The former NHK announcer Anna Nakagawa has made her gravure debut with a splashy cover shoot for Weekly Playboy.
The 31-year-old quit the public broadcaster in March and has been attached to major talent agency Horipro since April. She clearly hopes to take her career in a whole new direction.
This is her first gravure shoot, done on location in Odawara and at a studio in Tokyo. Weekly Playboy also released a 100-page digital photo book to accompany the issue, which went on sale on Monday.
Though the shoot is relatively conservative by gravure standards, Nakagawa is clearly ...
The daily temperature might still be in the mid-thirties here in sweaty Tokyo, with little respite from the brutal humidity, but for much of the world, summer is finally winding down and autumn is around the corner.
To celebrate the end of the dog days, our friends at Kanojo Toys are holding an end-of-summer sale all through this week.
You can get 20% off the retail price of any Japanese adult toy currently in stock.
Just use the code summer when you purchase your order.
Kanojo Toys stocks the largest and widest selection of Japanese adult toys shipping internationally, offering ...
Not all heroes wear capes and not all gravure idols enter the industry through the usual agency and competition route.
And while we are used to certain other celebrities moonlighting in gravure, especially music idols, but also wrestlers, actresses, fashion models, and sports athletes, it is relatively rare for a figure skater to dabble.
But Marin Honda is a rare thing indeed, as her gravure debut impressively demonstrates.
The 24-year-old showed off her slinky, toned body and cute girl-next-door beauty in a great series of pics that would make many music idols green with envy.
Her ...
Kanna Seto burst onto the Japanese adult video scene late last year and quickly made a huge impression with her girl-next-door face, pale skin, slim body, and huge breasts. It is a formidable combination and her debut attracted some of the biggest online attention we have seen in a long while.
Seto's career has gone from strength to strength, releasing 12 titles since then from S1 No. One Style and building a following both in Japan and in other parts of Asia.
The 21-year-old's first photo book came out from Shogakukan in January and she has at least three more AV titles scheduled ...
The post-COVID uptick in streetwalkers in the Okubo Park area of Kabukicho, Tokyo, has been a media obsession for some time in Japan, generating a moral panic over the young age of the women and also some embarrassment because it has coincided with the huge rise in tourist numbers in Japan.
In the age of social media, going to rubberneck the lines of prostitutes at Okubo Park has become an activity for tourists to do as well as contributed to the notion that Tokyo is already a destination for sex tourism like Bangkok. Of course, approaching women on the street does not come without risk and ...
The model, dancer, and rapper Karen Kimijima was recently arrested at Naha Airport on suspicion of smuggling synthetic drugs MDMA and ketamine from Thailand.
Reported by Japanese news earlier this month, the arrest actually took place in mid-July.
The 28-year-old had just arrived at the airport in Okinawa from Thailand via Hong Kong.
According to officials, a small quantity of drugs were found in the pocket of a pair of shorts in Kimijima's suitcase on July 18.
This is not Karen Kimijima's first run-in with the law over alleged drug use. She was arrested in February 2018 for alleged ...
This weekend is Comiket 106, the latest edition of Japan's largest cosplay and doujinshi event held at Tokyo Big Sight.
But it's also mid-August in Tokyo, which is hot, humid, and very sweaty. Comiket gets insanely crowded and also tends to attract a lot of otaku, who do not have the best reputation when it comes to personal hygiene.
This combination of seasonal climate and demographic has reached such a serious level that exhibitors are choosing to ask fans to make more of an effort.
Japan's most famous and successful cosplayer, Enako, has issued a plea for fans to attend Comiket only ...
Right now, gravure feels a bit like a battle between the nearly 40-year-olds, all vying to outdo each other.
Or it could be that for all the sweet charms of fresh-faced young newbies like Hina Kikuchi, Cocoro Toyoshima, Aika Sawaguchi, Ina Enohara, and Yuzuha Hongo, these older models and idols just make better stories. (And to be frank, as we get older, we can't help finding these similarly aged women the hottest.)
We recently had Yuka Iguchi showing us her age-defying beach body and bust.
Former AKB48 idol Mai Oshima is also 37 and looks amazing.
Mayumi Yamanaka is a bit younger but a ...
Yuka Iguchi is Japan's hot jukujo of the moment. She went from relatively little-known voice actress and singer to a gravure star when she started showing off her sporty body in 2024.
She released a print photo book, More More More, which was only her second (and first since 2012), and it sold well enough to merit a second digital edition.
Though the photo book was not nude, you see lots of Yuka's finely toned body.
Even as she approaches 40, the unmarried Iguchi shows no signs of shifting down a gear in this chapter of her career.
Now aged 37 and a 20-year industry veteran, she ...
While much of the current police and media obsession with young female streetwalkers has focused on the Okubo-Kabukicho area of Tokyo, Osaka is also experiencing an apparent increase in visible prostitution.
And just as police are cracking down on both the sex workers and scouts in Kabukicho, the authorities in Osaka are targeting concafes ("concept cafes" -- a kind of "lite" version of a host club) and pimps who prey on young delinquents and runaways near the Dotombori canal, and even redesigning a street to deter streetwalkers.
This has not solved the problem, it seems, because police are ...
