Minato Riku (湊莉久) retire from JAV at 24 years old

So Minato Riku announced today that she will effectively retire from shooting any more JAV videos at 24 years old. She will continue doing another kind of promotional jobs and she will continue (apparently) her role at the Ebisu Muscats group. It also seems she wants to pursue a more serious career path at non-nude acting. This retirement announcement dropped like an H-bomb, since Minato Riku is one of the most popular AV actresses in S1 studio and in the AV scene in Japan, in general.

Minato Riku career began young, at 19 years old, and lasted 5 years. She probably peaked in fame at around 2015, year in which she won the 2015 AV Grand Prix for best actress. Riku was known for her effort while doing movies, and I’m not fully surprised that she wants to change her career path and become a serious actress. She has the abilities to do so.

This is the cover of her retirement video SSNI-146.

Next Minato video to be released is SSNI-119, a voyeur fetish video which is my least favorite series in S1…

And her upcoming retirement video was announced: SSNI-146. A retirement video, which I’m sure will pack so much in it. At very least there will be a goodbye gangbang…

Here’s Minato Riku tweets announcing her retirement:

ドッキリじゃないよ！！

湊莉久、AV引退します！！
走り抜けた5年間でした！
それっぽい事言うの苦手だからこれだけ伝えさせてもらおう！！

みんな、今まで本当にありがとう！

引退作は3月に発売されます！見てね！ pic.twitter.com/sSIyLEIoBz

— 湊 莉久 (@riku_minato) February 7, 2018

Goodbye to one of the best

For me, Minato Riku is one of the best and most important JAV stars we had nowadays. She got recognized for it via awards in 2015, and despite I know her short hair and looks turned off many JAV fans, but in my opinion, her beauty is undeniable. A matter of taste of course, but she is the kind of girl that when you watch her in real person you say WTF. Something that doesn’t show as much on a computer screen.

What I really like from Minato is that she built her way to top. Starting to work from shitty studios and worked her way up to TeamZero studio. And eventually to S1 studio. I will always remember her SNIS-886 with Suzu and Nami-chan, which is one of my all-time favorites.

This really came as a huge surprise and left me a bit speechless. I can only say I will miss Minato-chan. 🙁

PS: Her twitter account can be checked here, riku_minato.