Ami Ayukawa

Ami Ayukawa, born February 18, 1981 in the vicinity of the border between Western Tokyo and the Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan is a Japanese AV Idol starring in pornographic movies since 1999. Often referred to as an “AV Queen,” she has worked for both “pro” studios such as Alice Japan and h.m.p.and independent companies like Moodyz and Wanz Factory. She is highly regarded by fans for her energetic passion and thrashing during sex; often portrayed as a submissive character. Active mainly during the early 2000s, she has been called “the best actress in AV history.”

Ayukawa made her AV debut in November 1999 at the age of eighteen with the h.m.p. Tiffany label. Her first appearance for the MAX-A company’s Samansa (Samantha) label was in the August 2000 cosplay-themed video, Scanties. Ayukawa’s entry in MAX-A’s The Confined Bodydolls series, subtitled Ami on Verge of Breakdown! (November 2000), ventured into the more “hardcore” realms of S&M and bondage.

In May 2001 she made Cos-Para, her first video with Atlas. Among the attire Ayukawa donned in this cosplay video, was that of a nurse, a female ninja, a bunny, and Barbie. Her Alice Japan video Sexy Butt (June 2001) again had Ayukawa in the cosplay genre, this time in the framework of a story in which she played the role of a daydreaming office lady.

MAX-A chose Ayukawa to star in the first entry in their Witch-Hunt series, released in August 2001. This new video series was built around the concept of the question, “Is she an angel or a witch?” The quest for the answer to that question serves as a narrative framework for Ayukawa to endure torture, rape, and assorted other humiliations. Back with the MAX-A label in September of 2001, Ayukawa starred in Sexy Widow, in which she plays the titular character, a sex-hungry widow. Splash: Wet Mermaid (December 2001), for the same label, has Ayukawa in the role of a mermaid seeking love.

When the February 27, 2001 issue of the Japanese magazine FLASH surveyed the AV industry for the top 30 stars, Ayukawa was ranked number one and dubbed the “Queen of AV”. Ayukawa’s “long beautiful legs” were the star attraction of her January 2002 Atlas release, Stocking Lovers. By February of that year, Ayukawa was still being called one of the top AV idols of the time. Her video Legend, while also “hardcore”, included documentary features of the actress talking about her AV career. She was featured twice at Tokyo Topless, Japan’s longest-running and most successful big-bust website.

Interviewed by Asahi Geino, and reprinted in an October 2001 Mainichi Shimbun news story on mishaps in the Japanese AV industry, Ayukawa said that her “most horrific experience” in the profession involved a simulated rape scene. The actress explained, “During our pre-shoot meeting, the director told me he’d make sure I was all right, so I wasn’t that worried. But then, suddenly, this guy grabbed me by the hair and started dragging me along the floor. Then he began choking me so hard I could barely breathe. I was almost unconscious. I screamed out for help and started crying, but not one person came across to save me. When the scene ended, I was black and blue. The director came over to me and said, ‘That was a good scene. It almost looked like the real thing.’

In a December 2005 article on the subject, Ayukawa was cited as one of the group of AV idols who maintained a blog. In August 2006, Atlas released three of Ayukawa’s videos on one DVD (Ami Ayukawa History) as a retrospective of her career.