Kumiko Takeda makes gravure comeback with new photo book at age 57

There are comebacks and then there are comebacks. We have seen a fair few returns to gravure in recent years, but surely none are as welcome as Kumiko Takeda.

It was announced this week that the 57-year-old Takeda is to release her first photo book since 2003. The former model and actress shows off her body in preview images released this week and also featured in a 10-page cover shoot for Weekly Friday today.

The book, which is released on September 9, is shot by leading gravure photographer ND Chow and released by Kodansha. It is billed as an homage to her past shoots.

Takeda says: “I am delighted to announce that I will be releasing a new photo book through Kodansha, my first in 23 years. Although a long time has passed, I personally feel that I am currently at the peak of my womanhood! For years, fans have been asking me to release another photo book, and I am truly happy to finally be able to answer those requests. I think fans will enjoy looking for and comparing the shots to see which ones serve as homages to my past photo books.”

We think the as-yet-unnamed photo book will be popular not only with guys who lusted after Takeda in her youth, but also women of a similar age, who will be happy to see such a beauty icon return and show that mature ladies are still sexually attractive.

Takeda is an utter legend. She became famous for her photo shoots and movie roles from the early 1980s, and then cemented her renown with a “white shell bikini” shoot for the bestselling photo book My Dear Stephanie (1989), which is as 1980s as it sounds.

She then entered the stratosphere of gravure legend with a series of jaw-dropping nude photo books, beginnning with Lady Casablanca in 1994 (the first in a trilogy of Lady books) and continuing for several years (we think her last was Mocha in 2000, when she was in her early thirties). This was at the peak of the hair nude publishing boom and Takeda’s glamorous body was a godsend for photographers, publishers, and readers.

In 1999, she married an American and moved to the United States. Her maternity nude pics, done she was pregnant with their daughter, Sofia, is among the best known of such celebrity shoots. They divorced in 2016 and she currently splits her time between Japan and the US.