Sumire Yokono suddenly left NMB48 in May 2021 -- shortly after a report broke that went to a hotel with a male celebrity twice her age. Even more shockingly, she was also spotted on a date (six days later) with yet another boyband member, with who she also spent the night at an expensive hotel. The resulting scandal sunk her NMB future. After a year off, the 21-year-old relaunched her career in May this year. Su-chan is now trying to go it on her own (with a little help from a major modeling agency). She is carving out a career as a gradol and model, and is succeeding: three gravure cover ...

     Read More     

Gravure idols famously come and go. Those who seemed at the top of their game with regular cover shoots in the weeklies might fall out of favor in a couple of months and be gone from our lives. The most successful idols learn that they need to branch out into acting and TV work, and not rely on the precarious gigs doing shoots for magazines and releasing digital photo books in a crowded market. Nana Asakawa was huge at the end of the 2010s and likewise began to take high-profile acting jobs, including sex scenes in the Haram Marriage TV adaptation and We're Too Bad at Romance. Those ...

     Read More     

Yuka Kuramochi has returned to gravure with her first shoot since she gave birth to a child in 2021. Kuramochi, who is married to a very successful esports player, chose to make a splash with her comeback. After all, landing a shoot with Yuka Kuramochi alone would be sure to shift copies, but Weekly Playboy elected for a whammy for its May 23 issue. Joining Kuramochi are Jun Amaki, Fumina Suzuki, Saki Yanase, and Saki Suzuki. So we get five of the most voluptuous ladies in the industry, all in one shoot. And what a shoot, as the preview images and the behind-the-scenes pics reveal! It's ...

     Read More     

A reader recently chided us for not writing about the Yumi Sugimoto's return to gravure (though we did post pics on tumblr). The truth is, even with "gravure comebacks," there are simply too many idols to keep track of, let alone write about in detail on these digital pages. But here's one comeback that is certainly worthy of note. Yuka Hirata (38) made a very welcome return to our lives with her first Weekly Playboy gravure shoot in 14 years, first published in the March 19 issue of the magazine. Now on the cusp of 40 and steeped in jukujo territory like a finely aged wine, the former ...

     Read More     

The world of gravure is a ruthless one. An gradol who graces the covers of Weekly Playboy or Friday one month, may be forgotten half a year later, and forced to turn to gimmicky stunts like a full-frontal nude shoot to get back in the game. Who are we to complain? We love all the visuals. Ai Shinozaki (篠崎愛) is one of those gravure idols who seems to have been around all the many years we have written this blog. That's essentially quite true -- she made her debut in 2006 as a junior idol. With her cute, youthful, come-hither face and bouncy bust, she has a classic gradol body. But ...

     Read More     

Idol-of-the-moment Kazusa Okuyama has released a new digital photo book, Passion, and, judging from the preview images we have seen, it's yet another stunner. Shot by Tim Gallo, it was released by Weekly Playboy. Okuyama dazzles in purple-pink lingerie and a black dress that shows off her slender legs and alluring back. The 27-year-old Aoyama native has also just released a new calendar. This digital photo book follows on from her third print photo book (shot by Tomoki Kuwajima), which came out from Shogakukan on September 30. That's three print photo books in as ...

     Read More     

It took her a while but former SKE48 idol Kanako Hiramatsu (平松可奈子) has finally got herself a solo gravure shoot. In the December 20 issue of Weekly Playboy, the 30-year-old poses for a sexy spread more than a decade after her debut. They say that good things are worth waiting for and we think she looks even better than before. The shoot might just have planted the seeds of a gravure comeback. Alternative shots from it will be turned into a digital photo book. Kanakana was a member of SKE48 from 2008 to 2013. In the years since, she has graduated college and started her ...

     Read More     

The model, singer, and actress Mariya Nishiuchi has made a foray into gravure with a bikini cover shoot for the current issue of Weekly Playboy, which went on sale in Japan on Monday. As the weather turns well and truly wintry here in Tokyo, it may seem a peculiar choice to have Mariya in a sexy bikini and emerging from the sea, her body dripping. (Where and when did they do the shoot? Given the travel restrictions, surely somewhere in Japan, but it's chilly even down south in Okinawa right now, so it must have been a few weeks ago.) Still, it's got us dreaming of summer -- not to mention ...

     Read More     

Terrace House is sadly canceled but the people that the show made into (minor) stars are still around, and some of them are trying to continue their success. The "sports talent" Risako Tanabe (田辺莉咲子) is one and has now made her gravure debut. The athletic and well-toned beauty just did her first gravure shoot, which appears in the issue of Weekly Playboy on sale from November 8. As gravure goes, there's not too much to get excited about here, but perhaps it will lead more, racier shoots in the months ahead. The 23-year-old (who is a petite 148 cm) stays in shape by doing workouts ...

     Read More     

There are those times when you go, "Oh, THAT person." And suddenly it all makes sense where you have seen someone before. Mayu Ura (浦まゆ) is not a name that many, if any, people knew. But her face was familiar from a lot of adverts -- and frankly, some pretty striking, even downright weird, ones. The 29-year-old is appearing in several commercials, with current contracts with 10 brands. Well, she may struggle to land major advertising deals now, since she's taken a new step in her career with a nude gravure shoot for a Weekly Playboy (with an accompanying digital photo book). ...

     Read More