Hitomi Kobayashi

Hitomi Kobayashi (小林ひとみ) is an important early Japanese AV idol.

One of the founding figures of the Japanese adult video, she has been called indispensable to any discussion of the AV.

Mainichi Shimbun calls her "one of the icons of Japanese adult cinema history."

According to her official profile, Hitomi Kobayashi was born Yukari Ishii (石井ゆかり) in Tokyo on September 2, 1965.

Nikkatsu, which had been the leader of Japanese theatrical pornography since the inception of its Roman Porno series in 1971, was rapidly losing its audience to the AV industry.

Though the studio had publicly condemned the AVs for years, in an attempt to lure some of Kobayashi's AV fans into the theater, Nikkatsu hired the AV Queen to star in her own series of films.

Her unprecedented popularity in the mid-1980s, the early days of the Japanese AV, earned her the title "Queen of AV."

According to an adult entertainment reporter for Shukan Shincho, "She laid the foundations for the golden age of adult video."

Her amazing popularity quickly made her the leading AV actress of the mid-1980s, and, not long after her debut, she had earned the title "AV Queen."

Japan's censorship laws prevent the display of sexual organs, allowing Kobayashi to maintain her insistence on performing only simulated sex on camera throughout her AV career.

Kobayashi considered her AV performances to be another form of acting and came up with various techniques for appearing to have actual sex.

For example, she says, "I used to get the directors to tickle my feet and then tried not to laugh so it looked as though I was climaxing."

Her career was put in danger when an uncensored bootleg copy of one of her videos circulated.

When it could be plainly seen that the "AV Queen" was not performing real sex, Kobayashi feared that her fans would abandon her.

These fears proved to be groundless, however, and her popularity continued.

After making her debut as a non-pornographic photobook and "image video" model, Kobayashi entered the AV field in 1986.

Kobayashi made her debut using the stage name Kaori Matsumoto (松本かおり) in May 1986 in a photobook and "image video" both titled Pounding: 19-year-old Kaori (ときめき・かおり19歳).

However, in spite of these two releases, she believed her career was going nowhere.

Not long after her debut in the non-pornographic media, Kobayashi was presented with a new opportunity.

She says, "I got this offer to do a movie called Kinjirareta Kankei (Forbidden Relationship) (for the VIP studio). I was told there were nude and love scenes, but nothing steamier than any ordinary movie."

Shocked when she found out this was actually an adult video, she was at first reluctant.

After a long discussion with her agent she finally agreed to perform in the video only if the sex was simulated.

She changed her stage name to Hitomi Kobayashi for the video which was a surprise success, selling 50,000 copies.

Because of her rapid popularity, Nikkatsu, Japan's leading producer of softcore pornography at the time, hired her to appear in theatrical films in 1987.

By 1987, Kobayashi's popularity had already earned her the title "Queen of AV".

The first of these, Hitomi Kobayashi's Secret Pleasure (小林ひとみ 奥戯快感　艶) was released in January 1987.

Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, judge the film as "little more than a Playboy or Penthouse lingerie special."

The second, Hitomi Kobayashi's Heavy Petting (ハード・ペッティング), released in March 1987, was part of Nikkatsu's new "Roman X" line, which was purportedly more "hardcore" than the standard Roman Porno.

However, Japan's practice of censorship by fogging out genitals made this move into "hardcore" rather pointless, since, as Donald Richie put it in his pioneering essay on the Pink film, "none of the working parts are ever shown."

Both of these first two films were judged little more than AVs on film, and were not popular with either AV fans or the critics, who preferred Nikkatsu's older Roman Porno style.

After marriage and a semi-retirement beginning in 1989, Kobayashi fully returned to the AV industry in 1998.

She announced her retirement in 2003 with a big-budget, though controversial, two-volume farewell adult video.

However, in an interview in the Weekly Post (週刊ポスト) just before her retirement in 2003, she confessed to have actually been born in 1963.

Her ambition since childhood was to be an actress.

She attended acting school, and registered with a talent agency.

Kobayashi was not particularly sexually precocious, claiming at the time of her AV debut, "I lost my virginity at 18, which is probably a bit late, and I wasn't very experienced with men."

This relative sexual conservatism extended into her AV career.

The sex scenes in all but her final video were simulated.

Even at the end of her AV career, Kobayashi's attitude towards sex remained modest.

Interviewed at the time of her retirement, Kobayashi said, "I love sex. But, just because I'm an AV actress, it doesn't mean I'm brim-filled with experience. I've done orgy movies, and lesbian scenes and loads of abnormal stuff, but the world of videos isn't a real world. My normal life is really plain. I couldn't imagine having sex anywhere other than in bed and taking part in an orgy would be unthinkable. I'm happy enough with just the missionary position."