Ex-gravure idol Yuka Kosaka reveals she was once brainwashed

A few years ago, we reported on the career of gravure idol Yuka Kosaka, who abruptly quit the industry in 2009, gained a lot of weight, made a brief comeback (with a semi-nude shoot), and then settled into a quieter life as a nursery school teacher from the age of 24.

She did that for around a decade now, though the 39-year-old has also restarted some activities in the entertainment industry since last year. It seems she no longer works as a teacher due to health issues and instead focuses on entrepreneurial projects launching new schools, consulting for schools, and doing counseling. She married Rakuto Tochihara, an actor a few years her junior, in 2022.

In 2024, she ran a crowdfunding campaign for a children’s book she wants to publish, raising ¥500,000 of the ¥2.2 million target.

Kosaka recently appeared on the YouTube channel of misono, a singer whose career peaked around the same time as hers.

Kosaka explained some of the circumstances behind her sudden departure from gravure. She was actually brainwashed for about a year and was doing unpaid work for the unnamed person who brainwashed her. She even attended a fancy dress party packed with celebrities, wearing a costume that completely covered her head because the brainwasher told her to conceal herself.

Convinced she was going to die, the 24-year-old Kosaka then went back to her family home. She found her old school graduation album, where she wrote about her future dreams. One of them was working as a nursery school teacher. Because she was scouted while a high school third grader at the age of 18, she never got the chance to try this out, and so it led her to (belatedly) start working as a nursery teacher and pursuing her original dreams.