The gravure idol and actress Rio Teramoto is to make a comeback after five years.
In the intervening time, she has focused on her acting career, including teasing us with an almost-nude scene in the Netflix drama Sanctuary, in which she played a hostess.
Incredibly for someone who seems to have been around so long, she is still only 24 but hasn't released a photo book in six years.
Teramoto's second release comes out on April 1 and was shot in Perth, Australia. "This is my first gravure shoot in five years," she wrote on Instagram to her fans. "I'm grateful to everyone who waited for ...
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 ...
In Japan, it is currently illegal to receive money for sex, but not to pay for sex. In other words, a sex worker's customer is not doing anything wrong in the eyes of the law, though the sex worker and the service she works for may well be in breach of the law.
A way around this is that sex workers may not always provide full service, at least nominally.
But in the wake of the moral and media panic over increased visible signs of prostitution in places like Okubo Park on the outskirts of Kabukicho, Tokyo, there are now motions in the government to redress the imbalance in the legal ...
The Japanese porn star Satsuki Toyooka has announced on social media is suffering from a rare illness.
On February 12, Toyooka announced on X that she was undergoing chemotherapy.
Satsuki Toyooka worked under the stage name Alice Toyonaka until 2023. She made her adult video debut in 2017 and established a following among fans with her E-cup breasts and peach butt.
In a post on January 30, the 28-year-old already warned fans that she was facing a very serious medical issue: "I'm sorry. I, Satsuki Toyooka, have been diagnosed with a rare illness. I may die. I may no longer be able to see ...
Meiji Yasuda Research Institute's Survey on Romance and Marriage has found that 76.3%, or more than three in four unmarried people, say they are not in a relationship, up from the previous survey in 2023.
Interest in romance and relationships is also declining, with fewer people expressing a desire to get married. Women cited "not feeling the need to get married," while men cited "less disposable income."
The survey was conducted online from December 12-21, 2025, targeting 8,872 men and women aged 18-54 nationwide (3,909 married and 4,963 unmarried).
While we often take issue with the ...
A Small Love Story: The World of Mameban Shunga is a new exhibition of erotic prints in Tokyo.
It focuses on mameban (literally, "bean format") shunga, referring to palm-sized prints that were distributed privately in the form of pictorial calendars and given to people like greeting cards. It is the world's first such showcase of shunga in this format, and features around 300 examples.
"These palm-sized prints contain intimate, humorous, and tender love stories," the organizers say. "Though small in scale, they are rich in expression."
The exhibition runs, aptly, from Valentine's Day on ...
The former music idol Haruna Kojima still looks amazing at 37, as these recent pictures from a photo shoot demonstrate. They show her in a figure-hugging black swimsuit that reveals her trim body, flat stomach, and slender legs.
Kojiharu, as she is nicknamed, turns 38 in April and is one of the hottest jukujo in Japan, up there with Sayaka Isoyama and Kyoko Fukada.
The Saitama native was part of the early period of AKB48 history, when the supergroup was ubiquitous and produced several mainstream stars. She was a member of the group from 2005 to 2017, after which she worked as a fashion ...
Former gravure model Chisato Morishita has won her seat in the snap election called by Sanae Takaichi, which saw the ruling Liberal Democratic Party secured a big majority and wipe out much of the opposition.
After some years of campaigning and failing to win a seat, Morishita finally became a member of the lower house in the 2024 election (and thus, Japan's hottest lawmaker) through the LDP's proportional representation allocation. She was then given a minor Cabinet position in 2025, like other prominent women in the Takaichi government.
This time, she won her seat outright, comfortably ...
A college student. A pachinko parlor worker. A hostess. An influencer. What do all these young Japanese women have in common?
While not as famous (or perhaps infamous) as a place like South Korea, plastic surgery is not uncommon in Japan among models, idols, and porn stars, and also sex workers and social media influencers.
Some female celebrities spend millions of yen on multiple surgeries, though few admit it.
Which is why it tends to make the news when someone does break the taboo and talk about this industry secret.
On a recent edition of the Abema TV show Hyena of Love Season 5, ...
Who watches the watchers?
While the regular cop in his koban substation on your local street corner seems like a friendly and useful member of the community (and for the most part, is), police officers are human beings, and so subject to temptation like the rest of us.
According to a report in the Yomiuri Shimbun, the National Police Agency announced on February 5 that the number of police officers and staff members nationwide who received disciplinary action last year rose to 337, an increase of 98 from the previous year, and the highest number in the past 10 years.
Of the 337 officers, ...
