Yesterday, we wrote about that eternal singleton who never stops being cute, the 40-year-old Sayaka Isoyama, who has just released a new photo book. Now we have yet another piece of evidence to back up what we wrote last week when speculating about Tomomi Morisaki's rumored pregnancy and preparations for marriage: that the majority of celebrity marriages in Japan are shotgun weddings. The actress and model Kyoko Hinami has announced she is pregnant and married. The 29-year-old made the announcement via social media on October 23. Hinami made her debut as a model in 2006, when she was ...

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When top gravure idol Tomomi Morisaki announced her long-rumored retirement, there was speculation about the exact reasons. Was she leaving the entertainment industry for good? Now that she was in her thirties, was she just quitting while she was ahead and before the glamor model offers dried up? Did she want to focus on her general TV celebrity gigs? It seems that the answer was that classic Japanese entertainer one: romance and a family. Now, just before the release of her retirement DVD and Blu-ray, comes news reports that the hottie is "seriously dating" a baseball player, Shota ...

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This completely passed us by at the time but thanks to the diligent efforts of Nude Asian Film on Twitter/X to chronicle movie scenes, we realized that gravure idol Yuki Kiyose had done a nude scene. She appears in the low-budget film Gekkako, which was released in Japan in 2022. It is about Ami, played by Yuki Kiyose, who has an affair with a married painter. It's a full nude scene, but sadly not a sex scene. Rather than showing Yuki Kiyose in action with a lover, it has her posing completely nude for a painting. Still, her body is as slim yet curvy as you would expect from a gravure ...

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Alluring jukujo gradol Tomomi Morisaki has previously shown off her naked butt and nipples. What more could she have to show her fans? Not much, it seems, because she has announced her "retirement release." There was some confusion about this, perhaps an indication of behind-the-scenes shenanigans or uncertainty on the idol's part. In July, Morisaki held an event to mark the release of her 22nd DVD and denied she was retiring from gravure as had been misreported. Either way, it appears the timing was right now in the autumn. Her 23rd image DVD and Blu-ray, suitably titled Lady Climax, is ...

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You might remember Chika Yuki (or Yuuki) (結城ちか) from back in the late 2010s. The formidably busty gravure idol made her debut in 2014 (when she still at school) and enjoyed some initial success, but then left her agency and switched to another name -- Chika Takahashi -- in 2020, followed by yet another name -- Maiha Hinata -- in 2021. All this seemed to suggest her gradol career was in free fall. Despite her obvious talents and assets that made her more than qualified for the job, it's a competitive industry that favors the flavor of the month for cover shoots and big gigs. She ...

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Last month, we wrote about the controversy that threatened to wreck one of the conventions of the Japanese summer: swimwear gravure photo events where fans go to see and take pictures of models and idols. These are often held in public lidos (outdoor pools), and are popular events that attract large numbers of fans. After local Japanese Communist Party politicians complained about the commercial use of prefectural parks and the "lewd" nature of the poses, though, authorities stepped in to ask organizers to call off some events in June. This was then criticized as censorship and ...

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The photo book market in Japan can sometimes seem like a tame one. Sure, we harp on about the latest semi-nude shoots featuring various music idols, actresses, models, and so on, but, as lovely those are, we are ultimately making hay out of thin material. Gone are the glory days of the photo book when we could be really surprised by a provocative new release. We are talking about, of course, the "hair nude" full-frontal shoot. Back in the 1990s, when the hair nude was at its peak, it was popular for established stars or even up-and-coming models. Far from a last resort for a faded star or ...

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Miri Hanai (花井美里) turns 39 this October but these recent photos prove that she's as alluring as ever. The mature gravure idol and musician has firmly entered jukujo territory, and though she's no longer enjoying the success of her twenties, when she pumping out photo books several times a year at one point during the mid-2000s, she's still got her fans and released a new photo book in 2021. Known for her busty looks (a J or H cup, depending on the marketing), she made her debut in 2003. That's a 20-year career, a milestone few in her competitive industry achieve, and one that ...

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This story has been percolating since early June and has now become a very interesting incident generating national headlines, and with potential implications for future gravure events. Swimwear photo shoot events in public pools in Saitama have ignited an intense debate. During the events, idols and models gather at the pool for fans to take photographs of them in their swimsuits. Admission to such events is expensive, costing from ¥10,000 to ¥36,000. Various locals voiced concern to the public parks association in late May about the sexy nature of the gravure-style poses. Local ...

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Back in 2011, AKB48 briefly seemed to be on the cusp of some sort of technological tipping point when it played with a fully digital member of the group. Sadly, or not, Aimi Eguchi was created just for an ad campaign and this "digital idol" trend didn't continue. Instead, we got dribs and drabs of sensational digitally created idols like Saya, the ultra-realistic schoolgirl who wasn't real, and were teased with an all-digital supergroup. The VR boom in the 2010s also seemed to be a major new chapter in the relationship between sex and technology (not least, its implications for watching ...

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