Most careers in entertainment are all too short and many stutter and fade before they even really get going. That is true perhaps especially of gravure, an industry obsessed with the next idol, the latest body, the newest boobs.
But some women are an exception, like Yoko Kumada, whose gravure career has continued even as she has got older, had a family, and suffered a scandal (domestic violence) -- or perhaps, it's precisely because of this. Kumada is a lady with experience and who knows how to handle herself, a very attractive quality for a woman.
The 42-year-old divorcee and ...
Stand back, guys, because there's a new gal in town.
She's called Mimi Yuzuki (柚月美美). She apparently works as a regular office lady for a company while moonlighting as a cosplayer. And now she's a gravure idol after making her debut in the April 21 issue of Weekly Playboy.
"I was nervous. It was not just the gravure-style poses I had to make, it was also my first time to work with a professional cameraman, makeup artists, and stylist."
The shoot has also resulted in a digital photo book.
Besides her obvious beauty (which has drawn comparisons with ex-gradol Misako ...
The veteran Japanese gravure model Miho Abe has released her first hair nude (full-frontal nude) photo book.
The 37-year-old Hokkaido native is currently freelance. She made her debut in the industry in 2007 and has gone through some professional name changes over the years.
Though she has done nude shoots before, such as in 2018, this is a her first full-frontal nude and is very welcome, not just because Miho Abe is a fantastic jukujo with a mature body, but because we want the hair nude to enjoy a revival. With the honorable exceptions of Yuka Someya and Biru Otsuka, few models and ...
Hina Kikuchi was the joint winner at Weekly Playboy's Gravure Japan Awards 2024 announced in December, and it's clear that the public is lapping her up as well.
The 20-year-old's highly anticipated third photo book, memory, is a hit, selling 50,000 copies across physical and digital editions since March 19.
As the weather warms up in Japan, fans are clearly connecting with the photo book's summery theme.
Since she's still only 20 years old, we suspect Hina Kikuchi -- with her slinky body and pale skin -- has a long and fruitful gravure career ahead of her.
She got her break as a ...
One of Japan's top gravure idols, Jun Amaki, has announced her retirement.
On April 1, the hugely popular gradol posted on social media to her hundreds of thousands of followers, claiming that her retirement was immediate.
"I entered the entertainment industry at the age of 17 and started my activities as a national underground idol. From the age of 18, I used my miraculous two-dimensional body as a weapon and continued to run as a gravure idol until today! This is my last year in my twenties. I have come to terms with my life and have decided to retire from gravure modeling."
She thanks ...
A cameraman has been arrested for groping a gravure idol during a shoot.
The 61-year-old Nobuhiko Namai was arrested for touching the model on multiple occasions on a two-day shoot that he was handling for the production company where he works.
The alleged incident took place in October last year during a shoot in Chiba. It was not clear why it has taken so long for the incident to come to light or for police to act.
During the shoot, Namai is accused of touching the model's lower body without consent. He was in charge of filming for an image video they were shooting for release on DVD. ...
There's little more rejuvenating than a long, relaxing session in a sauna, especially in winter. But how about a session in a sauna with a top gravure model?
That's the basic premise behind an event recently held by the gradol Jun Amaki.
Known for her huge bakunyu breasts (an I cup?!) and for making the Virgin Killer Sweater a viral hit, Jun Amaki has been part of our lives at Tokyo Kinky for so long, she's practically family. In fact, it's been a decade or more, since she's practically 30 (she hits that milestone in October), so is relatively mature by gravure standards.
The industry ...
The gravure idol Moka Hayashida announced last month that she was retiring from gravure at the end of February. After much speculation, the truth behind why the slinky 24-year-old is leaving the industry has now come out.
It brings to an end a five-year career that has encompassed numerous video releases and four print photo books, including one to come in March.
She is known for her long legs that she likes to show off in revealing swimwear.
So why is retiring this month? Yesterday, Hayashida shared more details with fans on her personal Instagram account and they sadly expose an ...
We love a good comeback story at Tokyo Kinky. Last week, we reported on Yumi Sugimoto's return to gravure in an issue of Weekly Playboy.
That same issue featured a number of Super Sentai alum and we are delighted to share the pics of Yui Koike, marking her first gravure shoot in about a decade.
Like with Sugimoto, 33-year-old Koike is releasing an accompanying digital photo book via Weekly Playboy.
The tokusatsu sci-fi series often hires gravure idols to play female roles. Koike prevously appeared in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.
She still has those girl-next-door looks and a slinky ...
The actress Yumi Sugimoto is now 35 years old and first appeared in the Toei tokusatsu series Engine Sentai Go-onger, broadcast around 17 years old. From about that time, she established herself as a gravure idol too, despite not having the chops in terms of cup size.
She enjoyed a prolific gravure career throughout her twenties, perhaps peaking with her semi-nude photo book Chiamata in 2015.
This was followed two years later by her marriage to a younger man, which seemed to signal the end of her gravure output -- but she got divorced in 2019.
Sugimoto appears in the February 17 issue of ...
