The “Emu Yumi Couple” who earned “500 million yen” in two years by distributing their lovemaking, their unexpected use of money, and their future goals.
I received 2 million yen in two months after I started posting videos. It was almost the same amount as my annual income when I was working at a company.
This is how “Emu Yumi Couple” Noriyouchin (24) recalls it. He is a Pornhuber who distributes videos of him and his girlfriend Ayumi (22) playing on the adult video site “Pornhub. In less than two and a half years since the start of their activities, the two have earned a whopping 500 million yen or more.
In November last year, they published a book titled “Ero 2.0: The Fastest Fan Marketing to Share Desire” (Asuka Shinsha), which was written by a Pornhuber with a monthly income of 40 million yen. We interviewed such a monster creator.
The first thing you may be wondering is why he started doing what he does. He says that it all started with a trivial question.
I was approached by an acquaintance from my corporate days, who said, ‘There are many people overseas who are making money with Pornhub, but no Japanese. At that time, I thought to myself, “This is not a consulting business. Instead of consulting, I thought that Ayumi and I would try it together (laughs).
(Laughs)” (Ryouchin) Ryouchin asked Ayumi to join the project on the same day he heard about it, and Ayumi responded with a resounding “yes.
I had no resistance at all to the idea of exposing my naked body, so I thought, ‘I didn’t know that such a thing existed! That sounds interesting! I was excited with a fresh feeling and curiosity,” said Ayumi.
(Ayumi) Although she immediately decided to try it out, various problems emerged, including legal issues and profit structure. However, she says that her naive idea that it would be easy to make money from pornographic videos was blown away.
Ads are harder to place on adult videos, and earnings per play are lower than on YouTube. In addition, the adult industry is highly regulated by the Entertainment Establishments Control Law and other laws, and notification to the site and the government is required before distribution can begin. In the end, it took us about a month to complete all the procedures,” said Ryouchin.
Because of these circumstances, the company started a subscription-based fan club service as a countermeasure to the low revenue per view. A subscription-based fan club service is a membership exchange site where creators, both professional and amateur, publish their works on the site, and supporters (fans) can enjoy the works of their favorite creators by paying a fixed amount of “subscription fees” of several hundred to several thousand yen per month.
The business of Pornhuber has come to be established as fan club services have been developed around the world in recent years, such as “Fantia” from Japan and “OnlyFans” from the UK.
The videos we post on Pornhub are sample versions edited down to a few to 20 minutes each. Each video has a link to the site, and you can go to the fan club service site by simply clicking on the URL that says ‘For the full version of the video, please click here.
Fees are set on a tiered scale from 500 to 5,000 yen per month for Fantia, and $20 per month for OnlyFans; current monthly revenues, including Pornhub’s advertising revenues, average about 20 million yen and top out at 40 million yen. I post my videos on multiple sites, including adult video sites XVideos and FC2, and I shoot about once or twice a week,” says Ryouchin.
The Pornhuber lifestyle has been going smoothly, but they are beginning to feel that the boom is coming to an end.
Actually, I think it may be time for the EmuYumi couple to quit, too,” said Ryochin. The adult video distribution business is not a business that can last forever. It is an industry with a rapid turnover, just like the number of sexy actresses who are in season changes every year. In addition to that, even gravure idols using AI have appeared. Right now it’s just images, but I think someday it will be video as well. If that happens, I will be no match for them.
With these circumstances in mind, I am planning to realize my long-held dream of living together in a place with a lot of nature and relaxing. I am currently studying to get an English visa for my girlfriend and an investment visa for me, with the goal of moving abroad, since it is difficult to get a work visa or an entrepreneur visa with only a Pornhuber. I started investing in stocks with 10 million yen as a trial, and was able to increase it to 14 million yen in a short period of time,” said Ryouchin.
With the money he earned from pornography, he became an investor and moved abroad. It seems that the reward for taking the risk and jumping into the world of eroticism was great.
Interview and text by: Keitaro Haga PHOTO: Takeshi Kinugawa