One of the fascinations of this blog is with the afterlives of idols, whether music, gravure, or porn. What do the hordes of women do after their (frequently brief) moment in the spotlight is over?
Kizuna Sakura was active in adult video from 2014 to 2020. Now aged 32, she has begun the next stage of her left and career by opening a Niigata-themed ramen restaurant in December 2020 in Tokyo’s Suginami ward.
She funded her enterprise through an ambitious crowdfunding campaign, which included such perks as a one-on-one talk and even a “fake wedding ceremony” and one-night stay at a hot spring with Sakura herself. You had to contribute ¥1.2 million to claim this perk! Now that’s a woman who knows what her fans want and can turn it to her benefit. She ended up raising several million yen in funding.
Despite launching a food business during the coronavirus pandemic, Sakura’s savvy approach has proven successful. As she recently revealed in a Nikkan Spa! interview, she opened a second restaurant in May 2021 in Nerima and is already considering a third one in the Kansai region. Fans have continued to dine at her establishments and keep the yen coming in during the pandemic’s difficult days of restricted opening hours.
However, if she’s not there actually doing the serving and cooking in person, will fans still flock to the restaurants? Only time will tell.
With her usual smart eye for marketing, Sakura says in the interview that she will be working at her restaurants “like a part-timer” from May.
There is a precedent for this kind of venture.
A few years ago, Japan’s most successful male porn actor, Shimiken, briefly opened a “poo curry” restaurant in Tokyo.
The former AKB48 Mayuka Umezawa also opened several ramen restaurants in Tokyo, though her entrepreneurship has not been without problems. She had to ban ramen writers from coming because they were writing about her, not the food, and she even took legal action against one writer for sexual harassment and slander. In late 2021, she reported to police that she had received death threats.
