Early life and AV debut Sora Aoi was born on April 26, 1981, in
Kanagawa. As a student, she worked at various part-time jobs in the food-service industry, such as pizza parlors, pubs and sushi bars with the intent of becoming a pre-school teacher. While in her third year in high school, Aoi was scouted in
Shibuya by a talent agency for
gravure modelling. She decided to enter the adult entertainment industry with the aim of eventually working on TV and in other parts of the entertainment industry, stating that "If there was only the AV industry, I couldn't do it." When asked how her stage name was chosen, Aoi explained: "My agency asked what color I liked. I said blue [
aoi in Japanese]. He also asked what I like in general. I said sky [
sora in Japanese]. So, he chose Aoi Sora." Aoi appeared as a
gravure idol in the June 2002 issue of
Bejean and then made her debut in adult videos (AV) in July 2002, with
Happy Go Lucky! for the
Alice Japan studio,
Into mainstream entertainment During this period, Aoi also started making appearances in mainstream media. In May 2003, she had a role in the theatrical release
Gun Crazy 4: Requiem for a Bodyguard and from July to December 2003, Aoi had a role in the
TV Asahi J-dorama Tokumei Kakarichō Tadano Hitoshi. For her starring role in the
pink film, , released to theaters in July 2004, Aoi was given a Best Actress Award at the 2004
Pink Grand Prix ceremony. The film was ranked the fourth-best
pink film release of the year. Aoi also starred in the October 2004 release of the
manga-based theatrical thriller
Stop the Bitch Campaign: Hell Version. According to one reviewer of the June 2007 DVD release of the film: "The acting proves that Sora Aoi is no Dame Judi Dench but she is winsome enough to make you believe and care for her." In November 2004, Aoi left Alice Japan and Max-A to move to the newly formed studio,
S1 No. 1 Style, part of the large
Hokuto Corporation. Her first video for S1,
Sell Debut, was directed by
Hideto Aki and released on November 11, 2004. Aoi continued making about one video a month for S1 until mid-2006. Aoi's popularity enabled her to enter further into mainstream entertainment, including film, television and radio. The romantic comedy, released theatrically in Japan in January 2005, won the Grand Prize in the Off Theater Competition at the 2006
Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival where it was screened in February 2005. Along with another AV idol,
Akiho Yoshizawa, Aoi appeared in the late-night
TV Tokyo manga-based production which aired in 12 episodes from October to December 2005. Aoi later returned in a special guest appearance for the 2009 sequel to the show . In another venue, Aoi was one of several AV actresses asked by a small Japanese publisher to take photographs of themselves as "if the [toy] cameras [were] their boyfriends or undetestable stalkers". The result,
Polgasun Aoisora, was warmly received by a reviewer for the journal
European Photography, who wrote, "It would appear that in
Polgasun she is trying to swap the wretchedness and banality of the pornography genre for intimacy and authenticity." By 2006, Aoi was appearing regularly on television, often appearing on variety shows and acting in several dramas She was also cast in the
TV Asahi midnight drama which aired from July to September 2006, and in late 2007 she was a guest star on the popular
J-dorama detective show
Galileo (ガリレオ).
International exposure Aoi remained at S1, but her work in adult videos became irregular after mid-2006. One of her S1 videos,
Hyper Risky Mosaic – Special Bath House Tsubaki, with 11 other S1 actresses won the First Place Award at the 2007
AV Open contest. In July 2011, S1 released a new work,
Mega Semem Bukkake Facial, but since then the studio has only published compilation videos for Aoi through late 2013. As a singer, Aoi released one album in 2006 titled
Hadaka no Kiss. She was a member of the first generation
Ebisu Muscats between 2008 and 2013. Aoi traveled to
Thailand for a part in a mainstream
Thai teen movie,
Hormones (
Pid Term Yai, Hua Jai Waa Wun), released in March 2008. She plays a Japanese tourist who brings one character to the brink of infidelity to his girlfriend.
