The word shirouto (amateur) is the Japanese counter-concept to professionalism, but in the adult-video industry it operates as a genre device that makes the absence of professionalism function as a marker of authenticity.

Shirouto (Japanese shirouto, English amateur) originally denotes a non-professional, ordinary person as opposed to a kurōto (professional); in the adult-video industry it denotes a genre that thematises the appearance of ordinary women who are not professional AV actresses. This article covers the genre’s formation, the structure of its authenticity staging, and its links to nanpa and POV filming.

Overview

The amateur genre is one of the principal genre types of the modern Japanese AV industry. By positioning performers as “ordinary women” rather than professional actresses, it emphasises a work’s authenticity, contingency, and naturalness. It developed as a major segment from the 1990s on and still forms one of the central axes of genre subdivision.

The core appeal of amateur works lies in the performer’s “not-acting” quality, their ordinariness. This sits in antithesis to the exclusive-actress system of commercial AV (in which a performer is recognised as a professional actor), and it is designed so that the viewer receives the on-screen events not as a “staged scene” but as a “real scene.”

Etymology and concept

Shirouto was originally written to mean “white person,” the look of a bare, white-powdered face.citation needed In the Edo period it fixed as the counter-concept to kurōto (professional) and has been widely used in Japanese since. Kurōto was originally written “black person,” meaning black-coating, the seasoning of a skilled craftsman. The opposition forms one of the basic vocabulary pairs of Japanese, marking the binary of specialism versus generality in an occupational domain.

As AV industry jargon, the “amateur” genre settled in from the late 1980s into the 1990s to mark a performer as an ordinary woman rather than a professional. In practice several structures coexist: complete amateurs who apply and appear, women filmed as amateurs who go on to professional careers, and existing professionals given an “amateur-style” staging. As jargon, “amateur” does not necessarily guarantee non-professionalism in a strict sense; it functions strongly as a genre sign of “amateur-ness.”

Formation of the genre

The genre’s formation overlaps the 1990s period of major genre differentiation in AV. Until the early 1990s, drama-type works starring exclusive actresses were the mainstream; from the late 1990s, works billed as “amateur stuff” and “amateur projects” developed as an independent genre. Soft On Demand (SOD), Natural High, and others developed as the principal labels of amateur project works from the late 1990s into the 2000s. At the same time, application-type, submission-type, nanpa-type, and private-filming-type production modes developed in parallel, establishing the genre’s variety of forms.

The core appeal is “authenticity.” The performer’s lack of professionalism, the improvisation of filming, and the contingency of events function to construct a sense of reality, in opposition to the staged composition of commercial AV. It evokes in the viewer the impression of “reality, not acting.”

The relation between reality and staging is complex. Fully “amateur” appearance is legally, ethically, and practically difficult, and most amateur works are produced after prior casting and contract procedures. The authenticity of the “amateur” genre is a genre-semiotic authenticity, constituted as the totality of a particular staging style, filming method, and narrative structure, rather than by the actual presence or absence of professionalism.

Derived genres

The nanpa type incorporates the process from a street pickup to the start of filming into the front of the work; it developed as a principal derivative from the late 1990s, with the improvisation of street scenes reinforcing the authenticity staging. The application/submission type has a woman wishing to appear apply to a production company and appear after selection; works under series names like “Magic Mirror Van” thematise amateur recruitment within a particular project. The private-filming type circulates without a commercial production company, with the close relationship between filmer and performer functioning as the final form of authenticity staging. Specialist amateur labels such as Natural High and Nanpa TV develop ongoing series, advancing a genre-specialised segmentation within the industry.

Relation to legislation

The 2022 AV Performer Damage Prevention and Relief Act (the “AV New Act”) sets rules on AV appearance contracts and directly affects the production process of amateur works. It mandates written contracts, a cooling-off period before filming begins, and a waiting period from completion of filming to public release; reconciling these with the improvised, short-cycle filming style of amateur works became an industry challenge. In nanpa and street-project works in particular, the time constraints from contact with a performer to the start of filming, and the operation of contract delivery, brought large structural change to the post-Act production process.

Consent confirmation is institutionally important to the amateur business. Procedures to confirm that a performer consents with full understanding of the meaning of filming and release are positioned as the industry’s ethical minimum; since the New Act this confirmation has been clarified as a legal obligation.

Comparison with overseas

The amateur genre of the English-speaking adult-video industry has a structure resembling Japan’s amateur genre; the two are similar phenomena that developed independently, both thematising the presence or absence of performer professionalism. Differences in institutional features (the presence or absence of an exclusive-actress system, differences in self-regulation standards) produce differences in the course of genre development.

Cultural references

Journalist Fujiki TDC’s A Revolutionary History of Adult Video (2009) records the genre’s place in industry history. The sociologist Nakamura Atsuhiko has conducted continuing surveys of the labour reality and contract structure of performers in the amateur business and analyses its ethical issues. The amateur genre sits at the intersection of performer professionalism, authenticity, and filming method, forming a continuous spectrum with adjacent genres such as nanpa, POV filming, and private filming, and is an important object of business and sexual-expression research.

See also

• AV
• POV filming
• AV New Act