On Saturday, April 23rd, I went to Rion’s first photo event. She first made her debut as Utsunomiya Shion (宇都宮しをん) in September of 2013 for S1 and has been a big hit not only in Japan but internationally, constantly ranking at the top of DMM and S1’s sales rankings. In Japan she is known as “God of boobies” (神の乳) because of her beautiful J cup breasts, the best breasts in the adult video market today, and a potential rival to AV legend Asami Yuma (麻美ゆま) who has despite seen huge success for nearly a decade had to quit the industry prematurely. Rion is also known as Anzai Rara (安齋らら) and has released a few photo books and image videos in her career. Having taken a short hiatus and “disappearing” from the industry for about a year, she came back in October 2015 under the new stage name, Rion. On top of her “God of boobies” moniker, she was also given a slogan, “Japan is tired of waiting for your return” (日本中が待ちわびた), and “unrivaled tits” (無類の神乳). Because of all these “accolades,” you can see why this event is such a big deal.
This event was held in Aoyama, Tokyo and was a little bit different than the usual AV events in that you had to get the tickets through DMM’s new app, DMM.E. Because everything is written in Japanese, you can read our article on how to install DMM.E. The tickets cost 15,000 yen and what it comes with is 3 of Rion’s DVD’s, a premium photo book, signed Polaroid, a 5 man group 1 minute photo session, and a handshake. There were two time slots, one at 11:00 and one at 14:30, each limited to 150 people. Although I wish I could spend all the time with Rion as I could by attending both, I decided to go to only one of them because of the cost, and the one I chose was at 11:00. That’s because the one at 11:00 Rion was scheduled to wear a dress and at 14:30 she was scheduled to wear cosplay. I am not against cosplay, but I prefer to see Rion in a dress over cosplay, and it wasn’t even announced what kind of cosplay she would be doing so I couldn’t risk the chance she would be wearing some ugly costume.
The location of the event was in a shop called Polygon, which appears to hold various events, not limited to adult related entertainment. To get there, I had to go to Omotesando station which is one stop away from Shibuya station on the Chiyoda, Ginza and Hanzomon lines. From Omotesando station to Polygon is not very far and is only a few minutes’ walk. If you look at the Polygon homepage, they will tell you to go to the A1 exit, but the A3 exit is faster. From there, I just walked down the street and arrived at approximately 10:45 to see a long line of people waiting to enter the facility. As the time started to get closer to 11:00, they started to let people in, and I showed my e-ticket on my tablet to the man at the entrance to confirm my ticket. Right behind him were two girls handing out the souvenirs for the event in a white paper bag with the S1 logo on it. After that, I immediately went to my assigned destination.
At the event, I saw at least one foreigner from Taiwan, and one female fan. Everyone else were horny middle aged men. When everyone had finally entered the facility, one of the coordinators started talking about the event, and talking about the rules in that the photo session will be based on a rotation of 5 people for one minute. Immediately following that would be a 2-shot, which is having your picture taken with Rion. The coordinator also said to double check your bags to make sure you got everything. One man raised his hands to say he did not get a Polaroid and the coordinator responded by saying if anyone else was missing it to which five people raised their hands. Shortly after, everyone got their signed Polaroid’s and I was thinking if I should have raised my hand anyway to get an extra Polaroid because they didn’t check your bags to see if you were lying or not, but I decided not to lie.
After a few minutes passed, it was finally time for Rion to make her appearance. One of the other coordinators introduced Rion, and she came through the door with an entourage of 3 people. They did not introduce themselves, but I would guess one of them was some kind of director because of his disheveled look, another was probably some kind of makeup artist because of his wavy and stylish hair, and the last was a girl, another makeup artist would be my guess. When Rion was in the middle of the stage introducing herself, I started getting a tingling sensation as if I won a big race or finally won the championship of some big sport. It was that “finally” feeling, the one where you get when you try so hard to accomplish something and you finally reach that goal. Rion was just that gorgeous, whether in her videos, box covers, or in person, there is no need to justify her beauty. For nerds and gamers out there, as she was introducing herself, the last thing she highlighted was that she plays Pokemon Go! It’s always a plus when girls play video games, and Rion is no exception. It just makes her that much more attractive.
