BREAKING: Riko Hoshino's April Fool's JOKE, SOD's Game Of Tag Starring MINAMO

Catch up on the most trending gossip that we had our eyes on in April

What started as an April Fool’s joke from Riko Hoshino soon turned into a full-blown retirement announcement slipped discreetly into her X feed. In the JAV universe, the first day of April is rarely a matter for jokes.

SODstar’s Riko, with her soft-spoken enigma, had already announced her “hiatus” in November last year with a carefully worded goodbye.

But her recent tweet is giving anything but comeback energy

At first, I brushed it off, thinking it must be a joke. After all, she chose that date. However, since it was not followed by any playful reveal, her claim became even more evident. Backed by her name quietly disappearing from her agency’s artist roster. That’s when it hit me. Riko wasn't kidding all this time.

And if you’ve followed Riko throughout her career, she debuted with SODStar in September 2022, entering the scene with a kind of understated charm that didn’t scream for attention but somehow held it anyway. She wasn’t the loudest, nor the most controversial, but she had something far more elusive: consistency to keep dishing out regular hits.

Which makes this goodbye even more disheartening

What made it even worse is that fans weren’t able to process the disbelief. “Congratulations on your graduation! You really worked hard,” one fan wrote.

Another chimed in, “Really? I’m looking forward to seeing what you do next!”

But when I scrolled a little further, the cracks soon began to show. “I hope this is an April Fool’s joke.” That one lingered with me. Because it echoed exactly what many of us were thinking but didn’t want to admit out loud.

And then there were the quietly devoted: “I haven’t known Hoshino-san for very long, but I’m so happy to have met such a lovely woman. I’ll buy as much as I can.”

So if you consider yourself one like him, don’t hesitate to stack those DVDs as soon as you can. No spectacle. No chaos. Just to-the-point messaging. And maybe that’s exactly how she wanted it.

A quiet exit, wrapped in ambiguity, delivered on the one day no one quite trusts the truth. In an industry built on performance, maybe Riko’s final act, quiet and unadorned is her most genuine yet. A quiet goodbye that lingers long after she’s gone.

After literally exhausting every possible publicity stunt, SOD has pulled something new out of their bag of tricks and landed on a nationwide game of tag.

Yes, you read that right!

This week’s biggest headline-grabber is perhaps a full-blown, real-life game of tag featuring Minamo, not particularly in any JAV, but sprinting across Japan as a “fugitive,” with a pursuit team hot on her heels. And naturally, I had to dig into this gossip.

Okay, so the premise sounds almost out of a Hollywood script. For a whole week, from April 2 to April 8, at noon sharp, Minamo became the hunted. SOD had directed her to visit 10 out of 16 designated cell shops across the country, leaving behind signed posters and documenting her trail on X as a part of her mission.

On the other hand, all that the pursuers or the male actors had to do was to reach the final checkpoint (the third floor of SOD headquarters) in time and tag Minamo.

Sounds simple, right? But not quite.

Chasing her is a fully mobilized “Pursuit Team,” made up of male and female actors, tracking her movements through social media clues and fan sightings. It’s like a treasure hunt, but make it more JAV-like.

But things get spicier when you find out the rules. Movement is restricted to a 10-hour window each day, from 10 AM to 8 PM, unless you’re already in transit (a loophole I suspect will be very creatively used). Any mode of transportation is fair game. Trains, taxis, rental cars, this is a chase with no budget ceiling, just stamina.

And then there’s Rule 5. The one that made me pause.

“The male actor who discovers MINAMO gets to fuck her at the end.” Meanwhile, female actors walk away with a sum. And in best case scenario, if Minamo escapes entirely? She pockets what’s left of the pursuit team’s escape fund.

But if SOD expected applause for this, they may have misread the room.

Because the fans didn’t hold back while commenting

“Just male actors, huh…” one comment sighed, and I could almost hear the disappointment through the screen.

Another was more blunt: “At first, I was all excited thinking the fans would be the ‘tracking team’… but once I realized the participants were just actors, I suddenly lost all motivation.”

And there is a certain level of FOMO in the comment section. The idea that they could have been part of the chase. That this could have blurred the line between viewer and participant.

Instead, it remains a spectacle to watch, not join. Some fans even noted how it was eerily similar to what certain YouTubers had invented.

“I thought it was a Daini project, but it just looks similar,” one fan noted, referencing the YouTube group known for their own high-energy tag-style content.

Another added, “The rules are about 90% the same.” Ouch.

Still, not everyone is lashing out at SOD. Some had positive views.

“If it were a group of desperate fans, it’d be way too easy, lol,” one joked. “This is super funny.” And maybe that’s the point. Whether this is a bold innovation or a cleverly repackaged idea, one thing is undeniable: it has people talking. Watching. Picking sides.

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