| Industry | Pornography |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1995 |
| Founder(s) | Ganari Takahashi |
| Headquarters | Nakano, Tokyo, Japan |
| Products | Pornographic films |
| Employees | 128 |
Soft On Demand (ソフト・オン・デマンド Sofuto On Demando), often known as SOD, is a Japanese adult video group of companies which has its headquarters in the Nakano ward of Tokyo. SOD was founded in December 1995[1] by Ganari Takahashi, who retired from the company in March 2005 and is currently working in agriculture.[2] The company is one of the largest adult video companies in Japan and is notable for its creative approach to adult videos.[3]
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In 2009, the company, under president Chie Sugawara (菅原 千恵), had 128 employees (27 male and 101 female) and a capital of 100 million yen (about US$1.1 million). For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009, SOD had total sales of 14.9 billion yen (about US$165 million) and a profit of 670 million yen (about US$7.4 million). For 2007 the figures were sales of 13.5 billion yen (about US$120 million) and profit of 900 million yen (about US$8 million). SOD has been a fast growing company since its foundation, going from sales of 300 million yen in 1996 to 1.5 billion in 1998 to 4.1 billion in 2000, 7.8 billion in 2003, and 9 billion in 2005.[1] In spite of its rapid growth, it has been overtaken in sales volume by rival AV producer Hokuto, which has also absorbed some of SOD's former companies.
One director has described their product this way: "SOD's porno is ridiculous. There's nothing really sordid about it" and "different to anything else in the porno world". Some of its most notable approaches have been quiz shows that tested the knowledge of AV (adult video) actresses with challenging questions, CFNM (clothed female, naked male) videos that have women studying a man's penis (the "Uniforms, Undies and All Naked School Multi-Story" series), and plots where women are put under hypnosis. There have also been nude sports series, the senior citizen epic "All Naked Nursing Home for the Elderly", Company Sex Parties, Summer Festivals (a festival focused on penises and not to be confused with the actual Shinto festival dealing with fertility) and Sex Camps.[4]
One of their releases from May 2006, 500 Person Sex (500人SEX),[5] features 250 couples having sex (apart from each other but in the same room) in an impressive synchronized way, and thus got some raised eyebrows from occidental adult sites.[6] The video received a special jury award at the 2006 AV Open.[7]
By 2003, SOD was releasing more than 1,000 adult video titles per year.[8] SOD also works with a number of companies in other areas and has thus become a group (zaibatsu) of companies mainly in the area of producing adult videos. Besides producing videos the company also produces condoms and lubricant lotions,[9][10] PC games (aka hentai games), and adult anime.[11]
Outside of the adult area, SOD is also involved in producing softcore and genre movies,[12] idol videos and TV programs. Among their mainstream movies, some have featured SOD AV actresses including the 2008 horror film Samurai Zombie (Yoroi) with Nana Natsume[13] and the 2006 comedy-drama Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari, directed by Tatsuya Egawa and featuring Sasa Handa.[14] In 2004, the company announced plans to produce an adaptation of the Shougakukan Big Comic Original manga series "Ajisai no Uta" (Song of Hydrangea) as an original video animation (OAV) for a general audience.[15][16] Volume 1 of the series was released in August 2004 and the fourth and final volume came out in December of that year.[17]
Internally, SOD outsources work to its individual units, original video production being done by SOD Create Inc. (SODクリエイト株式会社) headed by Daisuke Kasai (葛西 大祐).[1] This affiliate, founded in March 1999, was originally called Hamlet (ハムレット Hamuretto) and changed its name to SOD Create in 2001.[1][18]
Package design for SOD is the realm of another division, SOD Artworks (SODアートワークス), founded in 2004, and under the leadership of Yoshino Toshimitsu (吉野敏充).[1]
In addition to the SOD label, SOD Create has produced videos under the following labels:[19]
Directors who have worked at SOD include:
Many well-known AV Idols have performed for SOD:
Important thematic series at SOD include:[19]
For the past several years, SOD has run a campaign to bring attention to the rise of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) in Japan and to increase the use of condoms. The program, called STOP! STD, has used former SOD star Nana Natsume as a spokeswoman.[20]
From 2002 to 2006, the company held the SOD AV Awards, an annual ceremony to present a series of awards to honor actresses, directors, and staff of companies in the SOD group. In 2006, the company also sponsored, along with Tokyo Sports, a wider award contest called the AV Open. Sixteen companies competed for a total prize pool of 25 Million yen with the winner being decided by sales of the videos entered in the contest.[21]
In the second year of the AV Open competition, 19 companies participated and the SOD entry won by a large margin. But it was subsequently discovered that SOD had used company funds to buy thousands of their own videos. SOD was disqualified and the discredited AV Open was replaced the next year by the Hokuto Corporation sponsored AV Grand Prix.[21]
The Japanese AV industry has several different "ethics groups" which are voluntary organizations to assure adherence with Japanese pornography laws and to regulate content and copyrights. The earliest of these organizations was founded by the major AV companies in 1972 and is known in English as the Nihon Ethics of Video Association (NEVA) or in Japanese 日本ビデオ倫理協会 (Nippon Bideo Rinri Kyoukai or Japan Video Morality Association) usually abbreviated as ビデ倫 (bide-rin or vide-rin).[22][23] In response, SOD in 1996 began its own regulatory group known as the Media Ethics Association (Media Rinri Kyoukai or メディア倫理協会) usually abbreviated as medi-rin（メディ倫). Medi-rin was composed of "indie" companies, independent AV studios which explored porn themes forbidden by NEVA rules and which used a thinner censorship mosaic for their videos.[22] Medi-rin was re-organized in 2005 to form the Content Soft Association (CSA) called in Japanese コンテンツ・ソフト協同組合 (Software Content Association) to review and regulate adult videos and adult game software.[24] The CSA has more than 65 members among AV producers comprising most of the SOD group and some other major companies. Members include:[25]
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This is a list of the companies that were part of the SOD group as of June 2010.[26]