The path to becoming a celebrity is different in the social media age, with many becoming influencers and so on first on other platforms before transitioning into modeling, TV shows, acting, singing, and so on. This trend has affected the Japanese adult video industry too, with TikTokers like Okogetan, Ichika-sensei, and Unpai all making the move into porn after building a following on their channel. We haven't seen so many splashy gravure debuts in this regard, but it could be that such TikTokers or Instagrammers regularly appear in the weeklies but on a one-off basis on an obscure page, ...

One of the bigger and somewhat stranger media stories of the last few days in Japan has been the case of a influencer from Osaka who was denied entry to Hawaii. Considering the millions of tourists who enter Hawaii annually -- many of them from Japan -- it might seem like an odd story. The border officer became suspicious of Karen Okajima because she had written she was an office worker on her ESTA immigration form but seemed to have a lot of clothing in her luggage for someone traveling alone. The 32-year-old says she was taken to a private room and questioned for a long time. She ...

It seems in the TikTok and Instagram age, the usual route to stardom is not (just) through working as a fashion model, music idol, gravure idol, or something similar. You can first build up your own following as an influencer on your own platform and then opt to move into lingerie modeling with a photo book. The influencer Amichi (あみち) is proving that approach can work: with her 190,000 followers on Instagram and a million on TikTok, she is now set to release her first photo book after already spending much of her teens and high school years online. The previews from the debut ...