Down The Rabbit Hole
Speaking of pushing the envelope – there seems to be a definite trend towards showing more skin than ever. Only a year or so ago, there were very few gravure models willing to take a chance. In most minds, a bikini idol was a pretty girl with a good to great body who could successfully model bikinis, had a decent smile, and would look attractive enough to get hardworking salarymen to buy their DVDs and their photobooks. It was all in good fun, almost wholesome, and definitely not the kind of videos that needed to be hidden in a shoebox kept under your bed. In other cultures, it was akin to reading Playboy Magazine.
But somewhere in time, the suits that have the corner offices in Takeshobo, Livedoor, Girls Record, Bunkasha, and other assorted production houses, hunkered down with the bean counters, the accountants to discuss declining revenues. The competition from the JAV industry was eating away at profits. So the word came down – the catch phrase wasn’t show us the money; instead it was “Show us your tits!”. And so, nowadays – the cleavages are deeper, the bikini tops are smaller, or in some cases, the models aren’t even wearing tops in the usual sense of the word.
But all is not well. Some of our production houses have lost their focus. Nowadays every scene is over-the-top (pun intended). The days of demureness and cute are becoming harder and harder to find. It’s as if the entire bikini idol industry has gone down the rabbit-hole, just like the literary darling Alice, of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Bikini idol producers are becoming more and more lost as they struggle to find the way back. When Alice was in discussion with the Cheshire Cat, she said,
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
So viewing endless miles of digital data strings leads us to the conclusion that we are deep in the rabbit’s hole with no sign posts directing us toward a different destination. Boobs are likely to become as commonplace on screen as noses and earlobes. Ok – I’m jesting to a degree.
But let’s check out two recent releases. Mami or is it Maya Azuma appears in Guruguru Mami-chan from Takeshobo. Check out the cover – sea shells instead of a bikini!
As we work our way through the DVD, you can see that in every scene there’s a very revealing costume. Though the degree of revealing is different in each scene, all of it is daring and even more daring.
From sea shells, to cut-off tees, to wisps of cloth, to sea weed; there’s a certain inventiveness at work here. You can be sure the camera crews and the individual directors are working hard to “show us the tits.”
I do appreciate the variety of locations as well. No will complain about a day at the beach, or deep in the jungle, or up in the hills for a waterfall. It all works. By the way, when we see Maya Azuma in regular clothes, doesn’t she look nice. You’d never guess she makes a pile of Yen by flying off to a resort with a production crew to flaunt her body for money.
Sally Yoshizawa is another cute girl. She’s shorter, and is a bit overweight. But she’s large busted. In the DVD entitled Yureyure Tengoku from Takeshobo, she too will offer up copious views of her bust.
This DVD doesn’t have the same variety of costumes or the elegant and exotic locations as did Ms Azuma’s. The video had more of nearby locations and many of the scenes are indoors. Looks like Sally has the bigger bust and Maya has the more daring costumes. What ever your preference, you can’t lose these days. It’s bigger and bare which are the bywords in bikini idol productions these days. And that’s ok with me. But I’d like the pendulum to swing back and forth.
But the director working with the busty Ms Yoshizawa hasn’t given up following orders that come down from the Executive Producer. Get those juggs on screen.
So we can see a progression on an industry basis:
From demure to sexy, from sexy to daring.
From daring to almost naked.
Then from nearly naked to naked.
And the last rung on the ladder – from naked to fully engaged in sex.
But that last step of the progression is a different chapter for another day, and another column.
What ever happened to the good old days when Rio Natsume would struggle to return a tennis ball, or Harumi Nemoto would be pedalling a bycicle or driving a golf ball. Those were the days. If we ever get out of the rabbit hole will we ever find them again?
