In a recent interview with Spa!, Japanese porn star Marina Shiraishi (白石茉莉奈) discussed some of the background to her highly successful career.

Shiraishi made her debut back in 2013 and is now 38 years old, making her a jukujo mature performer.

But many people are not perhaps aware that she is married and has a child, both from before her entry in the industry.

It’s more common for JAV performers to marry after they retire and those who do marry during their careers can end in divorce. “I thought I was an unusual case,” she admits.

Her son is now 15 years old — and we truly hope does not look up his mom online!

She used to work in the entertainment industry as a teen model but got married young and then worked part-time, including in a phone shop.

Why did she then choose to launch a career in porn?

“The lack of sex I was having with my husband was a big reason. As a woman, it was necessary in a sexual sense.”

We are a little suspicious of this because it sounds a little too conveniently like a promotional “angle” or even a JAV plot scenarios — that a woman was so horny and dissatisfied with her sexless marriage that she had to launch a career in porn. On the other hand, if true, her husband was the silliest man in the world!

Her own mother found out when she spotted the boxes of her first photo book (published in 2013) under the bed. They then called a family meeting where her mother cried and her father didn’t speak for an hour.

Her son found out in fifth grade of elementary school when an older kid teased him. “You know what your mom does for a living? That’s how you were born!”

After Shiraishi confessed to her son, he accepted it and was able to argue back with these other kids that he was born before her debut.

As for her husband, it seems Shiraishi is still married but they don’t live together.

According to the interview, he was always posted in the United States for work, only returning two or three times a year. “I really do love my husband,” she says, but he’s more like a close friend now. And he apparently doesn’t know about her porn. “I don’t think he’s found out yet.”

And how long will she continue to appear in porn?

“I want to tell my fans that though I found a way to solve my sexless marriage, I will still keep performing!”

The photographer Beniko has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a follow-up photo book to her 2023 publication about Japan’s disappearing old red-light districts (yukaku, akasen).

Beniko is herself a former sex worker at a soapland in Yoshiwara, the famous red-light district in east Tokyo that was a booming licensed pleasure quarter during the Edo period. A single mother in her early fifties, she taught herself to use a camera from the age of 48.

She has given guided tours of Yoshiwara and taken portraits of porn stars, strippers, and Yoshiwara soaplands.

Her photography project has seen her journey to about 150 places around Japan, documenting the local sex trade before it disappears or changes.

She is also active on her YouTube channel, where she posts videos about red-light district history.

The crowdfunding campaign launched this month and is running until the end of January. It has already achieved its target. At the time of writing, with 84 days still to go, it has reached 221% of its goal and funding from 152 people.

Judging by the publicity images, the photos have a dreamy quality that has the familiar “floating world” visual style often associated with Edo-era Yoshiwara, and emphasize reds and such classic erotic colors. We’re not sure how much attention the book pays to the negative aspects — historical and contemporary — of the red-light districts, though perhaps photography is not the best medium for that anyway.

An issue with such an elegiac, almost nostalgic project is that may sentimentalize or glamorize what is a complex and problematic social phenomenon. On the other hand, Beniko certainly has the right to do this, given her own personal stake in Yoshiwara.

As sex work services shift online, and areas like Yoshiwara and Kabukicho undergo gentrification, the red-light districts are disappearing.

Central parts of Kabukicho are now full of tourists (and runaways). You are perhaps more likely to find a foreign tourist in Yoshiwara than a streetwalker. When we walked through Tobita Shinchi in Osaka a few years, it was deserted.

The situation is even grimmer in regional cities, which are affected by the aging population. The old strip clubs and cabarets, for instance, are vanishing.

Arguably, all the urban love hotel clusters (Okubo/Kabukicho, Dogenzaka, Uguisudani) are de facto red-light districts, since they are still very actively used by sex workers and clients, even if they arrange their meeting online. Likewise, an area like Okubo Park has emerged as a new type of red-light district, perhaps just a flagrant and carnivalesque as Yoshiwara was — albeit without a license (hence the police crackdown).

Like prostitution, red-light districts never go away completely, they just evolve.

