Porn Star Pick: Asa Akira

Petite at just 5 foot 2 inches but buxom with a 32C cup, New York-born only child of Japanese parents, pornographic actress and adult film director Asa Akira returned to Japan with her parents, her father being a portrait photographer, where she lived between the ages of six and thirteen but returned to the US and attended the Washington Irving High School in New York City, but found that the academic life did not much appeal to her.

Working as a dominatrix when she was 19 years old, she went on to work as a stripper at the Hustler Club in New York and during 2006-07, was a regular on the Tampa, Florida-based Bubba the Love Sponge morning talk show on which she met pornographic actress Gina Lynn who offered her porn work. After several girl-girl scenes, mainly with Lynn, her first boy-girl scene was with Travis Knight for Gina Lynn Productions after which she signed a contract with Vouyer Media before becoming a freelancer six months later. Asa is her real first name, meaning “morning” in Japanese, but adopted the surname of her stage name from the highly popular anime film Akira.

Soon developing an eager following for scenes envisioning the popular proclivity of Asian fetish roles, from simply wearing a kimono to portraying a mail-order bride or masseuse, to covering her naked body in sushi. She also is widely regarded for her adroit anal scenes and XXX parody role appearances for Wicked Pictures, most recently in Barbarella XXX: An Axel Braun Parody.

Co-hosting the 30th Annual AVN Awards alongside pornographic actress Jesse Jane and comedian April Macie in 2013, she won the AVN Female Performer of the Year Award that night and was also the most awarded person during that ceremony, and has since collected a total of 31 award wins and 81 nominations for AVN, XRCO, XBIZ and others since. In late 2013, she signed an exclusive performing contract with Wicked Pictures, her debut film for the company being Asa Is Wicked.

She has also ventured into direction, with eight seven director credits for Elegant Angel and one for Club 59, and has also received several award nominations for mainstream roles, in David Aaron Clark’s 2009 film, Pure, in which she plays a telephonist at a fetish dungeon who has an affair with the head-mistress’ husband, and a cameo appearance in Sean S. Baker’s Starlet.

In 2013 she teamed with artist David Choe on free online podcasts featuring 90-minute episodes aimed at a young adult audience with a goal being to help youth with their problems related to sexuality, career, relationships, seeing herself very much as part of the new era of porn for the Millennials.

In April 2015 lifestyle apparel company The Hundreds started releasing episodes in a series titled Hobbies with Asa Akira, featuring Akira trying out different activities such as tattooing, boxing, taxidermy, and ice sculpting, further accentuating her appeal to postmodernist irony or cynicism-rejecting, pop-culturally inspired Millennials.

And that, for sure, makes Asa Akira this week’s porn star pick.

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