Hikaru Natsumi

Hikaru Natsumi (菜摘ひかる, Natsumi Hikaru, 1973 – November 4, 2002) was a Japanese writer and sex worker. She is best known for her blog The Sexual Adventures of Hikaru Natsumi (菜摘ひかるの性的冒険), which was published as a book in 1998.

On November 4, 2002, Natsumi died at the age of 29. The cause of death was not released, beyond that she had been in poor health since mid-2002 and experienced a "sudden change in health". A private funeral was held. In February 2003, a commemorative issue of the literary magazine Bungei was published in Natsumi's memory. Among the contributors to the issue were Rika Kayama [ja], Yukari Fujimoto, Amari Hayashi [ja], and Naito Yamada [ja], the lattermost of whom regularly collaborated with Natsumi as the illustrator on her manga works.

In the mid-1990s, Natsumi began publishing a blog about her experiences as a sex worker titled The Sexual Adventures of Hikaru Natsumi (菜摘ひかるの性的冒険). The blog was later published as a book by the Japanese publishing house Yosensha in 1998; its success prompted Natsumi to become a full-time author of novels and manga. "Vulgarity Drifting Diary", an English-language column by Natsumi, was published in the American manga magazine Pulp.

Natsumi was born in 1973 in the Kantō region of Japan. While in high school, she contributed writing and manga to manga magazines specializing in adult comics that were edited by Yoshiaki Shioyama [ja]. After graduating high school, Natsumi began working as a clerk at a clothing store. She later transitioned to the water trade, alternately working as an erotic masseuse, at image clubs, and in soaplands. She additionally worked as a nude model for erotic books and adult films, though after being arrested for indecent exposure after stripping nude on a street in Shinjuku for a photo shoot in 1996, she retired from modeling.