Hormones won the Jury's Special Prize at the fourth Asian Marine Film Festival in Japan which journalist Wise Kwai ascribed to Aoi's presence. Aoi made her debut in another Asian entertainment market when she appeared in a Korean TV drama
Korean Classroom in May 2009. The four-part series follows three Japanese girls traveling to Korea and co-stars fellow AV Idols
Mihiro and
Rio. Aoi was subsequently scheduled to appear on several Korean variety shows while in Korea to promote the series. Back in Japan, Aoi starred as a zombie-killing stripper in director
Takao Nakano's May 2010 comedy horror film
Big Tits Zombie, a film adaption of the cult manga
Kyonyū Dragon. Later that year Aoi was in
Hong Kong starring in the erotic thriller
Revenge: A Love Story which reached theaters in December 2010. In late April 2010, Aoi's Twitter account was discovered by many Chinese netizens, despite the social networking site's typically being
inaccessible in China. Fans of the AV model began distributing software allowing them to bypass the
censorship of Twitter. Following the
2010 Yushu earthquake in China's
Qinghai Province, Sola Aoi announced that she would raise funds to donate to the earthquake victims. This was received by a mixed response by Chinese netizens, with some praising her help and others finding it unseemly. In November 2010, she opened a microblog on
Sina Weibo, China's most popular domestic microblog service, posting in Japanese, English, and Chinese. In her first six hours on Sina Webo, she attracted 130,000 followers Her sizable following in China has also led to her debut as a singer in
Mandarin Chinese with the song "mao yi" (毛衣 or Sweater) which was released digitally for mobile phone and computer download. making her the third Japanese AV actress to appear in Indonesian films recently. (The others being
Rin Sakuragi in the original
Suster Keramas and
Maria Ozawa, known in Indonesia as "Miyabi", in the 2009 film
Kidnapping Miyabi.) The earlier films, although very successful, engendered protests from conservative Muslim groups in Indonesia, so Aoi's trip to Indonesia and participation in the film were kept secret. S1 also released several omnibus compilations over the next few years including a 3-disk, 12 hour long compilation titled
All 97 Production S1 12 Hours Sora Aoi Complete BEST which compiled scenes from every film she's done with the studio. In 2019, distribution of her AV work has been discontinued from the Japanese e-commerce retailer FANZA (formerly known as DMM.com) and her profile from S1's website has also been deleted. In a blog post Aoi revealed that she herself requested this action due to her pregnancy and new family life: "By halting sales, I do not want to erase the past," Aoi added in the blog post. "But I also do not want to do nothing. I can not erase the past even if wanted to erase it. I stopped selling the official titles. But illegal versions are scattered about the internet if one looks." Aoi's high profile in China has also led to controversy, exemplified by the taunts and insults directed towards her because of her plea in September 2012 for a peaceful solution to the
Senkaku Islands dispute between Japan and China. In May 2013, a "culture war" ensued when a work of calligraphy created by Aoi as a guest promoting a theme park in
Ningbo, China in April 2013 was reportedly auctioned for $95,000. A government-backed newspaper called the calligraphy "childish", her fans supported her, and many considered the auction simply a publicity stunt by the theme park. On May 5, 2012, it was reported that Aoi would be debuting in
South Korea as a singer and actress and would be cast in a future Korean movie, titled
Vacance. She continued to work as an actress in small roles including a small cameo appearance in the Chinese sex comedy
Naked Ambition 2. She also appeared in the 2014 Thai romantic comedy
Ai Fai.. Thank You Love You. Brand collaborations In 2022, Sola Aoi was named as the WE88 Global Brand Ambassador for 2022/23 to promote and boost the brand's presence across
Asia. In December 2022, Sola Aoi collaborated with a Malaysian rapper, singer, songwriter, filmmaker and actor
Namewee as the main female lead in a music video, "Someone Else's Wife" (Chinese: 別人的老婆). == Personal life ==