Haruki Mizuno - Life and Career

Life and Career

Mizuno was born in Tokyo on July 21 1979. She dropped out of high school, and thinks that if she had not become an AV star, she would be working at soapland.

Taking her screen name from the actress Maki Mizuno, whom she considers a role model, Mizuno made her AV debut in December 1997. Her first video, Barefoot Fairy, was for the Try-Heart Corporation's Sexia label. She quickly a sensation in the AV field, as well as a popular gravure idol.

For nearly one year, Mizuno made about one video a month for Sexia. Playing off her "Lolita" image, her third video, the March 1998 release Sweet Baby, had Mizuno portraying the viewer's younger sister. Her May, 1998 release, Pretty Wife 4: Currently In Training, had Mizuno in the role of a young newlywed who must endure training and discipline not only from her husband, but also from his creditors. In Sorry, from August 1998, Mizuno appeared in the popular student-teacher theme of Japanese AVs, as a student having an affair with her middle-aged teacher.

By September 1998, Mizuno felt exhausted physically and mentally, and decided to take a hiatus from the AV industry, which would last two years. During her break from AV performances, Mizuno worked in the Japanese mainstream media, and was a regular on the late night TV Asahi show, Blonde Teacher (金髪先生?) between 1997 and 1998. Her return to AV and Try Heart's Sexia label was with the September 2000 release, Reunion. The AV industry called Mizuno's come-back, "he most shocking event of the last half of this year." More comfortable with the AV field after her return, Mizuno began experimenting with genres in which she had previously refused to perform. Her second come-back video, Make Love (October, 2000), was her first to include bondage and rape scenes.

Nearly ten years after her debut, and eight years after her apparent retirement from the AV field in 2002, her popularity was such that in February, 2007, Amazon still listed over 50 video items to her credit. Sixteen volumes of photo books either devoted entirely to her, such as FAIRY TALE―水野はるき写真集 (released in October, 1998), or in which she appeared with other models were also in print.