One of our ongoing preoccupations is what happens to gravure and music idols after they stop being famous. Once they have faded into obscurity, how do they survive? Get married and become homemakers? Go into hostessing or even prostitution? Or a totally different line of work?
Some evidently advance into careers in AV.
We also previously looked at the case of Yuka Kosaka, who now runs a nursery school in Chiba.
Others make the unexpected leap into mainstream politics.
Here is another cautionary tale.
The tarento Hanako Takigawa is only 28 but already has had a troubled, up-and-down ...
Rena Masuyama (増山麗奈). Writer, artist, journalist, painter, film director, left-wing activist, and all-round wacky woman.
She was part of Momoiro Guerrilla, a performance group that did a "torture talk show" at Fuchu Art Museum in 2004, where she had a vibrator stuck up her pussy while she talked about the tragedy of war.
Born in 1976, Masuyama performed body painting where she squirted milk from her lactating breasts over a live audience.
She made many examples of provocative "breast milk" art, often clad in the kind of gear that the Hooters girls wear to work.
And ...
This is a working list of idols from AKB48 or sister groups like SKE48 who have graduated onto second careers in nude modeling and/or adult video (AV).
There are rumored to be others but these are what we know of. Share if there are others!
Momona Kito
The most high-profile recent graduate into the porn industry, Momona Kito starred in an ostensibly one-off porn release by Muteki as Yua Mikami. It was such a hit, she has since decided to do more and make a whole career of it.
Rina Nakanishi
Rina Nakanishi was the pioneer, laying the ground for the other idols who have followed in her ...
What do you do when you graduate from the porn world? Become a singer like Yuma Asami? Perhaps. Become a mangaka like Nayuka Mine? Perhaps. Or you can become an artist!
Japanese porn star turned photographer Saki Otsuka showcases her lensing work in Mitsubai Room, a monthly photography magazine.
Otsuka has been gradually building a post-porn career in photography that is sensibly informed by her expertise. Her work is sexually explicit but dark and jagged, more Daido Moriyama than Kishin Shinoyama or Yasumasa Yonehara.
This is taken from her Hotel B series (she wants models, by ...
What happens to the literally thousands of gravure idols, music idols, and minor porn stars when their careers dry up?
Some go into prostitution, some get married. Still others become writers, like Nayuka Mine, or politicians, like Ayaka Shiomura or Renho.
Well, some switch tracks completely, like Yuka Kosaka.
She burst into the idol big time in 2004 when she won the Miss Young Magazine, and at her height was appearing on TV variety shows and in gravure shoots.
Then in 2009 she retired and became something of a media joke due to her sudden weight gain. Her glory ...
Nippon.com, normally a fairly austere and academic online publication, has published an article by sociologist Suzumi Suzuki, in which she discusses her fieldwork about adult video and role play in the porn world.
Suzuki starts out with a very positive view of her subject matter:
AV actresses are surprisingly articulate when asked to talk about themselves. In the videos by which they make a living, as well as in magazines and other media, they calmly field personal questions of all kinds and narrate their personal stories smoothly and eloquently.
To a large extent, this is a skill they ...
Nayuka Mine (峰なゆか) is a former porn star turned manga-ka.
She is famous for having an alluring, curvy beauty similar to Mitsu Dan.
Born in 1984, she made her AV debut in 2005 but left the porn industry in 2009, except for a brief comeback in 2011 for a lesbian title from MOODYZ.
These days her appearances are tamer, though she's not averse to posting some very sexy selfies!
But personally we love seeing her in all her glory.
Like Manami Hashimoto and Mitsu Dan, Nayuka is definitely a lady who is getting hotter with ...
Japanese politics is not a pretty sight. Lots of wrinkly men from powerful dynasties arguing over their factions and minor policies while ignoring the bigger issues. At night they take off to the expensive hostess clubs of Ginza and spend time with their younger mistresses.
But there are a few lights in this world of darkness.
One of them is the rather attractive Ayaka Shiomura, a 35-year-old politician for Setagaya in the Tokyo Assembly, one of the members of the left-leaning Your Party.
Yesterday she was giving a speech to the Tokyo Assembly on improving government support for women ...
