Sora Aoi was born on November 11, 1983, in Tokyo. As a student, she worked at various part-time jobs in the food-service industry, such as pizza parlors, pubs and sushi bars with the intent of becoming a pre-school teacher. While in her third year in high school, Aoi was scouted in Shibuya by a talent agency for gravure modelling. She decided to enter the adult entertainment industry with the aim of eventually working on TV and in other parts of the entertainment industry, stating that "If there was only the AV industry, I couldn’t do it."