Over the past few years, Japan’s adult video (AV) actresses have been garnering immense popularity in Korea and China.
Perhaps in a bid to offer regional balance, Shukan Post (July 11) would like its readership to meet Marica Hase, a Japanese AV actress striving to be the best in the United States.
When reached by phone in Los Angeles, the 29-year-old tells the magazine that learning the ins and outs of the porn biz in the U.S. has been no picnic. “In Japan, we have hair and make-up stylists, and that makes a difference,” she says. “It’s difficult to do everything myself. I wander from job to job dragging a suitcase packed with set props, such as sex toys and costumes.”
Born in Tokyo in 1981, Hase debuted (under her first name Marika) as an erotic gravure idol in 2007. Her output became more illicit the following year, when she released her first nude photo collection.
In September of 2010, Hase was a finalist in AV label Soft On Demand’s “First SOD Star Cinderella Audition” contest. This selection led to the release of “Active Gravure Idol Marika: AV Debut” three months later.
Until March of 2012, when she announced her intentions to move to Los Angeles, the actress starred in dozens of films with Japanese labels in such genres as gang rape, SM and molestation.
Hase tells Shukan Post that initially she didn’t have strong convictions about going to America; rather, it was through the urging of a mentor.
“After completing an AV film in which I’d felt 100 percent satisfaction for the first time,” she remembers, “my director said to me, ‘I’ve created an unbelievable actress. There’s nothing for you now in Japan. Go to America!'”
Hase has since steadily made inroads stateside, performing in a number of releases, many of which include themes focusing on her Asian heritage, with her appearances in the “Cumikaze” and “Fresh Off The Boat” franchises being two examples.
The style to the films takes some getting used to, she says, with masturbation, lesbian and double-partner scenes being common. “In my first job, a black actor entered me from the rear,” she giggles.
For January 2013, Hase was named Penthouse magazine’s “Penthouse Pet of the Month,” becoming the first Japanese woman to attain such a distinction. One year later, she was nominated in a category at the AVN Adult Movie Awards.
“It was unfortunate that I didn’t win,” she says. “But just to be nominated increased my film fee, and that makes me happy. When I first arrived, my fee was one-fifth that of Japan. Now, it is one third.”
However, Hase, whose work visa allows her to stay in the U.S. for two and half more years, is not focusing on money or hobnobbing with celebrities.
“My top goal is to become more famous,” she says, “to contribute to the empowerment of AV actresses from Japan.”
Source: “Nihonjin ‘mushusei poruno’ ga sugoi!” Shukan Post (July 1, pages 150-152)