No time was wasted as we finally went straight into the photo session. At many other AV events, it is usually groups of 3 people photographing the star, but since this is such a big event and so many people were attending, it was a group of five taking pictures for one minute. As the general rule, the star faces one photographer and he takes a picture, and the star faces the next person in a rotation. What this means is that technically, one of the guys next to you could be taking up all the time, hence limiting the number of quality shots you can take. For that reason, it is completely acceptable to keep taking pictures even when it is “not your turn,” and she is facing somebody else. As to not distract and disrupt other people, do not take flash photography during the time she is not facing you.
As I was in the middle of the crowd, I got to see all the people in front of me doing their photo shoot. If everything went smoothly, I would be the fourth person in a group of five, not a bad position if I wanted to be in the middle, but I would have preferred the third spot. However, one of the people two groups ahead of me had some kind of camera malfunction and was forced to pull out of the photo shoot and be part of the next group, thus pushing everybody back by one. That meant that my fourth spot would become a fifth spot, the biggest angle from Rion, and the angle that I did not want. I can’t say these things happen often at AV events, but they do happen, so you have to be prepared for that kind of thing. Also considering that this is a venue I have never been to, I have to plan quickly how I want to take the pictures: how I am going to use the given lighting, environment, ISO, aperture, shutter speed etc. Needless to say, I had re-think how I would take photos of Rion since I would now be at an angle, completely changing the background look and the way the photos would come out.
I was very unhappy being the fifth spot and being at an angle from Rion, but I just had to make the most of it. Prior to coming to the event, I invested in a high quality DSLR camera, one of the best and most expensive in the market today with a high quality lens. That’s why I set my camera to burst mode so I could take as many photos as I could, even during the “downtime” when Rion is not looking at me. I moved in and out, strafed left and right, and let the shutter go. This was one of the advantages being at an angle, because I could freely move to my left, not sandwiched by the people on the sides. I could hear the people in the audience behind me saying things like, “wow look at this guy.”
Aside from being disappointed by being at an angle, I felt the lighting wasn’t the best. There were the main fluorescent lights to light the whole room which I had no problems with, but the main source of light was a spot light going top down. It gave a sense of dramatization, but the shadows it created were too dark, especially on Rion’s face. They were not hard edged shadows, but the shadows that were produced were very dark, making it a little hard to capture her face when taking photos. To solve this, I wish there were some kind of softbox or reflected light to act as fill light, but this studio did not provide any, and you cannot bring your own. I also never use flash because I don’t like the picture that comes out, even with a diffuser, but I felt like this may have been the appropriate time to use flash.
After the one minute photo session, I waited for all 4 people ahead of me to get their picture taken with Rion before it was finally my turn. I just said it was nice to meet you and shook her hand. Despite not saying anything else other than thank you, she seemed to be a friendly person, and kind to everyone else that took a photo with her and talked to her. During the 2-shot, she wrapped her arms around mine, and I hunched over to give a more emotional and fun feeling to the picture to which she followed my lead. She laughed and giggled at me trying to be different, and I shook her hand and started heading on my way out.
I decided not to head out like half the people did not do so I could stay till the end and just gaze at Rion. I was content at just looking at Rion, but if you’ve been to other S1 debut events, they sometimes do extra stuff at the end, such as doing an extra special photo shoot, giving out posters, and other souvenirs. Since this was Rion we are talking about, she does not need to do any type of encore, so I didn’t expect any special constellation prizes for staying, but I stayed anyway. In the end, there was nothing extra, and she just said goodbye to us all as she disappeared into the room behind her.
In conclusion, I was very happy to attend Rion’s event. I was actually scared because I did not think I would be able to secure a ticket as I thought they would sell out. When the tickets were first available I did not buy them on the first day because I had some problems with the DMM.E app, but by the time I solved my problems, I was able to secure the ticket. If it was some other AV actress, I would not go again because of the high price, but this is Rion we were talking about. Utsunomiya Shion…the girl many men, including myself fantasize about being with. She is beautiful, gorgeous, hot and cute all in one. If she is ever doing another event, I will definitely be going.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
