Maria Ozawa is one of the most popular Japanese Adult Video (AV) actresses in the world. While she may not have half of China following her on Twitter like Sora Aoi, she does command a huge following in many countries across Asia, especially Southeast Aisa.

Indonesia, in particular, is crazy about the half French-Canadian half Japanese porn star. Known as “Miyabi” by local fans, Ozawa is so popular in the country that she has even appeared in two non-pornographic Indonesian films, one of which, titled Menculik Miyabi (“Kidnapping Miyabi”), is a comedy about two teenage Indonesia fans who kidnap Maria Ozawa while she’s vacationing in Indonesia only to end up learning valuable lessons about life, love and, most importantly, friendship.

However, Ozawa’s popularity among Indonesians has also become a point of controversy among right-wing Islamic groups (Islam is the dominant religion in Indonesia and Muslims makes up over 80% of the population) and her appearance in Indonesian films have sparked heated protests from conservative groups, who denounced filmmakers for casting a foreign porn actress instead of a local actress.

Imagine their reaction, then, when it was discovered that a photo of Maria Ozawa was published in a middle school workbook earlier this month.

The workbook was for an English class and features a photo of Ozawa (wearing clothes) alongside two animals and an Indonesian actor. The workbook asked students to write a short question and answer dialogue with the person in the picture.

Education Ministed Mohammad Nuh demanded the publisher withdraw the workbook after receiving complaints from parents who were worried that the photo might corrupt the morality fo the students.

Little did they know it was too late: it was reported that nearly all of the students who saw the photo were able to identify Ozawa immediately.

Come on, if anyone’s going to know the country’s most popular porn star, it’s going to be adolescents.

The textbook was pulled out of circulation and the case is currently being investigated by Indonesian authorities. While there has been no reports of backlash from Islamic groups, a photo showing students supposedly burning the page with Ozawa’s image in protest was posted to Indonesian media sites.

It’s hard to believe that 12 and 13-year-old males would willingly burn images of porn stars. Maybe they were just excited that they could get out of doing their English homework by incinerating it.

Source: Kompas (Indonesian), ET Today (Chinese)

▼Trailer for “Kidnapping Miyabi”

▼The photo that appeared in the workbook

▼Maria Ozawa plays to her Muslim fans

▼And, as always, a few choice photos of Miyabi for your viewing pleasure


[ Read in Japanese ]