1990s star Reiko Kato makes gravure comeback after 26 years
We love a good comeback story at Tokyo Kinky. And we especially love comebacks that defy mainstream expectations about women and beauty.
Why shouldn’t older women still be sex symbols? A year ago, we wrote about Fumie Nakajima’s image DVDs that prove a woman can still look great in her mid-fifties.
Now here’s another 55-year-old Japanese woman who returned to our lives.
Reiko Kato was something of a legend in the later 1980s and early 1990s. She has answered our Christmas wishes and come back to gravure with her first such shoot in 26 years.
Kato’s past photo book and shoots — often shot in expensive, exotic locations — were accompanied by image videos on VHS, which have come out on DVD, but the model has been largely absent from the scene since her photo book Fragile in 1998.
She married in 2001, bringing an end to her modeling. In addition to her gravure shoots, she landed prestigious and prominent “image girl” jobs for the likes of Asahi Beer and Faurecia Clarion. Original active under the name Yuko Hoshino and then Reiko Hoshino, she had most success as Reiko Kato, releasing dozens of photo books and videos in the 1990s. She also released several music singles and albums.
Her shoot for gravure magazine Friday this month is relatively modest (no bikini in sight!), yet still shows that Kato has lost neither her slim body nor her natural sensuality.
She nominally made a comeback on TV in 2012, but this is a much more welcome return to the limelight. The comeback has generated headlines and TV coverage.
Which other 1990s stars would you like to see make a comeback?
