What's better than one gravure idol? Fifty gravure idols!
In June, Weekly Playboy brought together fifty of Japan's top scantily clad bikini models for what must surely be the photo shoot of the year.
How many do you recognise? Many of the hottest gravure ladies are present and correct, including Yuka Kuramochi, Nanoka, Saya Kataoka, Saki Suzuki, Hikaru Aoyama, Hitomi Yasueda, Miko Terada, Aya Hazuki, Rin Tachibana, Yuka Someya, Iroha Yanagi, Ayuka Terada, Ikumi Hisamatsu, Rina Toeda, Fumina Suzuki, and more.
We've included a sampling of the resulting shoot. You can really see the range ...
The Japanese cosplay world was in shock on June 29th when one of the most up-and-coming cosplayers, Nekomu Otogi, announced her surprise marriage at the age of just 20.
Not only that, her new husband is a mangaka. And 31 years her senior! Yes, Kosuke Fujishima is one lucky, lucky guy.
Oh, and she's pregnant. Yes, this is the classic dekichatta kekkon, or shotgun wedding. Don't worry, Nekomu, you are in fine company -- everyone from Meisa Kuroki to Eriko Satoh.
But seriously, is this even legal? Apparently Fujishima, best known as the creator of Oh My Goddess!, ...
Back when Mariya Nagao was one of the members of AKB48, we already took something of a liking to her.
But it is since leaving the (faltering) group that she has shined, stripping off to reveal her perfect bikini butt and body.
As we have discussed before, Japanese TV is a tame entity, though livened up by the occasional scene of Nanao in lingerie.
Nagao was recently gracing Japanese television screens to show us what it is like to kiss her in a swimming pool. Naturally, Nagao was wearing slinky swimwear.
The 22-year-old was kissed by Popteen model Koji Konishi on the aptly named ...
Remember Yasumasa Yonehara? Super big a few years ago, he's the instantly recognisable bald Japanese photographer with that habit of taking slutty pictures of slutty girls in hotel rooms. What a guy.
Yes, he's one of those people who just proves that if you are cocky enough and say you are a photographer, you can apparently get almost any woman to pose for you.
Perhaps that's why half the male foreigners we seem to meet in Japan claim to be photographers (the other half claim to be DJs).
Yonehara has now turned his attention to swimwear. After all, it is summer.
We have no ...
Ahead of the release in July of her new photo book, a preview image of Minami Minegishi has come out showing the slinky idol doing the classic semi-nude "hand bra" (tebura) pose.
While pretty tame considering what some AKB48 graduates get up to, this kind of photo shoot has become something of a rite of passage for AKB48 idols.
Haruna Kojima did it, covering her gorgeous pale flesh with her tiny hands. Likewise, Atsuko Maeda has done a tebura and so did Yuko Oshima in a Mika Ninagawa shoot.
Most notoriously, Tomomi Kasai's tebura was so controversial it led Kodansha to cancel ...
Ami Tomite becomes the latest former AKB48 idol to strip off and show us her nude body.
Granted, the pictures are "censored" for weekly tabloid publication but these are essentially verging on hair nude territory.
Tomite joined AKB48 in 2009 but left while still a "research student" to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. Since then she has become a minor gravure idol, though now can capitalize on the notoriety of being yet another ex-AKB girl who has stripped off.
Other than briefly joining another music group, Ami's career has mostly been playing bit ...
The recent interest in Japanese AV performers' labor and human rights continues to develop. It's one of the big stories of the year so far.
Following the arrest mere days ago of a porn performer agency for forcing its roster of women to appear in porn and other recent developments like a damning report and seminar on the issue of exploitation and trafficking, now comes news that former AV star Mariko Kawana has launched a new orgnization to help.
There are already groups like Lighthouse: Center for Human Trafficking Victims (formerly Polaris Project Japan) and Human Rights Now (HRN) as ...
The AV industry in Japan is not all take, take, take. It likes to give back, too.
The "boob aid" annual event is one of the best examples of this, in which porn stars let their breasts be groped by ordinary members of the public in order to raise money for AIDS charities.
Now Soft on Demand and Japanese porn stars have come together (no pun) to help save the planet.
The Do Eco website looks like a porn video streaming site, but don't be fooled. While it's not fully safe for work, there's no sex or nudity. And it's all for a good cause.
It features nine AV performers, including ...
We've always been a fan of the older idols. We find the photo shoots sexier and the woman more alluring.
From Chiharu Komatsu to Naomi Kawashima and Azumi Kawashima, our glory days are the 1990s and early 2000s, especially when the so-called "hair nude" shoots were still at their peak.
Kanako Kojima is one such beauty. Born in 1975, her career height was from around 1997 for a few years as an actress and tarento. Towards the end -- in 2006 -- she released a great hair nude photo book. She also showed off her naked pregnant body.
These days she is in her forties and out of the limelight as ...
Karaoke is a way of life in Japan. You can't expect a gathering of friends not to end sometimes with a trip to a dark karaoke box for a sing-song.
We also know from experience karaoke rooms are great places to "seal the deal" on a date.
But we didn't know that you could have such adult fun with karaoke itself.
Joysound -- one of Japan's main karaoke systems -- seems to have an adult setting where you can play songs with videos featuring fully nude AV stars.
The images aren't great but they should give you some idea of the awesomeness of this!
If you turn on the ...
