Actress Ai Iijima's bio-pic. It's the theatrical version starring Saki Kagami who was selected through vigorous auditions.

Japanese adult video star turned TV Tarento Ai Iijima has been almost impossible to avoid over the past year. Aside from her ubiquitous appearance on the countless variety shows that clog the TV schedules, her autobiographical bestseller (published last autumn) which has sold over a million copies here in Japan has been adapted not only into a four hour TV drama screened last month, but also as a feature film to be released through Toho Films.

This best selling memoir Platonic Sex, follows in the footsteps of other "confessional" autobiographies such as model Anna Umemiya's Minikui Ahiru No Ko Datta Watashi (I Was An Ugly Duckling) and novelist Yu Miri's Inochi which describes how she became a single mother while caring for a dying former lover.

Platonic Sex tells the story of how a young girl, then known as Mitsuko Ishi, was driven by away from home by the pressure to excel at school that her parents placed on her, and found herself on a slippery slope that led from hanging out in discos to enjo kosai or "compensated companionship", hostessing, and finally to entering the porn industry.

Making over 100 porn films, including classic titles such as T Back Panty Queen , Used Panty of Sister in Law and Ai's Raped Maniac in two years Ai Iijima, as she was by now known, quickly established herself as the "queen of adult videos." She quit the porn business while still on top, so to speak, and started a career as a TV personality.

Known for her straight talking, Iijima holds nothing back and is open about being raped when she was a young girl, going through an abortion, as well as details about the Japanese porn industry.

16 year old high schooler Saki Kagami was chosen from 1200 young hopefuls who auditioned to play the role of Aoi, who is based upon Iijima, in the movie adaption of the book.

When asked how she felt when she read the book, Kagami said that it really made her think about who she was, and that in a time when teenagers often feel that they are completely alone she really identified with what Iijima went through, and help her believe she too could change her life.

Iijima and Kagami

A spokesperson from Fuji TV, which produced the TV adaptation of the book, stated that "although the content of the book is very strong, the themes of loneliness and anxiety are universal ones." Indeed, the book has become something of a "bible" for a whole generation of teenage girls, not only in Japan, but in Taiwan and Korea too. In fact High School girls will be able to see the movie for the discount price of ￥1000 during the first week of its release, ensuring that Iijima's "message" gets through to those she feels can learn from her experiences, and that the movie has a good opening box office.

But what is Iijima's message? Is a former porn star really the right kind of role model for Asia's troubled generation of teenage girls?

Iijima and her fans claim the message isn't "How to use the sex industry to get what you want," but how to overcome great obstacles and see the value of yourself. Some of the people who have written reviews of the book on amazon.co.jp complain that Iijima doesn't spell out clearly enough that selling yourself is not good. However, perhaps in Iijima, Japan's teenage girls have found someone with whom they can identify and respect because she tells it how it is rather than just preaching at them.