The Japanese summer is long and brutal: once the cooler, somewhat sticky rainy season ends in July, the weather is scorching through September, coupled with intense humidity. The temperatures mean ...

The photo book market in Japan can sometimes seem like a tame one. Sure, we harp on about the latest semi-nude shoots featuring various music idols, actresses, models, and so on, but, as lovely those ...

There are blasts from the past, and then there are blasts from the past. If you are long-term fan of gravure, then you will know of Yinling (Yan Yinling), a major force in the industry in the late ...

We recently wrote about ex-AKB48 idol Satomi Kaneko's retirement, noting how she had carved out quite a striking career as a sexploitation actress and nude model after her brief stint with the ...

Last month, we reported on the controversy over a new gravure idol who was supposedly AI-generated but seemed to be just a slightly different version of a flesh-and-blood gradol. The publisher ...

Over four years ago, the media in Japan and globally went bananas about a Japanese man who "married" a virtual character. These stories are catnip to editors who love "sexless Japan" and "wacky ...

Japan's obscenity laws about not showing genitalia apply to you, even if you are supposedly an amateur and not a professional porn production company churning out DVDs and streaming releases. On ...

We recently wrote about AKB48 idol Mion Mukaichi's somewhat surprising decision to do a semi-nude photo book while still a member of the supergroup. As we mentioned in our post, most music idols ...

Everything changes, except the avant-garde, or so the saying goes. Now in Japan, perhaps it's rather nothing changes, except for sexual mores. For years, Japan seemed to lag behind other major ...

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 ...