Former AKB48 superstar Atsuko Maeda has recently proved that rewarding fans who have waited nearly two decades with a semi-nude photo book in your mid-thirties, and claiming it's your best and your last, will reap commercial dividends.
On the other hand, as relative newcomer Miyuka Minami is showing, you can just go nude early in your career to make a splash.
The 20-year-old Mie native made her debut in 2021 as a junior idol but has branched out into more full-on gravure in recent years with the end of her stints in two idol groups in Nagoya. She released her first gravure photo book in ...
While Japanese porn stars are often described euphemistically in the mainstream media as "sexy actresses," major apparel brands think nothing of hiring adult video performers to front campaigns for them (though this is not without some controversy).
And so we have Minamo modeling for top lingerie brand Ravijour.
This is not a new campaign per se. The 25-year-old JAV superstar has been modeling for Ravijour since at least 2023, as we gleefully reported at the time.
Originally a gravure star who worked under the name Shizuku Taiyo, the mononymous stunner made her porn debut in 2021 and ...
It has emerged this week that Tokyo prosecutors last year indicated a male All Nippon Airways captain over an alleged sexual assault of a female colleague.
The captain in his forties is accused of groping a cabin attendant on the buttocks in October 2023. He was indicated without arrest in March 2025.
It follows an internal investigation by ANA, which claims that it took "strict disciplinary action" against the captain in question.
The penalty for indecent assault is imprisonment of six months to ten years.
While this might seem like a cut-and-dry case of an older man using his authority ...
The rather sad travails of former porn star and minor celebrity Anri Sakaguchi continue. The 34-year-old tabloid favorite has now been arrested for shoplifting.
Police nabbed her on the scene after she was caught stealing a single sandwich in Hachioji, West Tokyo, on March 17. She has since been held at Takao Police Station. She has admitted the charge, though police can hold suspects for over 20 days without formally charging or indicting them, and it is likely that she won't be released for some time, despite the minor nature of her crime (the sandwich apparently cost around ¥300).
A ...
What magic is this? What elixir of youth has she drunk? Because veteran gravure idol Yoko Kumada does not look like a 43-year-old three-time mom.
The model continues to carve out a career well past the point at which most gradols have thrown in the towel. Not so with Yoko, who has overcome a fair few challenges in her personal life (not least, domestic violence and divorce) and stays in superb shape through pole dancing. She pumps out regular gravure DVDs that show off her athletic body.
In the latest proof of this, Kumada has released a video on Instagram showing a behind-the-scenes ...
Rarely have we seen a debut like it. In early 2025, Kanna Seto burst onto the Japanese adult video industry scene and immediately made her mark with those huge breasts, girl-next-door looks, pale skin, and slim body.
Fans instantly hailed her incredible combination of come-hither sexual allure and sweet, natural beauty, to say nothing of her J-cup breasts.
Incredibly, the Kanagawa native is still just 21 years old. She made her gravure debut in autumn 2024 with a swimwear shoot for Weekly Post, quickly followed by her first AV in January 2025.
She has already released two print photo ...
It may seem strange that the Japanese interwebs is going mad over a single mom in her mid-thirties, but don't question the power of nostalgia. Because we are talking about Atsuko Maeda, the most famous idol in the original AKB48 lineup, who was ubiquitous in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
She left the group in 2012 to pursue a more serious acting career, leaving music and the gravure weeklies behind. For fans back in the day, her return to gravure is catnip, since they have grown older together, and it's like snuggling up to a former lover.
Maeda is now a divorced mom and has claimed that ...
At Tokyo Kinky, we keep a close eye on new gravure idols and other developments in the industry, not least because it's a constant flux and flurry of activity: who is debuting, who is making a comeback, whose photo book sold well, etc.
But even we were a little taken aback by the latest "idol" to release a photo book: Myaku-Myaku, the weird and wacky mascot for the 2025 Osaka expo.
While the expo ended in October last year, love for the bizarre alien creature still lives on. Myaku-Myaku is possibly meant to represent water and cells, but even that doesn't explain why the upright, bipedal ...
In an age of AI, when computer-generated content has glutted our screens and it is sometimes hard to tell what is human and what is fake, what does it take a new idol to stand out from the pixels?
Sarina is hoping she has it.
The "sexy streamer" has just launched a gravure career, building on her massive social media base that has seen her accrue hundreds of thousands of followers.
She has just released Miraculous Quartet Body, a digital photo book for Weekly Playboy that is R18 rated (and also available in a tamer "all-ages edition"). It shows off her slinky body and large breasts, ...
Erika Sawajiri is to release her first photo book in 20 years, cementing her comeback.
Now aged 39, Day Off comes out on May 23 from Gentosha. It features over 150 images, selected from more than 10,000 taken of Sawajiri on location in an exotic beach and sea setting. Perhaps taking a cue from mature hottie Kyoko Fukuda, who loves to show off an active style for her beach body, Sawajiri is seen swimming and surfing in the upcoming release.
Her previous photo book was ERIKA, released in 2007, when she was just breaking out as a star. It's been a roller-coaster ride ever since.
Erika ...
