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ABOUT Milk Ichigo (Miruku Ichigo)

Milk Ichigo (苺みるく, Ichigo Milk), also often billed as Miruku Ichigo, is an award-winning Japanese adult video (AV) actress who has had an exceptionally long career.

Life and career

Milk Ichigo was born in Hokkaido on February 2, 1981. Her name, which literally translates as "strawberry milk", is also the name of a Japanese dessert and candy. Ichigo says she was eating ice cream while trying to think up a stage name and decided "Ichigo Miruku" sounded good. Her first sexual experience was at age 16 with her boyfriend who was 3 years older. In an interview in late 2001, she said she had slept with about ten men but hadn't had sex for two years.

AV debut and early career

She got started in the field when she met an agent while she was working at a cabaret club. She at first refused the offer but then decided to "give it a shot". She began with magazine work and then went into videos. Ichigo's first video, I Love You Ichigo Milk, was released December 25, 2000 for the Kuki Tank label. She says she was nervous at her debut and had to take "lots of breaks". The actors and director were angry with her and she was thinking of giving up and going home. She remembers that first director as being a "really weird man by the name Happy Yamada", a very unique person. She would go on to work with Yamada in numerous videos over the next two years.

Many of her video titles for Kuki played on her name with various combinations including the word "strawberry". Strawberry Club from March 2001 is nurse uniform cosplay while the April 2001 release Strawberry Sherbert has her dressed in a diaper. Her 6th video Wet Strawberry takes place at a hot spring. Ichigo said she ended up a bit dizzy from spending too much time in the water during the shoot. Her July 2001 video A Summer Strawberry took her to a summer resort in Okinawa to have sex on the beach and at the hotel.Strawberry Gathering (November 2001) uses the documentary format common in Japanese porn to reveal Ichigo's secret past including sex with a middle-aged man and some mild bondage. In another documentary style video, A Snow Strawberry, she returns home to Hokkaido to visit her ex-boyfriend but ends up having a one-night stand with a stranger. Another video, Strawberry Call, gives Ichigo the chance to play three different sisters, a tough one, a bright one, and a cute school girl. The three fight off the kidnappers of one of the customers of their coffee shop. Ichigo was recognized by fans for her work in 2001 by being given the Best Actress Award at the X City Grand Prix Awards ceremony.

Her last video for Kuki, issued in April 2002 and entitled simply Goodbye, has her as a teacher having sex with her students. While with the Kuki Tank label, Ichigo had also been making videos with Max-A Samansa and Alice Japan, both part of the large Kuki group of AV companies. In one of them, Splash, she plays a mermaid. Ichigo has said that the cover from this video box is her favorite.

Later career

In late 2002, Ichigo switched studios, going from the Kuki group to Moodyz, one of the constituent companies in the Hokuto Corporation. Her first two videos for Moodyz were with her first director, Happy Yamada. Ichigo continued with Moodyz for almost a year and then essentially stopped making original videos for mainstream Japanese porn.

Beginning in late 2003, Ichigo began making a number of "uncensored" videos. These uncensored videos lack the mosaic pixelation which is used to obscure the genitals in standard Japanese AV. These videos are only marketed internationally outside of Japan or in underground (urabon) venues in Japan. Among these videos was Japanese Superidols Gold Vol. 19 from March 2004 and the September 2005 super-heroine cosplay adventure Akiba-Troops! Cutie Rangers! co-starring Sakura Sakurada and Tsumiki Shindo.

Suicide attempt

In July 2005, Japanese news sources reported that Ichigo had attempted suicide in her Tokyo apartment. According to the sources, on July 13, 2005, she tried to commit suicide by taking 20 sleeping pills and then slashing her wrists. A suicide note said it was due to Shintaro Yoshitake (吉武真太郎). Yoshitake was a relief pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks baseball team with whom Ichigo was having an affair. Ichigo had only known Yoshitake (who was married) for a short time but had developed a deep attachment for him and became despondent when he broke off their relationship. Ichigo was taken to the hospital by police who had been alerted by Ichigo's mother who was worried by her daughter's hints about suicide. Ichigo appeared soon afterwards in a magazine photo showing her scarred wrist. As an aside, in an interview years before, Ichigo had declared jokingly that she didn't expect to live past 24 - her age at the time of her suicide attempt.

Retirements and comebacks

From late 2005, Ichigo was seen only infrequently in the adult video industry. She made two videos for the newly formed Cross studio and then returned in November 2006 to make two S&M bondage movies with Attackers. However, almost two years passed before she made her next video, Comeback, with Moodyz in December 2008. She has continued to release new titles in 2009.

Source: Wikipedia