reo Fujisawa

Moe Amatsuka

Ai Sayama

Yuki Takeuchi

Mary Tachibana

Akari Mitani

Airi Kijima

Kana Yume

Mao Hamasaki

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From AV to DJ: DJ Konan

Here is a list of all the most notable names that have retired this year, will retire this year, or announced their upcoming retirement. Smaller or niche actresses like Yuki Hiiragi or Reo Fujisawa aren’t a big surprise, especially when you hear about the difficulties freelancers face in finding work. But it hurts to see names like Konan Koyoi, Sora Amakawa, Aya Ueha, and Mary Tachibana on that list. All actresses who have been heating up in recent years, and some are at the peak of their careers.

Moe Amatsuka's Last Video

Meanwhile, we have a ton of legacy names departing with Ai Sayama, Kana Yume, Mao Hamasaki, Moe Amatsuka, Arina Arata (Hashimoto), Akari Mitani, and Airi Kijima. A brutal list of outgoing names from long time freelancers and exclusives, and all in the ones in between. Long careers in porn is quite rare and we’re about to lose a treasure trove of them. Actresses like Sora Amakawa leave due to agency issues, opting out of mainstream JAV for their own amateur porn ventures. And she isn’t the only one with issues with her agency, as Mao also mentioned her mistreatment by her agency as one reason for leaving.

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Mary looks back on her career (DASS-573)

Status Up in the Air

Ai Honjo

Tsukasa Aoi

Ayaka Mutou?

Hana Kano

Eimi Fukada?

June Lovejoy?

Karen Otori?

RARA

Karen Kaede?

Now for the names who’s status are up in the air. Names like Tsukasa Aoi, RARA, Karen Otori, and Hana Kano. Actresses who have announced a hiatus, or talked about leaving, or just haven’t worked in a long while. Like Ai Hongo, who has been MIA for almost a year after her public affair was exposed. June Lovejoy may be effectively retired too, and she has talked about the lack of job offers in JAV, which may cause her to quit it. It has also been almost a year since Eimi Fukada’s last JAV title. She took a hiatus after her own public scandal involving unpaid taxes and her personal love life being doxed.

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Ai Hongo trying a new job (SONE-367)

Ayaka Mutou left her agency and is looking to independently represent herself, but who knows how that shakes out? We saw the same case for Sora Amakawa and she ultimately left mainstream porn. And who knows what is happening with Karen Kaede? She posted a message online saying she wanted to leave porn before shortly deleting the message and this was around the time she was on hiatus from shooting.

Director Samoari future?

The actresses aren’t the only ones who might be leaving, as infamous JAV Director Samoari hinted at his own. In an announcement that he would become part exclusive to the studio WAAP, he also mentioned that he planned to move in 2 years. Unclear if that means he will be done with JAV, but moving abroad will make it very hard. Samoari has also been exploring adult filmmaking outside of Japan, so all of this may point to the end of his career in JAV.

Comeback Hopefuls

It’s not all bad news, as we’ve seen an uptick in high profile comebacks recently too. Kana Miyashita, Ruka Aida, Ruri Saijo (again), and Naho Ozawa return to the fold. Naho came back late last year after 17 long years away from porn. Looking back at my 2022 piece on retirements and not all those names stayed gone. Ruka Inaba, Meguri, Aya Sazanami, and Mahiro Ichiki (Yume Takada) all came back.

Naho Ozawa Now (fsdss-821)

Naho Ozawa Then (sea-268)

Kurea Hasumi is preparing to make her hot anticipated return. Hopefully, before the year’s end. Sakura Sena, an old name from the early 90s and 00s, resurfaced and has been teasing a return too. To give fans some hope, names that are leaving today might not be gone forever. Jun Suehiro, who like Ai Hongo, went silent after her own public scandal, has returned to the public eye.

Retirement Reasons

So why are things getting worse? After the Covid boom ended and the new AV laws were enacted, we saw more and more of those in JAV the lament the state of the industry. From actresses, to actor, to producers, to staff; talking about the difficulties in working in porn and making a living. The comeback uptick also makes sense when you see the general economic decline in not just Japan but the world in recent years. Old names from the past are looking to return due to the general poor financial state.

Ayaka Mutou- "I'm free"

Not only that, JAV agencies prove to be the thorn in the side for talent, time and time again. Mistreatment, unpaid wages, and creative differences have all been reasons that actresses have stated for leaving. Agencies are not helping and discourage actresses from staying in my view. Would you rather work in mainstream porn when you have an agency that control’s your image with an iron fist and takes a massive cut? Or do you strike out on your own with all the private porn platforms we have today (OnlyFans, Fantia, Fancentro, etc).

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What Sora would like to do to her old agency JUQ-325

Future

In Western porn we see starlets use mainstream sites to establish themselves and build up a fandom before transitioning to their own Amateur works. I can see that being the trend in JAV in the future, and we already see that with some. All the retirements might seem bad but the year isn’t even over yet. As a great cartoon dad once said, “The worst day of your life...so far!"