From women in their 20's to their 70's, Tokuda romances them all (sometimes more than one at a time). Tokuda is a genuine leading man in the genre of elderly porn, starring in more than 200 adult videos. Tokuda (that's his porn name) is so successful, he is a brand.

"I retired and didn't have anything to do," says Tokuda, a former 9 to 5 travel agent. "This is my second life. I don't know how long I can keep living, but I want to enjoy the rest of it."

Tokuda certainly looks like he's enjoying life, saying he's healthier now than he's been in years. So are sales of his DVD's, primarily among middle-aged and elderly buyers.

"In his generation, Tokuda is a superstar," says Gaichi Kono, an adult video director who has worked with Tokuda.

"He encourages older people to think, I can do this because that old man can do this."

Ruby Productions produces Tokuda's movies and specializes in elderly porn videos. It's a genre they helped pioneer by accident.

Ryuichi Kadowaki, president of Ruby Productions, says they started producing adult videos with people in their 30's to good sales. They creeped up to 40 year old actors and they sold even better. Kadowaki says they went up to actors in their 50's, then 60's, and now they're producing an entire line of adult videos with actors in their 70's.

And their star, says Ruby, is Tokuda. "To be honest, I don't understand why people are buying these videos," he says. "I think our older customers must feel a sense of security by watching videos with an actor who is in the same generation."

Ruby says it's targeting the elderly audience and considering selling videos in retirement homes. Ruby also says it's just completed a deal to release some of Tokuda's movies in the U.S.

Japan does have a higher percentage of people over the age of 65 than any country in the world. Ruby Productions says it's just meeting a demand of an aging Japanese society.

Tokuda says his friends are envious, because he's in a job where he's valued, something many seniors lack. "Seniors get depressed because they don't have anything to do. They go crazy," says Tokuda.

Tokuda hopes to work until he's 80 or even older. Giving it his all, he says, until the end.

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Old Man Porn in Japan

Time.com, 6/17/08 - Besides his glowing complexion, Shigeo Tokuda looks like any other 74-year-old man in Japan. Despite suffering a heart attack three years ago, the lifelong salaryman now feels healthier, and lives happily with his wife and a daughter in downtown Tokyo. He is, of course, more physically active than most retirees, but that's because he's kept his part-time job — as a porn star.

Shigeo Tokuda is, in fact, his screen name. He prefers not to disclose his real name because, he insists, his wife and daughter have no idea that he has appeared in about 350 films over the past 14 years. And in his double life, Tokuda arguably embodies the contemporary state of Japan's sexuality: in surveys conducted by organizations ranging from the World Health Organization (WHO) to the condom-maker Durex, Japan is repeatedly found to be one of the most sexless societies in the industrialized world. A WHO report released in March found that 1 in 4 married couples in Japan had not made love in the previous year, while 38% of couples in their 50s no longer have sex at all. Those figures were attributed to the stresses of Japanese working life. Yet at the same time, the country has seen a surge in demand for pornography that has turned adult videos into a billion-dollar industry, with "elder porn" one of its fastest-growing genres.

Tokuda is rare among Japanese porn stars in that his name has become a brand. The Shigeo Tokuda series he has just completed portray him as a tactful elderly gentleman who instructs women of different ages in the erotic arts, and he boasts a body of work far more impressive than most actors in their prime.

Tokuda's exploits have proved to be a goldmine for Glory Quest, which first launched an "old man" series, Maniac Training of Lolitas, in December 2004. Its popularity led the company to follow up with Tokuda starring in Forbidden Elderly Care in August 2006. Other series followed, and soon elder porn had revealed itself as a sustainable new revenue stream for the industry. "The adult-video industry is very competitive," says Glory Quest p.r. representative Kayoko Iimura. "If we only make standard fare, we cannot beat other studios. There were already adult videos with Lolitas or themes of incest, so we wanted to make something new. A relationship between wife and an old father-in-law has enough twist to create an atmosphere of mystery and captivate viewers' hearts."

Director Gaichi Kono says the eroticism of elders is captivating to younger viewers. "I think that, as a subject, there is this something that only an older generation has and the young people do not possess. It is because they lived that much more. We should respect them and learn from them," says Kono passionately.

But Tokuda stresses the appeal of his work to an audience of his peers: "Elderly people don't identify with school dramas," he says. "It's easier for them to relate to older-men-and-daughters-in-law series, so they tend to watch adult videos with older people in them." The veteran porn star plans to keep working until he's 80 — or older, as long as the industry will cast him. Given the bullish market for his work, he's unlikely to go without work.

"People of my age generally have shame, so they are very hesitant to show their private parts," Tokuda says. "But I am proud of myself doing something they cannot." Still, he says, laughing, "That doesn't mean that I can tell them about my old-age pensioner job."

Japan's adult-video industry is believed to be worth as much as $1 billion a year, according to industry insiders, with the largest video-store chain Tsutaya releasing about 1,000 new titles monthly, while the mega adult mail-order site DMM releases about 2,000 titles each month. Although films featuring women in their teens and 20s are the mainstay of the industry, a trend toward "mature women" has become evident over the past five years. Currently, about 300 of the 1,000 adult videos on offer at Tsutaya, and 400 out of the 2,000 at DMM, are "mature women" films.

Ryuichi Kadowaki, director of Ruby Inc., which specializes in mature-women titles, says that when the company started offering the genre a few years ago, the term referred to actresses in their late 20s, and that last year it was expanded to those in their 70s. The company believes the advantage of mature titles is their enduring appeal. "Adult videos with young actresses sell well only in the first three months after the release," Kadowaki explains. "On the other hand, mature-women films enjoy a steady, long-term popularity, which after 10 years or so might lead to a best seller." And then there are the cost savings. A popular young actress can earn up to $100,000 per film, while a mature actress is paid only $2,000.

The market for elder porn has doubled over the past decade, according to Kadowaki. "In view of [Japan's] aging society," he adds, "I think that in the future, we will see a steady increase in demand."

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