educational

Working the Asian Market: 1

Any casual look into recent adult entertainment sales figures will show that there's a hefty market for Asian models. This has been a lure for many companies to produce movies in Asia, but some of them have learned a hard lesson.

The nectar of that blossom covers some sharp thorns.

In the past, the low costs of production in South America made importing product from there an almost sure moneymaker. In many ways, producing and importing product from Asia is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

While a number of companies have jumped into the Asian niche, producing movies in such exotic places as Thailand and the Philippines, they're finding that cultural conditions in those lands are jacking up their production budgets. And nowhere in Asia is this more prevalent than in Japan. Frank Goldfisher, general manager of Third World Media, tells XBIZ: "It's absolutely insane because the girls in Japan get a heck of a lot more money. They get 750,000 yen, which comes out to $7,000-$8,000 per day, American. We've had to come up with some pretty creative accounting and some pretty creative use of the footage to make a profit off it."

The impetus behind these costly performer fees lies in the Japanese system of "modeling agencies," which have a stranglehold on that part of the business.

"In Japan, there are no contract-free models," Jonathan Chang, sales manager for Amorz Entertainment, said. "Every model is under contract to a model agency, so there is another fee we have to pay. It's very similar to a Mafia-type thing. These agencies own the girls, and if you try to go around them, they'll tell all the agencies not to do business with you."

Chang, whose company produces Asian product exclusively in Japan (Amorz Entertainment's most popular series is "Kokeshi"), adds that the high performer fees are just the tip of the iceberg.

Cultural Difficulties
"The culture in Japan is very different," Chang tells XBIZ, "and in order to work there, we had to understand their culture. A lot of the ideas they came up with sounded kind of crazy to us, so it definitely was difficult for us. Like the money system they set up for us. We would make a very high down payment just to be allowed to start the movie shoot. There were also royalties we had to pay. That doesn't exist here."

What also doesn't exist here are the stringent Japanese censorship laws. The authorities there use a "mosaic" system — a video pixilation which obliterates on-screen images that are deemed hardcore or objectionable — on all domestically released adult material. This has caused a lot of headaches for outfits shooting in Japan, like Amorz Entertainment.

"When we first started producing there," Chang says, "we made one version for the Japanese market — with the mosaic — and another version for the American market, un-mosaic. That didn't work out well because we wanted extreme close-ups for the uncensored version, which we couldn't use for the mosaic version. So when we released the two versions, the mosaic version for Japan was unpopular because the close-ups were censored. But since the ones we sold in America were uncensored, sometimes people would send them back to Japan because there's a giant underground market there for the uncensored material. But when the government finds out that uncensored movies are going around, they start looking for our director. So sometimes, our director has legal problems there. They're very tough. If you ship uncensored material to Japan, customs just throws it away."

Although companies like Third World Media have gone to great pains to toe the line in Japan and in other Asian nations, the cultural peculiarities of each land have led to some serious trouble.

In part two, we'll look at legal problems over shooting in Asia as well as the issue of age verification.

Copyright © 2025 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More Articles

profile

WIA Profile: Reba Rocket

As chief operating officer and chief marketing officer of Takedown Piracy, long at the forefront of intellectual property protection in adult entertainment, Rocket is dedicated to safeguarding the livelihoods of content creators and producers while fostering a more ethical and sustainable industry.

Women In Adult ·
opinion

Protecting Content Ownership Rights When Using AI

In today’s digital age, content producers have more tools at their disposal than ever before. Among these tools, artificial intelligence (AI) content generation has emerged as a game changer, enabling creators to produce high-quality content quickly and efficiently.

Corey D. Silverstein ·
opinion

How Payment Orchestration Can Help Your Business

An emerging payment solution is making waves in the merchant world: the payment orchestration platform (POP). It’s quickly gaining traction as a powerful tool for managing online payments — but questions abound.

Cathy Beardsley ·
opinion

Fine-Tuning Refund and Cancellation Policies

For adult websites, managing refunds and cancellations isn’t just about customer service. It’s a crucial factor in maintaining compliance with the regulations of payment processors and payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard.

Jonathan Corona ·
profile

WIA Profile: Laurel Bencomo

Born in Cambridge, England but raised in Spain, Laurel Bencomo initially chose to study business at the University of Barcelona simply because it felt familiar — both of her parents are entrepreneurs. She went on to earn a master’s degree in sales and marketing management at the EADA Business School, while working in events for a group of restaurants in Barcelona.

Women In Adult ·
profile

Gregory Dorcel on Building Upon His Brand's Signature Legacy

“Whether reflected in the storyline or the cast or even the locations, the entertainment we deliver is based on fantasy,” he elaborates. “Our business is not, and never has been, reality. People who are buying our content aren’t expecting reality, or direct contact with stars like you can have with OnlyFans,” he says.

Jeff Dana ·
opinion

How to Turn Card Brand Compliance Into Effective Marketing

In the adult sector, compliance is often treated as a gauntlet of mandatory checkboxes. While it’s true that those boxes need to be ticked and regulations must be followed, sites that view compliance strictly as a chore risk missing out on a bigger opportunity.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

A Look at the Latest AI Tools for Online Safety

One of the defining challenges for adult businesses is helping to combat the proliferation of illegal or nonconsensual content, as well as preventing minors from accessing inappropriate or harmful material — all the more so because companies or sites unable or unwilling to do so may expose themselves to significant penalties and put their users at risk.

Gavin Worrall ·
opinion

Know When to Drop Domains You Don't Need

Do you own too many domains? If so, you’re not alone. Like other things we accumulate, every registered domain means something to us. Sometimes a domain represents a dream project we have always wanted to do but have never quite gotten around to.

Juicy Jay ·
opinion

Understanding 'Indemnification' in Business Contracts

Clients frequently tell me that they didn’t understand — or sometimes, even read — certain portions of a contract because those sections appeared to be just “standard legalese.” They are referring, of course, to the specialized language used in legal documents, including contracts.

Corey D. Silverstein ·
Show More