Meet Asuka Watanabe, nude model and former embalmer

Eros and Thanatos are closely intertwined, Freud taught. And Asuka Watanabe embodies that curious entanglement.

The 30-year-old works as an occasional nude model but also had a former career as an embalmer — specifically, the type of embalmer called a yukanshi, who specializes in the ritual washing of a dead body, as made famous in the Oscar-winning movie Departures (2008).

In a recent interview with the tabloid magazine Spa!, Watanabe explained more about her two professions. Here are some highlights.

Watanabe Asuka: When I researched about makeup, which I was interested in doing as a job, I learned that there was a field called beauty welfare, which involved cover makeup to hide scars and burns, and applying makeup to elderly people and people with disabilities. However, I had the impression that these were merely an extension of volunteer work, and it was not something that I thought of as a job I wanted for the future.

This then led to her career as a yukanshi embalmer.

Watanabe: I knew about the job of a yukanshi because the movie Departures was popular when I was in junior high. The elements of “makeup” that I had been doing matched with doing work that helps others, so I decided to work in the yukan department of a funeral parlor.

Q. Changing the clothes on a corpse requires strength, right?

Watanabe: It’s extremely physical labor. Not only bathing the body itself, but also carrying the coffin. You’re running around and working hard, sweating every day.

Q. What was the joy of your job?

Watanabe: It was very rewarding to hear people who have lost a family member and are in the midst of grief thank you.

Nonetheless, Watanabe quit after about three years. She now works with the living, helping the elderly get to hospital for checkups and assisting doctors during home visits.

Photo: kazuhei

Q. Since around 2017, you have been working as a nude model. Please tell us how you got started.

Watanabe: There is a nude photo collection by photographer Yuri Hanamori called Nude Mita (Wani Books). The subjects of this collection are ordinary women, who do not have the “perfect body type” of celebrities, and do not wear professional makeup, but on the contrary, I felt that this was beautiful. Then, a friend who was aiming to become a photographer happened to have the same impression. We quickly got to the point where we said, “Let’s give it a try.”

Q. Did you have any reservations about being naked?

Watanabe: I didn’t have any in particular. However, I do have complexes about my body. The shape of my butt, and my inverted nipples. So the photos I had taken are not of a “perfect” body type at all. But I felt that they were capturing a “me” who I didn’t know.”

Photo: Misato Fukagawa

Q. Perhaps you sensed something that was different to beauty standards.

Watanabe: Yes, that’s right. When I was doing makeup in the beauty welfare industry, many people told me, “There’s no point in putting makeup on an old lady like me.” It’s true that the makeup I used was different from what’s featured in the media and in advertisements, but I think those old ladies have their own beauty.

Q. For example, you wanted to explore a different value than the beauty of the individual subject expressed in celebrity photo books. You’ve been a nude model for seven or eight years now, have you found the answer to human beauty?

Watanabe: I still don’t know. But I think it’s interesting because there is no answer. Rather than there being no answer, I think there is a lot of beauty.

Photo: Misato Fukagawa

Q. If you fix the concept of beauty, it would go against what you’ve done so far.

Watanabe: I think beauty is something that everyone has from the beginning. However, I think that in Japan today, people are not raised to notice that. I think what I’ve been doing is a job that helps people notice the beauty that is in them from the beginning and to find new beauty from it.

Q. A nude model and yukanshi seem like jobs from the polar opposites of life and death, but do they share something?

Watanabe: Both of these experiences make me feel like the reality of being alive is clearly visible. I can feel more clearly that not only I, but also the people around me, are alive. When that happens, I think I’m able to cherish the present more than before.