Mother-of-two Mayumi Yamanaka makes gravure comeback

Mayumi Yamanaka has made a gravure comeback following marriage and motherhood.

Now aged 32 and the mother of two, Mayumi Yamanaka appears in the current issue of Weekly Playboy. The lingerie shoot also marks 20 years since her industry debut — she began in 2005 as a junior idol and child actor.

She released her first print photo book soon after, and appeared in Weekly Playboy at the age of 14 (eww!), though hit her career peak in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

In late 2019, she announced she was married and pregnant, though continued to release image videos (her last came out in 2022).

But this is a full comeback, with the self-professed “gravure mom” having a shoot by industry veteran Koki Nishida in Weekly Playboy and a digital photo book, Romance, also available in Japan this week.

Of course, Mayumi Yamanaka is still comparatively young (most Tokyo women don’t even start families until they are her age, let alone already have two kids under her belt) and motherhood and maturity has seemingly not affected her allure and physical beauty. If anything, she’s hotter than she was a decade ago.

Mayumi also has a sister, another former gravure model called Tomoe. The Yamanakas are examples of “gravure sisters” — siblings who both work as gravure models. Other examples include Yukikopo and Yumichi, Yurina and Iroha Yanagi, Marina and Erika Momose, and Sayaka and Akari Tomaru.

The Yamanaka girls also have a brother, who has complicated feelings toward their revealing shoots.

We love to see gravure comebacks, especially from ladies who are now a bit older and wiser.

We recently noted the comebacks of Riho Takada (first shoot in nearly three years), Yuka Ogura (first shoot in five years), and Yumi Sugimoto.

But who would we most love to see make a gravure comeback? Of course, it’s got to be Manami Hashimoto, now 40 years old and a mother of two (having wisely married a rich doctor), but still the hottest jukujo in Japan.