The "hair nude" is a curious Japanese-English phrase. It refers not just to naked flesh; it's naked flesh with genital hair. What is "shocking" here is the display of pubic hair, the line by which art and entertainment is usually fettered in Japan. It is fine to have plenty of nudity in films and publications, but to avoid the century-old ambiguous obscenity laws, people censored or did not show actual pubic hair. The hair nude set out to deliberately show this was something to be challenged, legally and artistically. While the likes of Nobuyoshi Araki had already made erotic photography ...

Miho Kanno, the much-loved actress and model, has announced she is getting married to fellow actor Masato Sakai. They have apparently only been dating for three months but I guess, with Miho at 35 and he at 39, they know it's now or never! Miho became famous very young and was also a singer in her early days. She is probably best known in the west for her appearance in the Takeshi Kitano film Dolls and the Mika Ninagawa film Sakuran (in which she appears briefly nude). Her face is a common sight in advertising as well. She was also, along with Rie Miyazawa, one of the first ...