TOKYO (TR) – In February, publisher Saitosha released Hiroki Terai’s new book “Highly Educated AV Actresses,” a collection of interviews with past and present figures in the adult video industry who have a lot going for them in the brain department.
In the first of a three-part excerpt, The Tokyo Reporter features interviewee Kaho Shibuya. The 33-year-old sports-reporter-turned-AV-actress is now a cosplayer, YouTuber and author who is highly proficient in English.
Among her credentials to be a subject of the book are her having achieved a Grade 1 ranking on the EIKEN Test in Practical English Proficiency and a perfect score on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC).
The ex-actress achieved EIKEN Grade 1 just before graduating from high school.
“Past exam questions are the best,” she tells Terai of her studying strategy. “For EIKEN Grade 1, you first take a written exam, and if you pass, there is an interview. Interviews also depend on your compatibility with the interviewer, but in my case, I managed to get by with just the vibe. I prepared for the written test, but also for the interview because there are question books based on past exam questions. I mainly used past exam questions for the TOEIC. I looked at various study materials, but past exam questions are still the best.”
“Filming had already started”
Shibuya took the TOEIC right before her AV debut in 2014.
“Filming had already started, but I took it before I debuted. I got 990 points,” she recalls of her perfect score. “I think the exam format is a little different now.”
She also took the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
“For the EIKEN test, it was hard to remember a lot of words, but it felt easier than TOEFL. With TOEFL, you’re listening to a lecture at a university, and you hear things about biology and science that you’re not used to hearing, so it was kind of boring,” she laughs. “EIKEN has more familiar settings like e-mail. TOEIC is also business English, so there are many questions like reading short e-mails.”
Perhaps surprisingly Shibuya never studied outside of Japan.
“Since I never studied abroad, I thought it would be good if I had something that would make an impact,” she tells Terai. “Even people who don’t understand English tests will think that EIKEN Grade 1 is impressive, and if you get 980 points on TOEIC, people who have never taken it won’t know how good it is, but if you get a perfect score, they’ll understand right away. I thought I couldn’t appeal without those numbers, so I worked hard. If you said something like ‘I lived in America for three years,’ I think you would be trusted to have a certain level of English ability even without taking a test… So I feel like the test was just to add some luster.”
“Always got failing grades”
Shibuya did, however, live overseas.
“It wasn’t really like studying abroad, it was more like summer school,” Shibuya remembers. “I could either go to a dormitory or find a homestay, but I’m not good at being with other people all the time, so I just stayed in the dormitory. It didn’t help me much. Summer school basically only brings together international students for lessons. So, there’s no opportunity to talk to local people, and it just costs money. Not my own money though.”
It wasn’t until high school that she started to become a good student. Before that, school was struggle.
“Up until middle school I had no interest and always got failing grades,” she says. “Through elementary school I could get pretty good grades on tests if I listened to the lessons, but from middle school onwards I suddenly thought, ‘Oh no, I have to study, I can’t pass.’ Maybe since there were no entrance exams and no system for studying properly, I couldn’t keep up at all. I was the only non-exchange student to get failing grades.”
