In the fast and furious world of gravure, it feels like every month, if not every week, brings a newcomer. Many debut, then quickly disappear. A lucky few endure and build careers.
But every month also seems to bring a gravure comeback of sorts. In mid-April, for instance, we celebrated the return of former AKB48 Haruna Kojima to gravure after years of focusing on fashion retail.
And so we are very pleased to welcome back Rika Adachi, who has recently done a stunning cover shoot for an issue of Weekly Playboy (April 24) with a sunny bikini theme that has us yearning for the summer to kick ...
The former AKB48 idol Haruna Kojima has returned to gravure with her first shoot in six years.
She appears in a cover shoot for Young Magazine's May 1 issue, which went on sale this week.
As you might expect, the return of the model -- now aged 34, well into luscious jukujo territory -- known for her pale skin and slinky body has generated reams of media coverage. The magazine shoot, which was done in Okinawa, features Kojiharu in alluring, summery swimwear.
We've included some highlights here.
Her last bikini gravure shoot was for Young Magazine in 2017. The comeback is ...
One of the most popular members of NMB48, Yuzuha Hongo made the surprise announcement on April 4 that she would be graduating the Osaka group.
Alongside her singing, Hongo pursues a burgeoning career in gravure (as reported before), having released her first photo book from Kodansha in 2022.
A second photo book is set for release at the end of May, shortly before she will graduate from NMB48.
Known as Yuzu to her fans, the idol is still just 20 years old and seems very young to graduate (though she joined way back in 2015, so has devoted eight years of her life to the Namba-based group). ...
Ayame Misaki is one of those Japanese models and actresses who seem to have been a part of our life forever. We were a little surprised to learn that she is still only 33, but if you make your debut at the young age of 16, you can have a long career before your thirties.
The Kobe native carved out a gravure career in the late 2000s as a "Heisei-born F-cup" beauty.
We first wrote about her on these digital pages back in 2012, when she was our "idol of the week."
In 2013, she did a nude sex scene in the film Judas that showed off her beautiful breasts.
Her acting career was mostly roles in ...
The non-fungible tokens boom seems to have petered out internationally. Prices of NFTs skyrocketed but then plummeted over the course of 2022, and many believe the market is over (not coincidentally, the crypto markets has also experienced a crunch in 2022). The art and photography industries may soon move onto the next fad, if they haven't already.
In Japan, NFTs are still something of a thing, though, even if the haven't reached the heights of fame and fortune that they (briefly) attained in other countries.
In 2021, shibari artist Hajime Kinoko created an NFT rope bondage art ...
We've written before about the wonder that is Japanese gravure idol Sayaka Nitori, who has proven adept at building her own fandom on social media (1.1 million followers on Instagram!) and releasing products independently.
She isn't attached to a talent management agency and so has to go the extra mile to promote her releases and run her own online fan club.
Last year, she released her debut photo book with a major publisher -- and it was semi-nude, giving us stunning glimpses of her naked G-cup breasts.
The book was a bestseller (it recently entered its fifth printing) and now the ...
Kazusa Okuyama is one of the top gravure idols in Japan right now, though she went quiet for a while from the end of last year with few social media updates. The last major gravure-related thing she did was release a 2023 calendar and hold an exhibition with top gravure photographer Chikashi Kasai (both in December 2022).
Her absence was essentially explained on February 14 (yes, Valentine's Day), when there came the shock announcement that one of the most eligible ladies in the land had got married.
This typically would mean the end of a gravure career. (She also does occasional acting. In ...
Gravure photographer Seiichi Nomura recently sat down for an interview with Aera.dot in which he looked back on his five-decade-long career, during which he has photographed countless numbers of idols, actresses, models, and singers.
"I've done more than 400 hundred photo books and thousands of covers for weekly magazines," Nomura estimates.
Originally an interior photographer, Nomura got into gravure by necessity: he needed the money. In the summer of 1976, at the age of 25, he traveled to Europe. After he returned, though, he was told by his clients that he had been away too long and they ...
Asuka Hanamura (華村あすか) has continued with the wet, semi-nude streak she started in early 2022. Following on from her first photo book, the actress is back with another lingerie and bikini shoot that showcases her slinky body.
The 23-year-old Yamagata native is known for her alluring mole and sun-kissed skin. In her new photo book, which comes out on March 18 from Kodansha, she is seen in the shower holding her hands over her nude chest (a variant on the tebura "hand bra" pose that's a gravure standard), or lying on her front with her naked back on display.
Alright, ...
Last month, we wrote about the second photo book by the ravishing Amazonian beauty that is Fumika.
As in her previous shoots, the former Miss Japan finalist and University of Tokyo alumni was showing off plenty of her athletic legs and svelte buttocks, while apparently hiding her actual breasts and nipples despite some very wet clothing in some of the shots.
We are pleased to reveal that Fumika has also revealed: the photo book is a proper nude shoot, including full-frontal nudity.
It's a hair nude, then, though you can't actually see any bush. Whether from very careful grooming or ...
