IQ 140, Elite Education, and a Surprising Career Choice — Inside Riasu Mizutani’s Unusual Path

“I wanted to try it with the man who was the best at sex.”

Riasu Mizutani, a current student at the highly selective K University with an academic deviation score above 70, while also working as an adult video actress, laughed casually.

“It’s not like I think, ‘I want this particular male performer!’ and it’s not really like being a fan, either. I’ve always liked sex and have a strong sex drive. I simply want to have sex with someone who is really skilled. I know myself that I’m quite far removed from the image of what a typical woman is supposed to be like (laughs).”

Even her first sexual experience was unusual.

“I felt like I should experience it beforehand in order to participate in hookup culture,” she said, explaining that she had her first experience with a male friend with whom she had no romantic feelings.

“Hookup culture, simply put, refers to a culture where having sexual relationships or temporary intimate relationships without the premise of romance or dating is relatively accepted. I had decided to enroll at a university overseas, and I thought, ‘I definitely want to participate!’ So I asked a friend about it, and they advised me that I should experience it beforehand. I experienced it with one of my male friends whom I was close with mainly for physical reasons.

Thanks to experiencing hookup culture, I learned that even without being in a romantic relationship, I could move toward having sex with someone whose sexual preferences matched mine. However, confirming consent is important. This was taught during university orientation and was also discussed on campus. The MVP of my hookup culture experience was a Mexican guy! (laughs)”

She is currently active as a freelance adult video actress. She says she was also able to meet the man she had long hoped to find — the man who is the best at sex.

“That would be Genjin Moribayashi. It’s not that he is particularly good at one specific type of play — he is good at everything. Everything is wonderful. Personally, I like Polynesian sex. The teasing and anticipation are irresistible.”

There was another reason why she decided to pursue a career as an adult video actress.

“I had serious doubts about the fact that the government controls sexual acts and entertainment through laws, and I had personally been following issues related to sexual violence. Around that time, the AV New Law was introduced. I thought, ‘What kind of strange law is this!?’ I realized that if I actually entered the adult industry, I would be able to learn more about this law in detail and even see the contracts. I wanted to know what was happening and what people were doing in an industry that was being forced to accept such a strange law.”

Riasu explained the AV New Law in simpler terms:

“The idea is basically: ‘Women who appear in adult videos are unintelligent and in weak positions, and the people who film adult videos must all be scary people. Therefore, they need to be protected by this law.’ Simply because it is the adult industry, it is treated as something extremely special. The stance is: ‘Adult actresses are being brainwashed, so we need to save them.’”

After actually entering the industry, she said she was struck by a major gap and wondered:

“What exactly makes appearing in a sex video a victimization?”

“Most adult actresses are considerate not only during filming but also toward the staff, co-stars, and even managers outside of filming. The atmosphere was more like, ‘They really love this job and desperately want more opportunities.’

“Now, I write articles related to the new law and participate in symposiums. As someone directly involved, I hope I can help create a system where people working in the industry can work more comfortably.”

The words of support her younger brother gave her

Riasu Mizutani was found out by her parents soon after making her debut.

“For some reason, I sent the results of my STI test to my family home (laughs). My mother must have searched after seeing it. She went into a panic, saying, ‘What is that weird-named job?! Why did you appear in it?! Quit right now!’”

She was immediately called back to her family home. Her younger brother was also called there. Her mother revealed to him that Riasu was working in adult videos, apparently hoping he would help persuade her to quit.

“But my brother was extremely calm and simply said, ‘If my sister likes doing it, then it’s fine, isn’t it?’ At the time, my brother was engaged, and my mother was worried that his engagement might be broken off because of my work. My brother even told her, ‘She’s not the kind of woman who would leave me over something like that, and if that happened, then I’d be fine with breaking up.’ He even said that as time goes by, the way the adult industry exists and how people view it may change, and prejudice may decrease.”

Riasu laughed and said that her friends at K University reacted with “I have nothing to do with it.”

“However, my high school classmates did have a reaction. After I debuted, a group chat that hadn’t been active for years suddenly started buzzing (laughs). It seems all the male classmates knew, and they were saying things like, ‘I’ll promote you!’ Nobody said anything bad about me. Everyone was well-raised, and in a good way, maybe they’re only interested in themselves.”

She was also an elite student like her classmates.

“When I first entered elementary school, I was a very talkative child, and I still remember my homeroom teacher praising me by saying, ‘You have such a large vocabulary!’”

