Yui Hatano

Hatano made her debut in the adult industry in 2008, when she first appeared in Amateur Or More ZERO, Less Than Actress 07 on 3 July 2008, under the Zero label of the AV company Prestige which specialized in finding and introducing amateur girls into the industry. Prior to performing in adult films, she had graduated from a cosmetology school, and had initially thought of becoming a gravure idol. However the competitive and low-paying world of gravure forced her to look for a more lucrative career which happened to be performing in adult films.

Hatano's first releases were on a monthly schedule under the Prestige, h.m.p. and Befree labels, however her popularity began to quickly rise and she began to appear at other companies like Attackers, Moodyz and Soft on Demand as well. Due to her matured looks she has often been cast into jukojo (housewife) or "older sister" type roles. She also became known for her flexible role-playing and willingness to appear in more hardcore genres (simulated rape, lesbian roles and S&M). Hatano also regularly appears in ensemble cast AV's and maintains a close relationship with other actresses like Chihiro Hara, AIKA, Ai Uehara, Tomoda Ayaka and Ruka Kanae. Her most notable working relationship is her friendly rivalship with fellow popular AV idol Hibiki Ōtsuki. Their pair "HibiHata" is well known in the industry and they appeared in dozens of adult films since 2013. In 2014, she won the Best Actress award in the 2014 DMM Adult Awards.

Hatano's output and regular AV appearances only increased in time, and by 2019 she had appeared in over 2400 AV's (including compilations).

Hatano also became popular in Singapore and Taiwan, where she is regarded as a lookalike for the popular Taiwanese actress and model Lin Chi-ling. In a 2018 compilation of AV sales on Japanese e-commerce retailer FANZA, Hatano ranked first in the Top 10 digital downloads chart. She achieved the same feat in 2019 as well, with both at the physical and digital sales.

Hatano has had opportunities to work outside of the Japanese AV industry. She played a part in the 2013 movie Sou shen ji (Chinese: 搜神记, In Search of Spirits), a collection of short supernatural stories. She was also cast in a lead role in the 2015 Taiwanese film Sashimi (Chinese: 沙西米, transliteration of "sashimi").

In addition, she dabbled in the music industry when she joined musical idol group me-me*, which also featured AV idols Shiori Kamisaki, Ruka Kanae, and Maika. They launched a crowdfunding campaign for their first album via Japanese crowdfunding website Campfire on 1 November 2015. me-me* held their final concert on 20 March 2016. Currently she's part of the idol unit T♡Project with Hibiki Ōtsuki and Ruka Kanae.

On 26 August 2015, Taiwan's EasyCard Corporation announced that Hatano was to be featured on their public transport payment cards. The corporation stated that two collectible versions of the card, featuring a fully clothed Hatano, would be released: a "devil" edition, and an "angel" edition. EasyCard's decision to feature the AV idol drew criticism in Taiwan from parents and women's advocacy groups, who were concerned over the use of an adult film star's image. Additional controversy formed when it was discovered that one of the card's images was previously used as the cover of one of Hatano's adult films. EasyCard ended up going ahead with the sale of the metro cards, which sold out its entire run of 15,000 cards overnight.

In 2017, Hatano made a guest appearance on the Taiwanese public television program Guess Who (Chinese: 誰來晚餐, Who is Coming to Dinner?). She was invited to learn more about the Hand Angel (Chinese: 手天使) nonprofit, which provides sexual services for those who are physically disabled.

In gaming, Hatano has been the spokesperson for mobile games such as the Taiwanese RPG Shén guǐ huànxiǎng (Chinese: 神鬼幻想, God Ghost Fantasy) in 2014. She lent her voice and likeness to play a hostess in Yakuza Kiwami and in the remastered version of Yakuza 3 for the PlayStation 4.