The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

I'm creating this topic as a general discussion among fans, but perhaps it is more directed to producers of SHIP content. I was reading recently about the massive success of Giga in Japan. My information could be an exaggeration but I've heard that superheroine porn released by Giga is one of if not the top seller among porn genres among the Japanese audience. If this is true (or even if superheroine porn is just really successful there) then it got me to thinking, what if American producers marketed their movies to a Japanese audience (without, hopefully, abandoning us here stateside)? If the market is really that big in Japan, then wouldn't producers here stand to make bank on that audience? There is clearly a desire to see more American women represented in Japanese superheroine porn, evidenced by the entire sub-genre of Giga movies centered on Japanese women portraying American superheroine characters. There are even a few videos in which Giga has cast an American performer instead of a Japanese one. If this market generated significantly more revenue for producers here, then I see it as a win-win because those revenues could be funneled back into more frequent and/or more elaborate productions, which would again be released to the Japanese market for more sweet cash, but also could be made available to us, the humble American audience. Even if producers could not get their videos on DVD or Blu-Ray on Japanese shelves easily, wouldn't online releases resolve the distribution problem? If Japanese audiences could download or watch American SHIP videos on the Internet then it's really a matter of marketing to get the attention of the Japanese audience. I am wondering if any producers have tried to take advantage of this lucrative market in Japan before or thought about it? Seems like a great way ri stimulate grown of the SHIP genre.

I have some of their movies but their movies get boring. Nearly every one is the same. I liked the giant heroine stuff because they would do more wacky fetish things with that.

Heck they have characters like Ms. Milk and Ms. Milkriffic and Lady Bull and do nothing with the breasts.

I am not an authority on Japan, but I have a couple of observations. To start with Giga is a pretty big studio. they are not filming in hotel rooms. They spend quite a bit of resources on costumes, props and choreography. The benefit from the economy of scale. They have been putting out movies for decades. Their movies are also tailored to their market. The bad guys are in elaborate monster costumes the heroines usually are having their costumes destroyed. The women do not have tattoos.

The over all aesthetics of their movies seem to center around the live action TV shows that were popular in Japan, lots of Sailor Moon type heroines, Power Rangers, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, Space Sheriff... My guess is they are very in-joke centered porn parodies. Personally I think the women are gorgeous, but as @Mr. X said, they get fairly repetitive. Most of the bondage is pretty light and usually a cross or something similar. They also have obscenity laws that forbid the showing of genitals, so to sell their you would need to blur out all the naughty bits, plus make subtitles.

They do really great tentacle superheroine scenes that you are not going to see from American producers. I wish they could make their BDSM content more like Kink.com or device bondage with the same women and superheroine costumes monsters and sets.

Finally, Japan has organized crime and I doubt many people want to go to a foreign country and deal with their mobsters, who probably have all sorts of do's and don'ts.

I vaguely remember reading something a few years ago about this very subject. I believe there were some legal hurdles involved but not sure to what extent. One thing I do know is that genitals must blurred/pixelated. AFAIK, uncensored pornography is still taboo in Japan. There are some cultural issues also, e.g. it was legal to possess child pornography in Japan up until 2014. Again, this from a few years back so things may be different now?

HeroineFanboy wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I'm creating this topic as a general discussion among fans, but perhaps it is more directed to producers of SHIP content. I was reading recently about the massive success of Giga in Japan. My information could be an exaggeration but I've heard that superheroine porn released by Giga is one of if not the top seller among porn genres among the Japanese audience. If this is true (or even if superheroine porn is just really successful there) then it got me to thinking, what if American producers marketed their movies to a Japanese audience (without, hopefully, abandoning us here stateside)? If the market is really that big in Japan, then wouldn't producers here stand to make bank on that audience? There is clearly a desire to see more American women represented in Japanese superheroine porn, evidenced by the entire sub-genre of Giga movies centered on Japanese women portraying American superheroine characters. There are even a few videos in which Giga has cast an American performer instead of a Japanese one. If this market generated significantly more revenue for producers here, then I see it as a win-win because those revenues could be funneled back into more frequent and/or more elaborate productions, which would again be released to the Japanese market for more sweet cash, but also could be made available to us, the humble American audience. Even if producers could not get their videos on DVD or Blu-Ray on Japanese shelves easily, wouldn't online releases resolve the distribution problem? If Japanese audiences could download or watch American SHIP videos on the Internet then it's really a matter of marketing to get the attention of the Japanese audience. I am wondering if any producers have tried to take advantage of this lucrative market in Japan before or thought about it? Seems like a great way ri stimulate grown of the SHIP genre.

