Steve Gallon has done it again! The owner of Grooby Productions, whose groundbreaking ShemaleYum.com is now in its 11th year of operation, has gone Japanese by opening SheMaleJapan.com. Focused solely on homegrown ‘”newhalf” models – the Japanese word for she-male – ShemaleJapan.com is the latest pioneering move by Gallon in bringing she-male porn to the masses.YNOT: Why did Grooby decide to open this site?

Gallon: It wasn’t so much a decision as that the opportunity opened up. I knew there was a big scene in Japan and I’ve been trying to break into it for about eight years, but unless you’re Japanese and know the scene, nobody will speak to you. I’ve contacted Japanese AV producers in the past with offers and they didn’t even want to know. They produce fairly standard she-male content which is practically only available in Japan (a little is distributed elsewhere) and often – to keep it cheap – used Thai or Filipino transsexuals living in Japan.

YNOT: So what changed?

Gallon: I was contacted by Hiro, who has been into the newhalf scene for a few years in Japan and knows all of the girls. He’d had a small Japanese site previously and claimed he could get the models to work with him for an international site.

I was skeptical as we’d had a few false starts before, but within 72 hours of first contact, I was in Tokyo to meet him and lay down the foundations of ShemaleJapan. He knew he had the potential to be on a goldmine and was [already] a member of Grooby Sites. We were the only company he wanted to work with and I offered him a partnership deal immediately.

Grooby was the first company to open a Thai ladyboy website, the first to open a Brazilian she-male website and the first to open a black transsexual site. I knew the Japanese site was there, it was just about finding the right person to work with.

YNOT: How is Japanese t-girl content different from other countries?

Gallon: The models are uniquely different to other Asian countries. While pale skin is desirable among most Asian countries, it’s rare to find models like this. The girls in Japan have almost flawless skin, no tattoos, no piercings, no motorbike scars (like you find on every single Thai model).

Physically they look different but it’s more than that, they act differently also. They take the feminine role perfectly. Where Japanese girl porn is different to other Asian girl porn, Newhalf porn follows those same paths; a lot of costume and uniform sets, bukkake and cum play sets, [and] the models either take submissive or dominant type roles (the Japanese mistress is very popular). Having models from a first world country, compared to a developing world seems to make a difference also.

YNOT: Where do you find your models?

Gallon: Our producer, Hiro has many new-half friends in Japan. Without him we’d be unable to get the models and he’s managed to get some bonafide Japanese stars like post-op Sayuri, who is a well-known showgirl in Japan; or AV star Miki Mizuasa, who is the most well known newhalf porn star in Japan.

Hiro has also encouraged many brand-new models who have never worked for any adult production to work for us. Many like the appeal of being featured on an international website. Like Louie Damazo, our Brazilian producer or many of our U.S. producers in Vegas, Los Angeles, NYC, or Atlanta, they are part of the scene; they have built up a trust with the models and they get a lot of referrals from other models. Word of mouth is the best advertising for any of our sites and Hiro has great feedback.

YNOT: How and where do you do the shooting?

Gallon: All the shooting takes place in Japan. The producer travels to the model’s city, usually either Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka but we have a few models in more out-of-the-way places. He stays in the city for a couple of nights and gets in a few shoots. Tokyo is the most expensive to get to and work in, so he tends to shoot there less.

YNOT: You are producing your video in HD. What challenges does this pose?

Gallon: Virtually none. We’re shooting in HD now on all our sites, but the Japanese transsexual models are flawless so it works well. Longer rendering and editing times adds up a bit but overall the transition to HD was easy. It does add an extra sales and marketing element to the websites that the product is “shot in high def,” and most people have the capability for the larger downloads. But I don’t think the overall end product is that different from using good quality DV cams when seen side by side.

YNOT: Overall, how is the she-male market growing relative to other areas of adult online?

Gallon: The most frustrating thing for us and a few other website producers who’ve been working in this niche for years, is seeing some of the larger traffic-based websites creating poor content she-male websites. They obviously know very little about the niche but rely on the amount of traffic and offering golden carrots out to less discriminating affiliates to make their sales but in turn, offer very little of the content they advertised once a member is in that site.

I see this as detrimental to the business overall and losing customer confidence, especially as some of the companies use means to raise their revenue which I disagree with, like pre-checked cross-sales, hidden cross-sales on the cancellation pages, et cetera.

Some niches have became over-saturated; the Thai ladyboy websites and Brazilian shemale sites, especially. The fact practically anyone can easily get this content and make a website has just led to a bunch of rubbish sites opening up.

I see a lot of attrition over the next couple of years including some of the she-male websites that have been around for many years, as people just get bored of the same old look. The sites that will survive are those catering to more specific or discerning customers — as well as the megasites.

As far as our company is concerned, we’re doing fairly well given the current economic climate. Adding NATS to our program really helped attract some fantastic new affiliates and the new database system that we’ve added to the websites is helping retain customers well. We’ve got to work harder for each customer but we know we’re providing a great product and most surfers looking for tranny content, know that Grooby has at least one site that will cater to their tastes and needs.

YNOT: So what’s next?

Gallon: ShemaleJapan should be fully translated into Japanese by the end of 2008 and we’re looking at languages on all our sites (currently only Brazilian Transsexuals and Shemales-From-Hell are in both English and Portuguese). The database we had built allows us to easily translate most of the website and we have Japanese, Mandarin, German, Spanish and Portuguese speakers already on our staff.

We bought out ShemalePornstar.com earlier this year and we plan to release that website with all its original content revamped and a load of brand new, super high quality of only the top transsexual stars. All existing sites will be converted to the database by mid-2009 and we’ve a few secret projects in the pipeline.

I’m always looking for new projects, so if there are any producers or wannabe photographers working in locations or with transgenders that might create a unique website, then I’d love to hear from them!