The gravure comebacks are arriving thick and fast. The end of the year is turning into a bit of a nostalgia blitz. Just after Chinatsu Wakatsuki's return to gravure after a 19-year gap and similar highly anticipated comebacks by the likes of Rina Aizawa and Rina Koike, here's another lady who used to be a staple of gravure magazines. Serina, formerly of AKB48 spin-off group SDN48, was a big part of our lives in the early 2010s. SDN48, as readers with long memories may recall, was a short-lived music idol group formed to be a sexier version of AKB48. It failed to catch on and disbanded in ...

She's back. And though in the interim, there have been thousands of Japanese gravure and music idols to keep us more than entertained, we didn't realize how much we missed the slinky charms of former SDN48 idol Serina (芹那) until we saw her again. And we see a lot of her this time. Since in her first photo book release in 10 years, Serina has gone semi-nude -- showing off her more mature and experienced, 36-year-old body. She graduated SDN48 -- remember, the sexier version of AKB48? -- way back in 2012, after which we heard little about her. Now she's making a jukujo comeback with a ...

SDN48 was the short-lived "sexy" version of AKB48. Although the smaller sister group had its fans, it ultimately only lasted three years perhaps because, with so many regular gravure idols out there, it didn't seem to have a point. The popularity of AKB48 et al with a certain demographic rests on how they are "innocently" sexy and not so overt, making SDN48 just seem like a cheap gravure group. SDN48's members have gone on to have varied careers but their initial entry into a more overtly sexy idol group at least prepared some for future naked photo shoots. Machiko Tezuka, for example, had ...