Sakura Sakurada

Early career – "uncensored movies"

Adult Video News has described Sakura Sakurada as having "a fantastic body – lithe, but totally buxom." Making her AV debut in 2003, Sakurada became known for starring in so-called "uncensored movies" i.e. the genitalia are not pixilated to disguise them. This technique, known as "fogging," or "mosaic" is used in most Japanese porn movies.

Besides performing in numerous films in the more common genres, such as bukkake, gokkun, naka-dashi, sex in public, and erotic cosplay, Sakurada has also performed in several unusual projects. Among these, she has taken part in a number of fetish productions (primarily for Giga in 2003 and 2004), featuring scat and omorashi (watersports). In one video for Natural High (Hot Horny Shemales Fucking Crazy) her costars were two transsexual woman actresses. She has also made a video (Mother-Daughter Rice Bowl) with an actress, Satsuki Sakurada, who is identified as her mother and who also performs.

Later career

Sakurada's other recent activity has been for the new label Zeus, a division of Giga, the studio for which she did a number of fetish videos early in her career. Zeus specializes in fetish material including Heroine torture, scat, enemas, and omorashi. She has starred in two of their videos, Sadi-Scream Vol. 4 and Heroine Cruel Story Vol. 7 which indulge in torture, gore and copious amounts of fake blood, with little or no sex content. Additionally, she has also played minor non-sex, non-scat roles in several other Zeus videos in 2008, especially in their "Heroine Excretion Hell" series. Otherwise, her appearances as an actress in 2008 and 2009 were very limited and mostly in lesbian roles. In January 2010, Sakurada made several FemDom videos for the PlanetPlus studio under their Antares label.

According to a 2013 interview, Sakurada began to focus more on directing than acting after her 2008 debut as a director. She paid her dues as an Assistant Director on some videos that she performed in and eventually took on directorial duties full-time. In 2013, she was directing AVs for the adult site Heyzo.

Other activities

In addition to her hardcore career, Sakurada has also acted in a number of softcore films, including starring in direct-to-video V-Cinema and theatrical Pink film. In three of her softcore films, she worked with noted Japanese erotic and horror film director Naoyuki Tomomatsu and in another with cult horror and science-fiction director Daisuke Yamanouchi. In December 2005, Sakurada was cited in an article on AV idol-bloggers as a member of that group.

Sakurada demonstrated her singing abilities in the Cross hardcore video 3 Days Recording Training Camp with AV Actress Rock Band (2006). The plot involves the training of an all-girl rock band "The Skinless" and finishes with the four actresses performing a music video of a song "Body and Soul" with lyrics and vocals by Sakura Sakurada.

Popularity and recognition

It is a measure of the fame that her uncensored movies have brought her in countries outside Japan that author Stephen Hunter uses a fictionalized Sakurada as a character in his 2007 novel, The 47th Samurai. The character "Sakura" appears in Hunter's novel while filming the video Woman Teacher in Black Sakura, one of the real-life Sakurada's works. Hunter knows Sakurada's work well enough to make reference to the gap in her front teeth in her early videos which disappeared in later appearances. In the acknowledgements section of the novel, he also acknowledges Sakurada as one of his muses.

In another instance of Sakurada's popularity in the United States, her video Sakura's Squirt Tunnel Adventures (released in the US by Oriental Dream Pictures) was nominated in the category "Best Ethnic-Themed Release, Asian" at the 2008 Annual AVN Awards Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.