Erika Sawajiri cements comeback with first photo book in 20 years

Erika Sawajiri is to release her first photo book in 20 years, cementing her comeback.

Now aged 39, Day Off comes out on May 23 from Gentosha. It features over 150 images, selected from more than 10,000 taken of Sawajiri on location in an exotic beach and sea setting. Perhaps taking a cue from mature hottie Kyoko Fukuda, who loves to show off an active style for her beach body, Sawajiri is seen swimming and surfing in the upcoming release.

Her previous photo book was ERIKA, released in 2007, when she was just breaking out as a star. It’s been a roller-coaster ride ever since.

Erika Sawajiri was one of the biggest stars of the late 2010s, working as a model, singer, and actor.

But she was also a figure of scandal, from a notoriously grumpy appearance at a press conference to a combative attitude toward the public.

She was known as a party girl who married a man twice her age (and with whom she allegedly had a contract over how many times they could have sex). Unsurprisingly for someone still in her early twenties, the marriage ended in divorce.

In 2010s, a drug scandal effectively ended her career, but she has quietly made a comeback over the past few years, appearing in the movie No Longer Human and on stage at the New National Theatre, Tokyo.

The former included a non-nude sex scene, though she had already done explicit nude scenes a few years prior, in the movie Helter Skelter.

Perhaps in a sign that all is forgiven, none of the mainstream media coverage of her upcoming photo book that we have seen seems to mention her past scandals.