Professional female cosplayers are some of the sexiest women in Japan, yet they tend to be confined to conventions and such events. Likewise, gravure idols are fixtures on the pages of weekly magazines but don't usually venture to cosplay events.
While various cosplayers moonlight as gradols -- Enako being a very successful example -- their two worlds are somewhat separate, or so it seems to us at least.
It might be because gravure favors women with large breasts and fuller hips, which might limit options when it comes to cosplay (certainly more mainstream cosplay, though the more adult ...
The actor Kyoko Fukada is now 40 years old but just as hot as ever, as her cover shoot for weekly magazine Friday amply demonstrates.
Known for her curvy beach body that she was happy to show off even as she entered her thirties, Kyoko Fukada was long a favorite of gravure magazines and this marks her first such shoot like this in some time.
Though usually the kind of celebrity you would expect to see with a smile on her face, Fukada was diagnosed with adjustment disorder in 2021 and took a break from work for several months. She's now firmly back in the public eye and enjoying quite a ...
It's no secret that the Tokyo Kinky team has a thing for Mariya Nagao.
The former AKB48 hottie now works as a model, actress, and general TV celebrity.
And though it's hardly a surprise that a woman of her age, beauty, and social opportunities would not have lovers, we can't help but feel a bit peeved and sad at the news that broke recently about her new boyfriend.
Apparently, Mariyagi is in a relationship with a former Kabukicho host, having met through a mutual friend.
Fresh off releasing a ravishing photo book earlier this year, she's been spotted by weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun in ...
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 are, we are ultimately making hay out of thin material.
Gone are the glory days of the photo book when we could be really surprised by a provocative new release.
We are talking about, of course, the "hair nude" full-frontal shoot.
Back in the 1990s, when the hair nude was at its peak, it was popular for established stars or even up-and-coming models. Far from a last resort for a faded star or ...
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 1990s and 2000s.
She moved to Japan at the age of 10 and enjoyed a successful career as a female wrester, race queen, singer, and gravure model, but got married in 2008 to a Japanese man and effectively retired from the industry, moving back to Taiwan in 2011.
Now aged 47 and the mother of three children, the Taiwanese-born model also known as Yinling of Joy is making a comeback with her first ...
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 eventually withdrew its much-hyped photo book featuring Ai Satsuki.
As we noted in a follow-up post, artificial intelligence has major implications for gravure, making it possible to churn out cheap photo books with almost now overheads (no expensive photo shoots, no model fees, etc.). It has meant the market is currently flooded with cheap or even free photo books.
The issue of AI and gravure has ...
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 wait until graduating before posing semi-nude or nude. And in fact, they are often forced to do something like that to build any sort of career in a crowded marketplace.
A case in point is the ravishing Satomi Kaneko, who carved out a name for herself as a provocative, sensual model after a brief stint in AKB48 in 2007.
She started doing gravure in 2014 after an acting role in a sexploitation movie ...
Miri Hanai (花井美里) turns 39 this October but these recent photos prove that she's as alluring as ever.
The mature gravure idol and musician has firmly entered jukujo territory, and though she's no longer enjoying the success of her twenties, when she pumping out photo books several times a year at one point during the mid-2000s, she's still got her fans and released a new photo book in 2021.
Known for her busty looks (a J or H cup, depending on the marketing), she made her debut in 2003. That's a 20-year career, a milestone few in her competitive industry achieve, and one that ...
It sparked both hype and controversy, and then just as quickly vanished.
When publisher Shueisha released a digital photo book featuring a fully AI-generated gravure model on May 29, it felt like the tipping point of something.
But then netizens were quick to point out that the "model" Ai Satsuki was uncannily similar to a real-life gravure idol, Hikari Kabashima (previously known as Yui Asakura), suggesting the AI was simply recycling images of Kabashima/Asakura from the Weekly Playboy shoot she did (Shueisha publishes the magazine).
Shueisha responded to the controversy by withdrawing ...
This story has been percolating since early June and has now become a very interesting incident generating national headlines, and with potential implications for future gravure events.
Swimwear photo shoot events in public pools in Saitama have ignited an intense debate. During the events, idols and models gather at the pool for fans to take photographs of them in their swimsuits. Admission to such events is expensive, costing from ¥10,000 to ¥36,000.
Various locals voiced concern to the public parks association in late May about the sexy nature of the gravure-style poses. Local ...
