Earlier this year, we wrote about the surprise yet very, very welcome return to gravure of two major stars now in their late thirties: Aya Ueto and Haruka Ayase.
Indeed, as the likes of Yoko Kumada amply demonstrate, you can continue a career in gravure into your forties.
While the industry is dominated by ladies in their twenties or late teens, we like to see veterans and survivors in there, and love a good comeback story.
But even we were surprised by the return of Erika Yamakawa to gravure after a 20-year break.
Now aged 42 and the mother of two children, the model made her gravure ...
Japanese singer and voice actress Yuka Iguchi is to release a photo book to celebrate her twentieth anniversary in the industry.
More More More comes out from Kadokawa on April 3 and, judging by the preview images, lives up to its title, showing us more of the seiyu than ever before.
Yuka spends a lot of the time in the gym, if her social media is anything to go by, and it's in evidence with the toned, healthy trim of her body, especially her butt.
Here is Yuka doing some training in the gym.
Despite firmly entering jukujo territory, the unmarried 35-year-old doesn't look a day ...
While we are well inured to the knowledge that Japanese politicians spend their large salaries and generous expense accounts in hostess clubs (and sometimes get caught doing research on their next visit when they should be working), even this latest scandal raised some eyebrows, perhaps because it was so brazen.
An event organized by the governing Liberal Democratic Party in Wakayama, hired scantily clad dancers to "entertain" the attendees.
The roughly 50 attendees included members of the Diet part of the LDP youth bureau as well as young assembly members from prefectures in Kansai.
A ...
The wheels of the Japanese adult video juggernaut trundle on, demanding fresh material, new performers, and novel inspiration.
As frequently noted on these digital pages, JAV often turns to parody to sustain itself, resulting in a kind of meta industry that is highly topical and self-aware.
The DJ Soda groping incident at a music festival last summer, in which the star was touched by several male and female members of the audience, was a big scandal, though ultimately the Korean performer has overcome the negativity and cemented her fandom in Japan with a debut photo book and cover shoot ...
Given how big tentacle sex is in hentai anime and porn, it's hardly a surprise that there are related adult toys in Japan.
But even so, we would love to have sat in on the ideation or brainstorming session where the designers at adult manufacturer Rends came up with the Phantom Beast series. (Though our inner cynic whispers that they might have just spotted the fantastic Amazing Beasts series by Daimaoh and copied the idea!)
These vividly imagined and strikingly colored dildos conjure up the penises of various creatures in tentacular fashion.
Ever imagined what it's like to have a lizard ...
It is widely perceived that adultery is common in Japan, but what's the reality?
Sure, there are lots of dating apps out there, including ones specifically for people already with partners.
There's also a bustling cottage industry of private detectives whose entire raison d'être is to find out whether your spouse is cheating or not.
It also depends on the definition of adultery and cheating. Prostitution is a large industry in Japan but would a session every now and then with a sex worker count as an affair or cheating?
Well, a survey by the aptly named Love Is All of 1,966 married men ...
The former AKB48 idol Satomi Kaneko officially retired last year and we thought it was the last we would see of her.
How wrong we are. Today comes the happy news that Satomi Kaneko is to make her porn debut with the Muteki label -- which specializes in such industry crossover debuts -- and under the name Kiho Kanematsu (金松季歩).
It is common, often for contractual reasons, for idols to change their professional name when transition into porn, or even just when switching management agencies. Kaneko/Kanematsu announced her new professional name about a week ago, along with a new shoot ...
When does a debate over gravure photography become a debate over public space, civil rights, freedom of speech, and other lofty notions? When it involves parks in Saitama.
A surprisingly big controversy last year involved the withdrawal of permission to use public parks in Saitama for gravure swimwear events, where models would pose for fans to take photos. Such events are particularly popular for fans to take photos of idols up-close and for freelance models who don't get the lucrative cover shoots in the weeklies to make some much-needed yen.
But the events were planned for pools located ...
The book is out. Now to see whether the hype was worth it (and whether the media attention translates into hard sales).
The announcer-model Kasumi Mori's debut photo book, Su no Kasumi (Pure Kasumi), generated a lot of air time on TV and from gravure and regular media after it was announced in December.
The attractive 28-year-old had already made a real splash with alluring shoots for the fashion magazine Anan and gravure weekly Friday. Now she was trying to cross over into the riskier world of print photo books, which have high production costs due to the color printing, locations (this ...
In the FX/Disney series, a new adaptation of the James Clavell bestseller, Japanese actress Yuka Kouri (向里祐香) has a nude sex scene in the first episode.
The 33-year-old actress, best known until now for her roles in local TV dramas and low-budget films, plays Kiku, a courtesan.
She enters a room and then alluringly slips her kimono off a shoulder to expose a breast, playing up to every male fantasy tropes involving Japanese women in one shot. The kimono comes off the second shoulder and we glimpse her other breast.
She then lies naked on top of a man all while another guy ...
