Once one of the most famous idols in Japan, Mariko Shinoda has divorced her husband of four years. The 37-year-old announced the news on Instagram.
A former AKB48 singer who later branched out into acting, Shinoda married an entrepreneur three years her junior in 2019 and gave birth to a daughter in 2020.
As reported on this blog, rumors emerged last year that her marriage was on the rocks due to her alleged adultery. Her husband apparently took their child away from her for a time.
The divorce follows a mediation process due to the alleged infidelity. In Japan, the aggrieved spouse can ...
People bemoan the lack of women in Japanese politics but we suspect this is not the solution.
The NHK Party, a fringe people whose aim is to "protect" the Japanese population again the titular public broadcaster, has gone through its umpteenth name change, now becoming the Seijika Joshi 48 To, or the Politician Girls 48 Party.
No prizes for guessing, the name (abbreviated to SJJ49) is a cheeky reference to AKB48, and yes, the candidates are all female.
Note our neutral vocabulary -- though the party itself has used joshi, or "girl," meaning the wannabe lawmakers are very young woman (and ...
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. ...
Hot on the heels of the revelations over Mariko Shinoda's marital problems, allegedly caused by her infidelity, comes news of the nuptial dilemmas of another former AKB48 idol.
Kana Kobayashi is now aged 31 and seemed to have it all. Last March, she announced that she had married a famous investor and given birth to a child.
But then on January 16, she announced on social media that she was already divorced.
In fact, her husband had "another wife." If that wasn't bad enough, he was arrested in October on charges of investment fraud, sparking an online backlash against her.
Her husband ...
AKB48's power has waned of late and it takes a scandal to make us sit up and take notice (though the recent sex scandals involving Nana Okada and Yuiri Murayama, culminating in the former quitting the group, added a little frisson to an otherwise dull media landscape).
Instead, we continue to follow what happens to the many members of the supergroup after they graduate. Though the majority vanish into the post-idol ether, a lucky few carve out careers in acting or TV, some keep on doing modeling and gravure work, and a small yet notable number move into porn.
Makiho Tatsuya ...
We love parody -- and so does both the Japanese adult toys industry and the porn industry.
But when does spoofing go too far?
The comedian/YouTuber Chikuwa, who has over 180,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, was recently forced to apologize after she mocked the ex-porn star Kirara Asuka about having plastic surgery.
The controversy started on November 14, when Chikuwa posted a video in which she did an impression of Kirara Asuka. The former adult video idol, however, was less than amused, and tweeted that she was beginning legal action.
Chikuwa then responded with an apology video ...
Hong Kong have cracked down on foreign sex workers, arresting numerous women on October 17.
According to local news reports, they included the former Japanese porn star Noa Aizawa (愛沢のあ), who has been working as a prostitute from a hotel in the city.
Police have targeted a prostitution ring that was promoting Aizawa's services as a sex worker on social media by using her past adult videos as promotional material. Along with Aizawa, another woman arrested at the hotel was from Thailand. They both entered Hong Kong on travel visas.
In all, 16 women were arrested in a series of ...
There is something of a minor trend among gravure idols to emphasize their academic background. If they come from a prestigious or famous college, this is often made a significant part of their appeal.
And so it was when Serina Fukui first burst onto the gravure scene a few years ago. The pharmacy student at Keio University -- one of the most prestigious private colleges in Japan -- was praised for her curvy charms and her brains. And it was the latter that made the former even better.
Having graduated from Keio, Fukui now works as a regular pharmacist in Tokyo but has continued her ...
The afterlives of idols is an ongoing theme of this blog. What happens to those music and gravure stars after they call it quits?
Some, of course, go into porn, like Yotsuha Kominato (Rikako Inoue).
Others, like AKB48's Risa Naruse (Haruna Aisaka), marry a celebrity.
Many go on to do ordinary jobs.
Here's a slightly more unusual take on that: Manaka Shida, formerly of Keyakizaka46 (now called Sakurazaka46 since 2020), is now a Ginza hostess.
Of course, it's well known that many adult video and gravure idols are doing hostessing on the side anyway. Some have also announced this publicly ...
We have spilled much digital ink on this blog talking about what happens to idols from AKB48 and its sister groups, taking an interest (for obvious reasons) especially in the young ladies who go on to have careers in porn.
But what about those same singers-turned-porn stars after they are done with their adult video careers? For some, it's a short stint in the competitive world of JAV. For others, like Yua Mikami, they enjoy years at the very top of the industry.
But all things must come to an end. What do they do next?
Well, in the case of former AKB48 idol Risa Naruse (who worked in JAV ...
