The book is out. Now to see whether the hype was worth it (and whether the media attention translates into hard sales). The announcer-model Kasumi Mori's debut photo book, Su no Kasumi (Pure Kasumi), generated a lot of air time on TV and from gravure and regular media after it was announced in December. The attractive 28-year-old had already made a real splash with alluring shoots for the fashion magazine Anan and gravure weekly Friday. Now she was trying to cross over into the riskier world of print photo books, which have high production costs due to the color printing, locations (this ...

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When the 27-year-old Mari Takahashi agreed to stand as a candidate for the Democratic Party for the People, the senior members of the party must have been pleased. Japanese politics is a staid world full of graying men in dark suits, and the presence of young blood -- especially photogenic young female blood -- is a dream come true. Takahashi is a graduate of Keio University, one of the most prestigious colleges in the country. She won the university's beauty contest in 2016 and worked as a TV announcer while still at college, followed by three years at an IT consultancy company. She also ...

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We recently wrote about TV announcer Kasumi Mori's continued forays into modeling, including a sexy photo shoot for the magazine Anan. We ended by musing that it was high time that the 28-year-old put out her first photo book, following in the wake of the example set by former announcer Minami Tanaka, who made a hugely successful shift to modeling, released a bestselling photo book, and has now also done some acting. That proved a naive comment, since of course Kasumi Mori and her management were thinking about this. She has since announced the release of her first photo book, tentatively ...

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When Kasumi Mori posed for Anan magazine earlier in the year, she proved that female Japanese TV newscasters and announcers are just as sexy as gravure and fashion models (for more proof, see Akane Takiyama and Minami Tanaka -- now if only Mayuko Wakuda would go freelance and answer our prayers with a lingerie shoot!), and that Anan magazine remains one of the great producers of sensual shoots (as our summary of a decade of Anan celebrity shoots amply demonstrates). The freelance announcer is pushing on with her career as a model. The 28-year-old former TV Tokyo announcer who graduated from ...

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record to readers, it's no secret that the real hot ladies in Japan are not the fashion models, the music idols, the gravure idols, or even the adult video stars. It's the TV announcers. These newsreaders and presenters combine a sophisticated intelligence -- often accrued from graduating from prestigious private colleges like Sophia University, Aoyama Gakuin, or International Christian University -- with a sultry office lady allure. The results are nothing stop of adorable. And many of them are happy to move into side gigs in fashion modeling or even ...

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Akane Takiyama (瀧山あかね) is the latest Japanese TV announcer trying to forge a concurrent career in gravure. She works as an announcer for shows on ABEMA (she joined the streamer in 2018) and is a former NMB48 "research student" (in 2011 and 2012, while in high school). The 29-year-old has now branched out into gravure with a cover shoot for Weekly Playboy that is making waves and rapidly expanding her fandom. In the summery swimwear shoot for a June issue of Weekly Playboy, she is channeling some Kyoko Fukada vibes with a sporty beach body and radiant, smiling ...

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Earlier this week we shared pictures of what retired gravure idol Yukie Kawamura now looks like in her late thirties, having seemingly embraced the role of married semi-rural mom. If Yukie's comely wife look got your heart racing, wait till you see Misumi Shiochi's latest pictures. Now aged 40, Shiochi is still stunning -- and wants to show herself off to the world (again). She is, of course, no stranger to gravure shoots, including nude ones that reveal her shapely butt, the former TV announcer is Japan's favorite jukujo at the moment (since the likes of Mitsu Dan and Manami Hashimoto are ...

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As we get older, we appreciate the charms and beauty of older women more. But it's far from the case that we ignored jukujo during our own salad days. Far from it, we have long sung the praises of Japanese cougars and MILF on these digital pages, as regular readers will know. A jukujo (roughly, "mature woman") is rather loosely defined, and is often applied liberally to any woman past her "prime" (i.e., her twenties). This is nebulous, of course, and most Japanese women in their thirties would shirk from the label, though various celebrities have embraced it and turned it into their whole ...

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Put the media's obsession with youth to one side. Japanese women, we can attest by direct experience, are still very attractive in their forties. As noted before on this blog, former TV announcer Mariko Seyama has spent years tantalizing us with her body, before finally showing her breasts at the age of 41. After enjoying the shots of her nipples visible through see-through clothing from her photo book, "Milk," released last year, we found more nude pictures from a magazine shoot. Sure, she's shown off her naked butt before, but these are very nice and really flaunt her newly slimmed-down ...

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Japan is known for its large numbers of seniors. Not only are seniors numerically significant -- almost 30% of the population are over 65 -- but they still dominate politics, bureaucracy, and even entertainment, with older people (especially men) remaining in respected positions. This can lead to trouble. After the notorious case earlier this year with former prime minister Yoshiro Mori's comments about women talking too much in meetings that cost him his job as head of the Tokyo Olympics comes another example, this time involving Kazuo Tokumitsu, who is a sprightly 80 years ...

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