Where were you reading about 'massive success'? Numbers regarding the porn business are complicated cause GIGA isn't going to be telling anyone what kind of money they make, so it's all to some degree presumptive.

For the sake of transparency, a lot of us producers have a lot of foreign customers. People buy my work all over the world, including Japan. So I think you are more so wondering what it would take for American producers to expand more in that market, as, a lot of us are already selling to people in Japan.

I have considered trying to have a better anchor in places like Japan, as GIGA has always been a favorite company of mine and I am aware that they have a fanbase that desire SHIP or SHIP adjacent content (they have a preference for 'magic' girls not necessarily superheroine, though, its roughly the same thing). But I think the only way to successfully do that would be to have boots on the ground

I would need someone from Japan, who lives there, and loves the genre / understands its community, to be able to help navigate the disconnect from the larger SHIP/GIGA audience that doesnt buy American SHIP films or doesnt know about them. Maybe they desire subtitles? Maybe they would like for the films to have censor blur over genitals to feel comfortable about purchasing and owning, etc. Maybe I need to hire some voice actors to translate my films so that their audience can enjoy the content without subtitles

So I think the real answer to your question is: even if some/all of us considered it, no one has ever acted on it, because it requires effort and resources, including knowledge of another community that exist in another part of the world, that we do not completely understand or have clear access to.

My inbox rarely ever receives emails that say: Hello, here are my skillsets, here are things I can help you with, I want to help you grow your SHIP business and I am very capable of doing so.

Cause, if they did, you best believe I would be trying to dig a deeper anchor in Japan

This seems less of a marketing and distribution thing - since the Japanese audience already has access to this content - and more of a strict content thing. The composition of the stuff from Japan is quite different to what comes from western producers, even if the basic content premise (heroine in peril) is obviously very similar. I vibe very much with the Japanese conception of the heroine peril genre - those guys 'get' it, as far as I'm concerned.

The bigger money maker is probably the other way around. If GIGA took the time to release (more) subtitled versions of their works, I think they would do well abroad.

But yeah, I would assume that western-produced content that matched the composition and themes of the Japanese producers, and hit the same genre expectations, would do well in that market regardless of the language barrier, but I say that as pure baseless speculation.

Void wrote: ↑

1 year ago

If GIGA took the time to release (more) subtitled versions of their works, I think they would do well abroad.

FACT.

Void wrote: ↑

1 year ago

The bigger money maker is probably the other way around. If GIGA took the time to release (more) subtitled versions of their works, I think they would do well abroad.

They do. I think its called Zen pictures. Basically they multipurpose their videos. They make the videos so they can cut out the porn part and just have the peril/action part which they sell on Zen. You see a lot of the porn parts seem like they were shot separately, which they were.
https://www.akiba-heroine.com/

Also allows them to get models like Anri Okita
https://www.akiba-heroine.com/product/i ... ct_id=4902

Tales of the success of organized crime in Japan are vastly overstated as well.

The Yakuza are on the decline... MASSIVELY. The gangs aren't getting 'new blood'. Just like the US, all the kids these days in Japan are too much lone wolves. (Kid's these days just don't want to lose their fingers for f'king up like they used to I guess?) Crime in Japan is more successful via decentralized channels now and everyone in the Yakuza is old.

That's not to say there's NO organized crime in Japan anymore obviously......... but I'm not sure how much that factors into a production like Giga's success here in 2025.