Mei Hanada has been sacked by AKB48 for having a personal relationship with a fan, it was announced by the music group's management today.
Hanada has been on leave since May, having suffered mental health issues from the end of last year, which had caused her to be repeatedly late.
Management somehow found out about her meetings with a certain fan while on leave, which Hanada claimed were just chance encounters that happened twice, but management investigated further and determined had actually happened on multiple occasions.
She apparently wanted to return to AKB48 and management claim ...
The former AKB48 idol Haruna Kojima has focused on fashion modeling and her own apparel brand since leaving the music group.
She has transformed herself into a savvy businesswomen by building a brand that puts her own popularity as a model at its center. Now aged 37, Kojiharu can claim business triumph with the sale this month of her apparel company heart relation for ¥3.5 billion ($22 million) to e-commerce company yutori.
She created heart relation in 2020 to run her (oddly named) brand Her lip to (which she founded in 2018) and Her lip to BEAUTY. She set to receive the payment in two ...
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 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 ...
In mid-February, we shared some initial preview pics from Atsuko Maeda's comeback photo book, Beste.
The 34-year-old single mom, who was a member of the legendary first generation of AKB48 back in the day, looks ravishing in the blue and pink lingerie in the shoot.
The most explicit shots feature Acchan nude except for thong panties, while lying on her front with her hands covering her breasts, and revealing her alluring back and side boob.
It's all nice stuff in the idol-you-can-meet tradition of AKB48, though quite tamer compared to former SKE848 idol Ruka Kitano's recent photo book, ...
Former AKB48 idols have been in the news again recently, from the first generation of idols like Atsuko Maeda (releasing her first photok book in 14 years) and Haruna Kojima (still ravishing at 37) to more recent members of the supergroup like Megu Taniguchi.
The 27-year-old Taniguchi, known as Omegu to fans, is now promoting Ravijour lingerie as part of a new campaign for the brand announced this month.
She was a member of AKB48 from 2013 to 2024. Fans are celebrating how stunning she looks in the revealing Ravijour lingerie, which revels in her slinky body.
Doing a stint as a ...
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 ...
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 ...
The former AKB48 music idol Miki Nishino has announced her second pregnancy.
Nishino shocked fans by marrying the comedian Keiichi Yamamoto in 2022 when she was 23 years old. Yamamoto is 31 years older than her. She gave birth to their first child in October 2024. Their second is due in May.
Yamamoto looks particularly smug in a YouTube announcement video, though we guess you would do if you were 57 and your much-younger wife was still happy to let you impregnate her.
Further proof, if any were needed, that if you're funny, it doesn't matter what you look like, because you can always ...
It feels a bit like we are back in the second half of the 2000s, with all the recent gravure comebacks: Serina of SDN48, Yuka Kosaka, busty actor Megumi Kagurazaka, and Saaya.
And now comes another! Former first-generation AKB48 idol Atsuko Maeda has returned to gravure for the first time in fourteen years.
Her "last" photo book, Beste, is due for release in mid-February next year.
Some initial preview pictures were released on December 26, showing the ex-idol's naked back and her buttocks framed by an alluring thong as she lies on a bed. Don't expect actual nudity but it looks like the ...
