Former AKB48 idol Atsuko Maeda releases Beste, first photo book in 14 years

Fans of early period AKB48 idols are in for a treat right now with the recent photo shoots of Haruna Kojima, who looks ravishing at 37, and the new photo book by Atsuko Maeda.

Maeda has established herself as a serious actress since leaving the idol group in 2012, having been with it since the very beginning. She also got married, had a child, and then divorced. Today, she’s a 34-year-old single mom.

Japanese idol groups are often premised on members with girl-next-door looks and whose fandom emphasizes their normality. This was very much the case with AKB48 too, so much so that it’s sometimes hard to see why some members are/were so popular. In Maeda’s case, it was partly ubiquity: in the late 2000s and early 2010s, AKB48 were everywhere and Maeda was the main face of the group.

Her new photo book Beste is her first in 14 years. It was released by Kodansha on February 13 and is a curious career choice for her, since she surely has plenty of acting job offers now. We can only presume she actively wanted to dip her foot back into gravure and reward her fans.

While we already knew the book was coming back in December when previews first emerged showing off her butt in a nice thong, the actual shoot is sexier than we expected.

She poses semi-nude in several shots, wearing sheer underwear that clearly shows her butt. There’s also plenty of bare back on display.

Some clickbaity news headlines are describing Beste as Maeda’s most revealing photo book yet. We’re not sure about that, though it is certainly being marketed as her “last” and “best.”