The Japanese actress Yoko Shimada (島田陽子) has died, aged 69, from complications of colorectal cancer.
She was best known internationally for her English-speaking role in the miniseries Shogun from 1980, adapted from the James Clavell bestseller.
Shimada rose to fame in Japan in the 1970s as an actress and singer, and then capitalized on her role in Shogun and became a star in Japan (though more international roles were few and far between).
But it all came crashing down in the late 1980s, when an affair with the musician Yuya Uchida was exposed by the tabloids and all her work dried ...
Riko Suzuhara (鈴原りこ) is a 30-year-old gravure idol who is also apparently a certified and practicing caregiver.
She could use those nursing skills to intimate effect in the bedroom, no doubt. Just imagine what she could do with those firm hands of hers!
A little later than most gradols, Suzuhara has got a decent boost to her career with the release of her debut photo book, coming out on September 1 from Kodansha. (She didn't make her gravure debut until age 26.)
As a promo, Weekly Gendai recently published some preview images showcasing the photo book, which is an ambitious nude ...
Maki Makie (マキエマキ) has been working since the early 1990s as a freelance commercial photographer.
Now aged 56, she gained a whole new following when she began taking self-portraits in 2015 and repositioning herself as a "selfie jukujo" (自撮り熟女) model.
This fame has had some unexpected consequences, as she revealed in a long interview with Bunshun.
Her self-portraits revel in a Showa-era atmosphere. Often shot in sketchy or remote locations (like old, rundown resorts or empty shopping streets), they mix humor with the erotic. She is currently exhibiting her work in ...
Our friends at Kanojo Toys, the internet's number one destination for all things adult about Japan, have let us know that they are having a big sale to celebrate Mother's Day.
You can get 20% off any order, whether that's MILF and sexy mama toys (which are some of our favorites) or anything else you fancy, from dolls to DVDs, dildos, and more. The sale runs a full week from today, May 6, through next Friday, May 13.
Just use the aptly named code HOTMOM when you order to claim your ...
A reader recently chided us for not writing about the Yumi Sugimoto's return to gravure (though we did post pics on tumblr). The truth is, even with "gravure comebacks," there are simply too many idols to keep track of, let alone write about in detail on these digital pages.
But here's one comeback that is certainly worthy of note.
Yuka Hirata (38) made a very welcome return to our lives with her first Weekly Playboy gravure shoot in 14 years, first published in the March 19 issue of the magazine.
Now on the cusp of 40 and steeped in jukujo territory like a finely aged wine, the former ...
It's common enough to read reports about male celebrities dating women a decade or more their junior. What about the ladies?
The actress Chiharu Niiyama is now 41. She married a famous baseball coach in 2004, gave birth to a daughter in 2006, and then divorced in 2014. Along with small acting roles, she has continued to maintain a public profile, most recently through social media.
Last year, to mark her fortieth birthday and twenty-fifth year as an actor, she did a swimsuit gravure shoot for the first time in two decades. The results were jaw-dropping, as we wrote at the time.
No doubt ...
Is it something in the air? A kind of "comeback vapor" that's encouraging all these lovely ladies to re-enter the limelight?
Another one has come out of the woodwork: in the wake of high-profile comebacks by the likes of Yukina Kinoshita, Shizuka Nakamura, and Ai Shinozaki, we are very pleased to welcome the return of Shoko Nakagawa.
The 36-year-old tarento, voice actress, and singer is celebrating 20 years of her showbiz career with a new photo book.
Famously short at 155 cm (a smidge over 5 feet!) and a proud owner of a "duck-bill mouth," the cutie and firm fan favorite has been ...
She teased. The mainstream media lapped it up. She delivered. Now the publisher is looking to see the impact on the sales figures.
The former top fashion model Yukina Kinoshita has attempted her comeback with a page straight out of Angelica Michibata's book: when in doubt, take off your clothes.
As we continue to revel in a wave of nostalgia with recent gravure comebacks by the likes of Shizuka Nakamura and Ai Shinozaki -- likewise, nude or semi-nude -- we were intrigued by this slightly different case, in which the model Kinoshita, after being dropped by her agency over the celebrity's ...
Welcome back, Shizuka Nakamura. We've missed you.
We can't think of the last time that we saw a new shoot by the former top gradol. Thankfully, building on the momentum of her role in the high-profile Netflix adultery drama Fishbowl Wives, in which she appears in a sex scene, Shizuka Nakamura has returned to her first career: gravure.
Shizuka Nakamura appears in the March 25 issue of weekly magazine Friday with a nine-page, winter-onsen-themed shoot. Now aged 33 and as a slim as ever (if anything, a bit slimmer than before?), the Kyoto native has matured into a sensual jukujo. (If we're ...
Put the media's obsession with youth to one side. Japanese women, we can attest by direct experience, are still very attractive in their forties.
As noted before on this blog, former TV announcer Mariko Seyama has spent years tantalizing us with her body, before finally showing her breasts at the age of 41.
After enjoying the shots of her nipples visible through see-through clothing from her photo book, "Milk," released last year, we found more nude pictures from a magazine shoot.
Sure, she's shown off her naked butt before, but these are very nice and really flaunt her newly slimmed-down ...
