Ex-AKB48 idol Haruna Kojima sells apparel company for millions

The former AKB48 idol Haruna Kojima has focused on fashion modeling and her own apparel brand since leaving the music group.

She has transformed herself into a savvy businesswomen by building a brand that puts her own popularity as a model at its center. Now aged 37, Kojiharu can claim business triumph with the sale this month of her apparel company heart relation for ¥3.5 billion ($22 million) to e-commerce company yutori.

She created heart relation in 2020 to run her (oddly named) brand Her lip to (which she founded in 2018) and Her lip to BEAUTY. She set to receive the payment in two tranches, along with a small percentage of yutori’s shares. She previously sold 51% stake in heart relation to yutori in August 2024, but this new sale completes the process of turning heart relation into a subsidiary of yutori.

Like when she sold Her lip to, Kojima is expected to remain closely involved in the company, since so much of its success is down to her personal following among women. While we know the level of fandom among male otaku that AKB48 idols have, it’s often forgotten that they develop female followings as fashion icons. Kojiharu was able to leverage that into an apparel brand and a hugely successful post-graduation career (likely inspiring the similar efforts of fellow AKB alum Rina Hirata — and possibly former SKE48 idol and porn star Yua Mikami’s fashion projects).

Today, she’s firmly in jukujo territory but still looks ravishing, as a recent swimsuit photo shoot demonstrated.

The Saitama native remains unmarried, though she is rumored to be effectively co-habiting with an IT entrepreneur in a condo in Roppongi, central Tokyo. It’s thought they have been together since the late 2010s (and was first reported by a tabloid in spring 2018) and that he has played a close role in advising her on her business ventures, though he is five years younger than her.

And now the rumor mill is working overtime with speculation that the couple is about to tie the knot after Kojiharu secured the future of her brand and her bank balance.