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 ...
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 ...
She might be in her mid-fifties. She might be a nearly forgotten star from the 1990s. But Reiko Kato is proving that age is no obstacle as she continues her gravure comeback.
After a shoot for Weekly Friday magazine late last year that was her first in 26 years, Kato is now set to release a photo book.
Around is her first such release in 27 years. It comes out in October from Kodansha and is shot by high-profile photographer Motofumi Sannomiya. The sensual shoot highlights Kato's slim and fit body as she poses in sensual swimwear and elegant clothing.
The Saitama native is now 56 years ...
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 ...
Regular readers may remember Yuka Kosaka, the former gravure idol who went on to work as a nursery teacher in Chiba.
Kosaka had a turbulent career, hitting the big time in the mid-2000s but then scuppering her future in the industry by gaining a lot of weight. She made a nude comeback in the early 2010s before retiring and changing careers to running her own nursery school (though she does not have children herself).
She makes occasional TV appearances these days. The 40-year-old former gradol is now married (to a former actor several years her junior) and runs a consultancy ...
Is there something in the air? Is it something about the glitz and glisten of summer?
We just shared the joyful news that slinky goddess Yuka Ogura has made a triumphant gravure comeback after an absence of about five years.
And now comes the tidings that Riho Takada has also returned to the fray.
Now aged 30, Takada has been focusing on her acting in recent years, including roles in tokusatsu series. In terms of comebacks, she has previous, making a glorious mini comeback in 2022 after many years away from gravure with a semi-nude photo book that showed off her athletic body.
She ...
Way back in 2019, in those pre-pandemic halcyon days, we lamented the departure of Yuka Ogura from gravure magazines. With the release of a hugely successful nude photo book, she announced she would no longer do swimsuit cover shoots for gravure magazines.
Well, now she's back -- older, wiser, and just as sexy.
The iyashi-kei "healing" idols with the gentle smile and girl-next-door looks has triumphantly returned to the world of gravure magazines for the first time in about five years with a cover shoot for the current issue of Kodansha's Young Magazine, which went on sale on Monday.
The ...
Some women age well. And then there's Kyoko Fukuda.
The eternally youthful (and single) Fukada has appeared on the cover of Weekly Playboy, making her one of the oldest idols to earn the honor.
Now aged 42 (and turning 43 in November) and as comely as ever, Fukada appears on the cover of the latest issue of the magazine, which came out on June 30, wearing a figure-hugging swimsuit. She is fine company: the same issue features such gradols as Erika and Marina Momose, and various other young ladies two decades or more her junior. We'd take Fukada over them any day of the week, ...
Mariya Nagao is one of the few former AKB48 idols to maintain a successful career in modeling and gravure for the many years since her departure from the group.
Unlike the likes of Haruna Kojima (now also an entrepreneur) or Atsuko Maeda (a serious actor), however, she hasn't diversified per se, instead relying largely on photo books and shoots to earn a living (though she also does some acting and produces an idol group).
It helps that she has a slinky body and has regularly teased nude glimpses of it in her photo books over the years.
So far, she's limited the nudity to her butt and side ...
