Miyu Aizawa recently shared her birthday. Kawagoe Nico went further, she revealed her real hometown.
Most actresses in this industry do not tell their family about shooting adult videos. Agencies and studios therefore create a full persona to protect their identity. They use stage names, fake hometowns, made-up birthdays, and even changed heights. All these keep their real life hidden.
For Kawagoe Nico, hiding her hometown felt like disrespecting her own work. She believes this job should not stay secret. So she openly shared her origin, Hachijo Island, a remote island south of Tokyo.
From the start, no one was really lying. Kawagoe Nico truly is an island girl. Then why hide it at first and reveal it only now? When she debuted, she worried the news would upset her grandmother. Her grandmother raised her as the main caregiver. She could not bear to hurt the woman who brought her up. So she stayed silent at debut.
From her February 2024 debut until now, she has taken on many challenges in AV. She joined an idol group. She did events overseas. She even returned to Hachijo Island to shoot gravure. She realized one thing. If she could not tell the truth about her hometown, she was being unfair to the work she loves. So she decided to come clean.
After she went public, trouble came as expected. Rumors spread online and on the island. People said she must be deep in debt, or she got too involved with host clubs. The gossip reached her grandmother. Her grandmother cried and told her, what should we do, you should quit soon. Those words broke Nico’s heart.
Early last year she went back to Hachijo for a gravure shoot. Her grandmother saw the large crew around her granddaughter. They worked in a professional and respectful way. Then the agency president visited in person. He explained exactly what Nico’s job involved. The grandmother had always feared her precious girl was exploited by bad people. She felt deeply moved. She saw her granddaughter was well cared for by many kind professionals. She finally felt at ease.
Most people on the island now know she is an AV actress. Not everyone approves. But when she returns home, more people come to talk with her. Some proudly show her autographs in their shops. She says it feels really good to be understood.
She also shared the story behind her stage name. She grew up as an only child, raised by her grandparents. Her mother’s relationships with money and men were chaotic. She changed surnames over time, first her father’s, later her mother’s. Then she found her original family name in her baby health record. It was actually Kawagoe. She used the same reading for her stage surname Kawagoe.
The Nico part comes from her childhood. She was bullied a lot and rarely smiled. In high school a kind senior told her, you would look so pretty if you smiled, let’s practice smiling together. After that she practiced natural smiles every day after school. It slowly became easy and natural. That is why she chose Nico, the Japanese word for a bright beaming smile.
That is the story of Kawagoe Nico, adapted from Weekly SPA.