She loved reading books to her younger brother, who is two years younger, and before entering kindergarten, she had already memorized most foreign national flags as well as the names of prime ministers and presidents.

“My father graduated from Waseda University. My mother graduated from Nihon University and was an education-focused mother. From a young age, we used to work together at home with Kumon’s flashcard teaching materials.”

Due to her parents’ work, she studied in the UK from the age of eight and returned to Japan halfway through her first year of junior high school. She transferred to Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen Shibuya Junior High School, known as Shibu-Shibu, one of Japan’s most difficult junior high schools with an academic deviation score above 70.

“During junior and senior high school, I was a typical fujoshi otaku and had a chuunibyou phase. After experiencing groping on the Saikyo Line, I developed a sense of disgust toward sexual attention from real men. I was a strange person who wanted my favorite manga characters to think, ‘She’s interesting!’”

She never really had the opportunity for romance, instead focusing on her studies while being active in the debate club. Then, when it came time for university applications, she decided to apply to Harvard University.

“Among my classmates, 30% went to the University of Tokyo, 30% went to medical schools, and 30% went to overseas universities. It was an environment where it felt like these were the only three choices. It was unusual, wasn’t it?”

Applying to overseas universities required writing a personal statement essay, so she attended a specialized prep school.

“It was extremely difficult because you had to write something like literary fiction. Only truly outstanding people attended the same prep school. Ryosuke Takashima, who became the mayor of Ashiya at a young age, was also in the same class. I still remember finishing our essays together on New Year’s Eve.”

However, Riasu never applied to Harvard.

“A tutor at the prep school told me, ‘I think you may have traits of ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).’ When I searched about it, I realized that, during the process of completing my essay, there were many moments when I procrastinated and struggled with a lack of concentration. I lost confidence, and I no longer felt able to apply to Harvard.”

Accepted into a prestigious university with a 0.9% acceptance rate

Although she gave up on Harvard, she entered Grinnell College straight out of high school. The acceptance rate for international students in the year she applied was reportedly just 0.9%, making her achievement remarkable. Because of her outstanding academic performance, she received a scholarship that covered not only tuition but also travel and living expenses, all without needing to be repaid.

“American universities provide scholarships to outstanding students as a form of investment. It’s like they’re saying, ‘When you graduate and start earning money, please donate back.’ But I ended up taking a leave of absence in my third year of university. From the university’s perspective, that must have been a huge loss, right?”

The reason was depression caused by overwork.

“I was attending school while doing an internship at a company, so I had simply exceeded my capacity. No matter how difficult things became, I couldn’t let go of the obsession that I had to remain a high-achieving student. I couldn’t forgive myself for not being able to do the things I was supposed to do, and I couldn’t accept myself.

It started with being unable to prepare for school, then I couldn’t wake up in the morning, couldn’t read text, and couldn’t even prepare for the next day’s classes. I was constantly hearing things that weren’t there. A cat was constantly meowing. My autonomic nervous system also became abnormal, and I suddenly needed to use the bathroom extremely often. The dorm room where I lived didn’t have a toilet, so I would have accidents. I was an adult, but I couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time. That was when I started thinking, ‘This might really be serious.’”

Mizutani says she took all of the emergency medication she had at home and was rushed to the hospital.

“My grades hadn’t dropped, and I was good at pretending to be an honor student, so the people around me didn’t realize I was sending out an SOS. The medication didn’t make me feel better, so I thought, ‘I’ll just take all of it!’ I thought that if I was taken to the hospital, maybe people would finally understand how much I was suffering.”

After taking a leave of absence, she returned to Japan. Having lost her identity as a high-achieving student,  Mizutani’s self-esteem declined, and she laughs as she says, “I just spent every day having fun.”

“I had one-night stands through dating apps, went to clubs with wild parties, and even worked part-time in the sex industry. My parents were also very controlling. Of course, if your daughter is depressed and going out at night, it’s natural to worry. But I needed that time to have fun in order to remain myself, even if it meant pushing back against my parents.

There were people who would tell me I was interesting and accept me without even knowing my background, and that saved me. People who had known me since junior and senior high school assumed, ‘You’re recovering right now, aren’t you?’ But adults and the adult world accepted and evaluated the version of me that existed at that moment. They consumed me, in a sense. There was a world where I could be accepted even if I wasn’t academically successful. That fact meant a lot to me.”