Former NMB48 idol Miyuki Watanabe has released a new photo book, Dappi, marking what seems to be a somewhat maturer look and more sensual development in her career as she enters a new stage in life.
Also a one-time member of SKE48 and AKB48, Watanabe (known as Miruki to her fans) left NMB48 in 2016. She turned 30 earlier this week. Since leaving the music group, she has worked as a model and launched a music career as a solo artist and member of girl group Ange et Folletta.
Dappi is her fifth book and marks the latest stage in this more adult part of her career.
Last year, she ...
Hinatazaka46 idol Hinano Kamimura has released her first photo book.
The 19-year-old's book, Sono mama de (As It Is), came out on September 12 with four different covers (one for each of the seasons).
It features a series of pics of the music idol in underwear or swimwear, plus a somewhat more explicit of her in a bath. Some shots have a summery vibe; others look ahead to the imminent autumn season.
If you want a slim and youthful Japanese girl, you've come to the right place.
There's one decidedly sexy, more mature shot where she's lying in her underwear on a ...
Talking about going out with a bang.
So many idols from AKB48, Nogizaka46, and their sister groups quickly disappear into the ether after graduating, so their final individual release (photo book, photo shoot, etc.) may be one of the last ways they can make a mark.
Seira Hayakawa is doing just that, and then some.
Whatever happens to the 23-year-old Osakan after leaving Nogizaka46 at the end of August (and she has indicated her intention to fully retire from the entertainment world), she has rewarded fans with her most explicit photo shoot yet.
Her photo book, Some You Again, Someday, ...
Actor and model Ayame Misaki is continuing her gravure comeback, which began in earnest in 2021.
This followed her divorce and roles in more serious films, after an early career in gravure and somewhat more frivolous TV roles.
After the success of her sexy, summery photo book earlier this year, she is returning in the autumn with a new photo book in Kodansha.
Some previews of the as-yet-unnamed publication appeared in the September 8 issue of weekly magazine Friday. Not much else is known at this stage, other than it's shot by Akinori Ito. Based on the quality of these previews, we can't ...
It seems in the TikTok and Instagram age, the usual route to stardom is not (just) through working as a fashion model, music idol, gravure idol, or something similar.
You can first build up your own following as an influencer on your own platform and then opt to move into lingerie modeling with a photo book.
The influencer Amichi (あみち) is proving that approach can work: with her 190,000 followers on Instagram and a million on TikTok, she is now set to release her first photo book after already spending much of her teens and high school years online.
The previews from the debut ...
The photo book market in Japan can sometimes seem like a tame one. Sure, we harp on about the latest semi-nude shoots featuring various music idols, actresses, models, and so on, but, as lovely those are, we are ultimately making hay out of thin material.
Gone are the glory days of the photo book when we could be really surprised by a provocative new release.
We are talking about, of course, the "hair nude" full-frontal shoot.
Back in the 1990s, when the hair nude was at its peak, it was popular for established stars or even up-and-coming models. Far from a last resort for a faded star or ...
There are blasts from the past, and then there are blasts from the past.
If you are long-term fan of gravure, then you will know of Yinling (Yan Yinling), a major force in the industry in the late 1990s and 2000s.
She moved to Japan at the age of 10 and enjoyed a successful career as a female wrester, race queen, singer, and gravure model, but got married in 2008 to a Japanese man and effectively retired from the industry, moving back to Taiwan in 2011.
Now aged 47 and the mother of three children, the Taiwanese-born model also known as Yinling of Joy is making a comeback with her first ...
We recently wrote about ex-AKB48 idol Satomi Kaneko's retirement, noting how she had carved out quite a striking career as a sexploitation actress and nude model after her brief stint with the group.
In general, after leaving one of the AKB or Sakamichi groups, or any idol group for that matter, the surest way to cement your status is to do more provocative shoots in gravure magazines, release photo books, and branch out into fashion modeling and TV gigs, either acting or presenting.
Only a lucky few land "serious" acting roles (perhaps only Atsuko Maeda and Yuko Oshima spring to mind), but ...
Last month, we reported on the controversy over a new gravure idol who was supposedly AI-generated but seemed to be just a slightly different version of a flesh-and-blood gradol. The publisher eventually withdrew its much-hyped photo book featuring Ai Satsuki.
As we noted in a follow-up post, artificial intelligence has major implications for gravure, making it possible to churn out cheap photo books with almost now overheads (no expensive photo shoots, no model fees, etc.). It has meant the market is currently flooded with cheap or even free photo books.
The issue of AI and gravure has ...
With music sales down, fewer meet-and-greet events like before, and far less general public interest in its current members (which means fewer TV appearances and fewer lucrative advertising campaign contracts), AKB48 is in, well, perhaps not quite a state of decline but certainly a period of less prominence in popular culture compared to the glory days of the early 2010s.
Is this why its members are doing semi-nude photo shoots even before graduating the group? The AKB overlords used to be very exact about how much flesh the members could show, determined to keep things tantalizing and ...
