Press "Enter" to skip to content

Drive your dreams: Popular AV star takin’ a ride with Toyota

Mana Sakura on Gazoo.com
Mana Sakura on Gazoo.com

“You wanna ride, baby?”

In a promotional push, one of Japan’s top adult video (AV) actresses is jumping in the backseat with Toyota.

According to Tokyo Sports (Oct. 14), Mana Sakura is now penning a column for Gazoo.com, a promotional site for Japan’s top automobile manufacturer.

Launched on September 19, the column (“Mana Sakura’s Relationship With Her Car”) appears every other Friday. In the first installment, the 21-year-old starlet describes how she became interested in automobiles at an early age. “My interests were not in clothing and cosmetics,” she writes. “It was more about cars and motorcycles.”

In 2013, Toyota enlisted Microsoft to improve the usability of Gazoo.com, a portal that allows users to learn information about new models, search for used cars and engage with other car enthusiasts via personal computers and smartphones. In the five years prior to the Microsoft venture, the number of users on the site had increased by 300 percent to 1.65 million.

Making a connection between Sakura, who earlier this year starred in “Raw Ass Temptation” by AV label Soft On Demand, and a company known for producing some of the industry’s more innovative technology is not as far-fetched as it may initially seem.

Soon after her initial AV release “Mana Sakura: AV Debut” in 2012, users on Twitter rightly fingered her as a student enrolled at a technical junior college.

Soft On Demand has also issued a number of photo books paying tribute to her interest in touring industrial factories, including “Mana Sakura: The Beautiful Female Factory Fan.”

A spokesperson for Toyota says that the company finds Sakura’s background, her keen interest in driving and recent side work outside of the AV industry — such as writing a column for Tokyo Sports — to be suitable for their needs.

A 2014 calendar featuring Mana Sakura
A 2014 calendar featuring Mana Sakura
“With such a diverse background, she was asked to write a column for car cans on a trial basis,” the Toyota representative said.

This is not the first time that a mainstream company has enlisted an AV actress to be a spokesperson. Ai Iijima appeared in commercials for a company within the NTT DoCoMo group.

After receiving repeated criticism on Twitter (@sakuramana0000) for her chosen profession, Sakura was very pleased that Toyota viewed her to be a suitable candidate.

“I could not have imagined working together with Toyota in any capacity since I sense there to be a big wall separating the AV and automobile industries,” Sakura tells Tokyo Sports. “For this reason, I was greatly surprised when I heard (about the opportunity).”

The Toyota spokesperson added that the company is currently seeking writers from other industries to contribute to Gazoo.com — the site already runs content from gravure (pin-up) star Yuri Morishita — with other AV actresses being a distinct possibility.

“We are looking for people who are car enthusiasts,” the spokesperson said.

Drive your dreams, indeed.

Source: “Sakura Mana to sekai no Toyota ga shogeki gattai kokoku gyokai mo gyoten,” Tokyo Sports (Oct. 14)