When we first time to see Sola Aoi before the interview, she is surprisingly as normal as typical Japanese girls that we can find in Tokyo Street. Before the camera action, her face is serious and mature. It is very different with her ‘baby face’ smile in promotion activities. Sola Aoi creates a miracle in the Japanese AV(adult video) industry. She is the only female using the culture of ‘sex’ to connect with Asian market and Internet culture. Not only does she keep fulfilling her video taking responsibility, but also stay actively in the Chinese market which becomes the cultural representative to connect China and Japan.
Sola Aoi was born in a typical 1980’s family with five brothers and sisters. Even though Sola Aoi grows up in a blissful family, she quietly becomes contradictory in some of the social norms. For example, she wants to be a kindergarten teacher after gradation because she loves children, so she got the country certification of professional child care. However, being a child care teacher is monotonous, a huge burden of responsibility and low income so Sola Aoi gave up and started to be an artist for earning income to support her life.
In Japan, female artists have to take some sex photos with wearing a bikini or even naked photos and adult videos recording to improve their fame. In the beginning, her boyfriend disagrees immediately because he cannot bear that his life partner’s naked body watched by other men. He thought that it was not “clean”. Sola Aoi chose to break up with her boyfriend to continuous her dream. She had the passion for achieving her own target so she was so hard-working to receive any job opportunity (being actress in adult videos) willingly and prove her abilities. After two years, her job development stayed on a block with her naïve acting skills so she further found more opportunities to improve herself like starting recording low-cost audit videos in Thailand, Korea or Hong Kong. She is the first and most successful Japanese audit video artist in Asian countries. On 23rdApril 2010, Sola Aoi arranged the donation activity about China earthquake accident through Wechat and Twitter. Many Chinese residents and fans felt touched with her action and she began to become famous at that time. Also, many Japanese girls are being attracted to AV industry by Sola Aoi’s success.
However, the development spaces of Sola Aoi are limited by moral theories and rules in society. In 2011, her works declined in Japan so she was active to find the opportunity herself in China like being the spokesperson of online game, a gust of huge function or actress of Online TV program which is far from her AV artist identity. Not only did she join higher classes function afterwards, but also learnt Chinese traditional handwriting culture for her new image. Being a female, she does not strike herself in one specific identity which created by social norm or tradition. She is brave and keeps improving in her position for her identity. In this world, not so many females can have the braveness or chance to change her position in life herself. Many people stereotype the women who break the rules or do not follow the main trend as an immoral action. For seeking female right in future, social acceptance can be a big motivation and obstruct at the same time.
Written by Wong Wing Cheong