Insiders in the adult video (AV) industry estimate its annual turnover to be around 50 billion yen. Noted author Takehiko Sawaki believes that 30 percent of that figure is due to the output of jukujo (mature) actresses, who are generally performers beyond 30 years of age, but an appearance by a gal in her late 20s is not unusual.
Former singer and (sometimes porn) actress Midori Satsuki, 73, considered the originator of the term with her 1983 single “Jukujo B,” is amazed at how the public’s perception has changed over the last three decades.
“Since using the word ‘jukujo’ did not have a good image back in those days, you didn’t refer to women with it. It was only me, and I accepted the description with pleasure,” Satsuki giggles to Josei Seven (Dec. 20).
The former actress goes on to say that back then a woman past her 40th birthday was considered an old lady. “That’s not the case now,” she says. “Everyone is beautiful and still young.”
Satsuki released her debut single “Ozashiki Rokku (Tatami Room Rock)” in 1958. In the early 1970s, she started appearing on television.
In 1975, she starred in the porn film “Midori Satsuki: Confessions of the Praying Mantis Wife,” in which she plays a housewife who has affairs with five men to extract revenge from her cheating husband. After passing 40 years of age, she starred in a Nikkatsu “roman porno” feature.
The actual jukujo boom in AV didn’t begin until many years after the release of “Jukujo B,” which was inspired by Akina Nakamori’s 1982 hit “Shojo A (Young Girl A).” Shukan Post (Aug. 3) traces the trend’s beginnings back to the debut in 1998 of Reiko Makihara, and that of Mariko Kawana the following year.
“I think I can be beautiful forever,” says Satsuki, noting that she is wearing nine-centimeter heels. “If I stop being fashionable, that’s when I’ll become a grandmother.”
She is currently engaged in a common-law marriage with the president of a talent agency who is 20 years her junior.
Josei Seven notes that Satsuki looks as beautiful as ever.
“I’ve been divorced three times,” she says, “and my last husband was also 20 years younger than me. It is not about the number of years. We’ve been together for 28 years. Even now, we are very intimate.”
She pauses.
“And even now I can still get naked,” she assures.
Source: “HRT horumon hoju ryoho de fuete iku ‘bijukujo’ toiu ikikata,” Josei Seven (Dec. 20, pages 50-55)
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