Ayame Misaki is one of those Japanese models and actresses who seem to have been a part of our life forever. We were a little surprised to learn that she is still only 33, but if you make your debut at the young age of 16, you can have a long career before your thirties. The Kobe native carved out a gravure career in the late 2000s as a "Heisei-born F-cup" beauty. We first wrote about her on these digital pages back in 2012, when she was our "idol of the week." In 2013, she did a nude sex scene in the film Judas that showed off her beautiful breasts. Her acting career was mostly roles in ...

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The non-fungible tokens boom seems to have petered out internationally. Prices of NFTs skyrocketed but then plummeted over the course of 2022, and many believe the market is over (not coincidentally, the crypto markets has also experienced a crunch in 2022). The art and photography industries may soon move onto the next fad, if they haven't already. In Japan, NFTs are still something of a thing, though, even if the haven't reached the heights of fame and fortune that they (briefly) attained in other countries. In 2021, shibari artist Hajime Kinoko created an NFT rope bondage art ...

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We've written before about the wonder that is Japanese gravure idol Sayaka Nitori, who has proven adept at building her own fandom on social media (1.1 million followers on Instagram!) and releasing products independently. She isn't attached to a talent management agency and so has to go the extra mile to promote her releases and run her own online fan club. Last year, she released her debut photo book with a major publisher -- and it was semi-nude, giving us stunning glimpses of her naked G-cup breasts. The book was a bestseller (it recently entered its fifth printing) and now the ...

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Kazusa Okuyama is one of the top gravure idols in Japan right now, though she went quiet for a while from the end of last year with few social media updates. The last major gravure-related thing she did was release a 2023 calendar and hold an exhibition with top gravure photographer Chikashi Kasai (both in December 2022). Her absence was essentially explained on February 14 (yes, Valentine's Day), when there came the shock announcement that one of the most eligible ladies in the land had got married. This typically would mean the end of a gravure career. (She also does occasional acting. In ...

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Gravure photographer Seiichi Nomura recently sat down for an interview with Aera.dot in which he looked back on his five-decade-long career, during which he has photographed countless numbers of idols, actresses, models, and singers. "I've done more than 400 hundred photo books and thousands of covers for weekly magazines," Nomura estimates. Originally an interior photographer, Nomura got into gravure by necessity: he needed the money. In the summer of 1976, at the age of 25, he traveled to Europe. After he returned, though, he was told by his clients that he had been away too long and they ...

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Asuka Hanamura (華村あすか) has continued with the wet, semi-nude streak she started in early 2022. Following on from her first photo book, the actress is back with another lingerie and bikini shoot that showcases her slinky body. The 23-year-old Yamagata native is known for her alluring mole and sun-kissed skin. In her new photo book, which comes out on March 18 from Kodansha, she is seen in the shower holding her hands over her nude chest (a variant on the tebura "hand bra" pose that's a gravure standard), or lying on her front with her naked back on display. Alright, ...

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Last month, we wrote about the second photo book by the ravishing Amazonian beauty that is Fumika. As in her previous shoots, the former Miss Japan finalist and University of Tokyo alumni was showing off plenty of her athletic legs and svelte buttocks, while apparently hiding her actual breasts and nipples despite some very wet clothing in some of the shots. We are pleased to reveal that Fumika has also revealed: the photo book is a proper nude shoot, including full-frontal nudity. It's a hair nude, then, though you can't actually see any bush. Whether from very careful grooming or ...

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Long-time readers will know how the special place we had in our hearts for slinky gravure idol Yukie Kawamura. All good things must come to an end, as they say, and Yukie Kawamura got married in 2019 to a musician -- and promptly retired from gravure and disappeared off our radar. In 2021, she gave birth to her first child. We recently stumbled upon pics that show what Yukie Kawamura looks like now, married and with a child. The 37-year-old former model, who made her gravure debut in 2003, is firmly in jukujo territory, which she seems to have embraced by turning into a hot rural mother. ...

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Remember Fumika? How could you forget?! In 2021, she smashed her way into the mainstream of gravure with a photo book shot by acclaimed Hajime Sawatari that showcased her stunning, athletic body -- and as nude as it's possible to be without showing actual nipples or more. Now she's back with a very welcome second photo book, which comes out February 10 from major publisher Kadokawa. It's again shot by Hajime Sawatari and is also nude, though this time has a kind of "wild nature" theme with 28-year-old Fumika cast adrift, naked, amid the savage beauty of the landscape. It really accentuates ...

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It's a dangerous thing to make your gravure debut in this day and age, when netizens have so many tools and resources at their disposal to do research on your background. And so when the comely Rio Niita's (新田りお) gravure debut was announced with some fanfare, including an image video DVD release before she had even appeared in the usual gravure magazines, people got interested. Who is she? Where did she suddenly spring from? And the rumors are that the 19-year-old model already has a secret past career in porn. Like most such "image videos," her new DVD (out January 25) ...

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