Twice-divorced Mari Okamoto makes gravure comeback after 11 years

We love a good gravure comeback.

After 37-year-old Ami Tokito’s return to gravure, Reiko Kato’s reappearance after many years away, and Mayumi Yamanaka’s comeback after marrying and having two kids, now comes Mari Okamoto.

Best known as an impersonator who could do a good impression of Ryoko Hirosue (whom she resembles quite strikingly) and who also made past forays into gravure, Okamoto married a music producer in 2015 and had a child, but they divorced in 2018. She remarried a Saitama politician in December 2023, though divorced again the following year.

What is it about divorced models and idols that makes them hotter? The knowledge that their experience has hardened them and made them stronger? Case in point, Yui Imaizumi, Yumi Sugimoto, and Mariko Seyama.

Now aged 35, Okamoto has just released a digital photo book via Shuseisha and appears in the September 1 issue of Weekly Playboy with a semi-nude shoot.

It’s her first gravure shoot in 11 years and though tamer than her previous efforts, she’s clearly happy to lounge around in lingerie and show off her naked back. She looks amazing for someone about to turn 36 in December (but we do wonder what her kid and their junior high school classmates think).

In addition to photo books in 2010 and 2011, she previously did a shoot and photo book in 2014 (shortly before her first marriage and pregnancy), Hourglass, that was about as explicit as possible without showing actual nudity (except for her butt, which she was happy to show).

For comparison’s sake, here is Mari Okamoto in her mid-twenties. She’s clearly fully shaved downstairs and is doing her utmost to tease glimpses of her goodies.