TAIWAN (TR) – Thousands of metro cards featuring a popular Japanese adult video (AV) actress sold out just hours after being put on sale by a Taipei-based company, reports Focus Taiwan (Sep. 1).
On Tuesday at midnight, EasyCard issued a total of 15,000 swipe-card sets showing seductive — yet fully clothed — photos of actress Yui Hatano. Priced at 500 Taiwan dollars (around 1,900 yen), the cards were snapped up in four hours in orders placed by telephone.
The sets come in packs of two cards, with one showing Hatano staring into the camera in a black dress (“Demons”) and the other (“Angels”) featuring her in white.
A portion of the sales from the cards will be donated to charity.
After announcing the release of the cards, EasyCard received criticism from the public. Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je questioned the reasoning of the newly appointed chairman of the company, Tai Chi-chuan, in making “that kind of business judgment,” according to Reuters (Aug. 28).
One complaint was that the photo for the “Angels” card originally appeared on the DVD package for one of Hatano’s AV films.
The criticism initially forced the company to halt the project. However, a compromise was later reached whereby it was agreed that the cards would not be sold in convenience stores and at train stations.
Since making her debut in 2008, Hatano has risen to tremendous popularity, both in Japan and overseas.
In 2014, the Kyoto native took the Best Actress award at the Sky PerfecTV! Adult Broadcasting Awards. At the end of that year, she was ranked as the number-one actress on the chart for distributor DMM.
Hatano also serves as a spokesperson for a smartphone game application in Taiwan.
