With music sales down, fewer meet-and-greet events like before, and far less general public interest in its current members (which means fewer TV appearances and fewer lucrative advertising campaign contracts), AKB48 is in, well, perhaps not quite a state of decline but certainly a period of less prominence in popular culture compared to the glory days of the early 2010s. Is this why its members are doing semi-nude photo shoots even before graduating the group? The AKB overlords used to be very exact about how much flesh the members could show, determined to keep things tantalizing and ...

Are there still any famous ladies left in AKB48? That's a question we often ask ourselves these days. Well, yes and no. The big guns are basically gone but there are still popular idols. And they are determined to stay in the public eye with eye-catching photo shoots. Here are the idols of AKB48 like you've never seen them before: as wrestlers! Participants in the shoot were: Jurina Matsui, Sakura Miyawaki, Mion Mukaichi, Kaori Matsumura, Miru Shiroma, Haruka Shimada, Yui Yokoyama and Haruka Kodama. The shoot was actually a promo for Tofu Puroresu (Tofu Professional Wrestling), a new ...