Ran Asakawa was born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan on 4 September 1980. Her first sexual encounter happened when she was 19 and was with a businessman. She says, however, that her first fully pleasurable experience wasn't until about the 10th time.[2]
Asakawa finished high school and began junior college.[2] When she realized that she could not make much money doing part time work she decided to start doing adult videos, and later explained, "I wanted to study to get a decent wage but I can't do that while I have a regular 9-5 job, right? So I picked AVs." She had thought about stripping but decided that the hours were too long.[2] She says she cried after making her first video "wondering what I was doing to myself". She finally got to like sex on camera but keeps her eyes closed from embarrassment.[2]
At first she was not a popular performer because of her mature looks at a time when very young looking girls were the fashion in porn and she did only about 10 videos in her first six months.[2] However, that changed and Asakawa and her modeling agency submitted an application to the Guinness Book of World Records for making 212 adult videos in the year 2002.[3] The next year (2003) she outdid her previous record by appearing in 304 videos but announced her retirement at the end of the year.[4] Her total output in Japan including later re-issues and compilations numbers nearly 800 videos.[5]
In late 2003 the Taipei Times reported that Asakawa had come to Taiwan with the hope of expanding her career there.[6] Although Asakawa had retired from Japanese AV work, in 2004 she did appear in a number of "uncensored" videos - those without the mosaic pixellation to obscure the genitals found in all standard Japanese adult videos. At least some of the videos were produced in Taiwan.[7]