The founder of Japanese video hosting site FC2, Riyo Takahashi, once ran unsuccessfully for election in Japan’s upper house.

His campaign platform was to “crush mosaic censorship,” referring to the pixellation that covers genitalia in Japanese porn to protect producers and retailers from prosecution under Japan’s obscenity law, which is usually interpreted as drawing the line at showing a penis or vagina. (This same logic is applied to nudity in mainstream movies too.)

Now Takahashi has been arrested by police in Japan when he returned to the country. The 51-year-old was arrested on November 7 by police at Kansai Airport when he came back to Japan from South Korea.

The charge is suspicion of violating the law against the display of obscene electromagnetic records through FC2. Specifically, it relates to the uploading of “obscene videos” on FC2 in Osaka in June 2013.

Boasting around 14 million users, FC2 is a website notorious (or perhaps, beloved) for hosting uncensored adult content. It has long attracted police attention. Takahashi launched the site in 1999.

The charge of displaying obscene electromagnetic records was also used previously to prosecute a man who employed AI to de-censor pixellated porn.

Takahashi has denied the charge, arguing that his company is based in the United States and so not bound by Japanese law.

However, around 95% of the content on FC2 is Japanese. Kyoto police believe that they can pursue this case because the content is managed by a Japanese corporate entity.

An arrest warrant was issued in 2015. Takahashi has long evaded the law by living overseas for around 10 years. He was put on an international wanted list at the request of Japanese police.

His exile abroad meant he was unable to attend his father’s funeral last year. It seems that Takahashi has finally returned to face the music to either clear his name or suck up the punishment, which is likely to be a suspended sentence if he shows remorse in court.

His younger brother, who was the CEO of FC2, was charged under the same law and received a sentence of 2.5 years, suspended for four years.

We are used to Japanese politicians, both male and female, having affairs with hostesses, party workers, foreign musicians, and even other lawmakers. But what about gravure idols?

In a case that recalls Kensuke Miyazaki, who had advocated for fathers to take paternity leave but was caught having an affair with a gravure model while his wife (another lawmaker) was giving birth, a tabloid has broken a scoop on Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki, who is alleged to have been having an affair with a former gradol.

Flash has revealed that the 55-year-old Tamaki has been seeing a woman at a hotel in Takamatsu, Kagawa — his constituency. The hardworking tabloid then tracked down the pair at a Shinjuku wine bar.

The woman is 39-year-old Miyuki Koizumi (小泉みゆき — not to be confused with another Miyuki Koizumi, a fashion model who name has different characters, 小泉深雪). She has worked in gravure and is today a PR ambassador for Kagawa.

Tamaki today gave a press conference apologizing and admitting to the affair.

Tamaki’s party is one of the reasons why Japan didn’t have a working government until today, when Shigeru Ishiba was selected (again). In last month’s lower house election, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party did badly and lost its majority, and Tamaki’s moderate conservative party is likely to play an instrumental role in any official or de facto coalition that finally emerges from the protracted negotiations.

Though his party is still relatively small, Tamaki has been a very public figure in recent years.

Readers will also remember Tamaki as the head of the party that threw Mari Takahashi under the bus when the first whiff of scandal emerged about her past as a hostess. She was forced to withdraw her candidacy and suffered terrible online hounding. She very sadly later took her own life.

The story is also more than just a cut-and-dried case of adultery. Tamaki has previously asserted that politicians having extramarital affairs are bad because of potential security breaches. Netizens have been quick to dig up the video of him earlier this year talking about the risk of honey traps and how he’d once avoided one in a foreign country.

In general, though, most male politicos recover quickly from these adultery scandals. Female lawmakers, though, tend to struggle and often end up resigning or losing their next election.

The Japanese female TV announcers who present the news and other shows do pretty well, but some of them branch off to pursue even more successful careers in other fields: as a general celebrity (Crystal Takigawa), as a fashion model (Kasumi Mori), as an actress (Minami Tanaka), or even as a gravure idol (Akane Takiyama).

Hoping to emulate these predecessors, the former Fuji TV announcer Nagisa Watanabe has made her first foray into gravure in the current issue of Weekly Post.

The 27-year-old left the channel at the end of August after a period of illness suffering from PTSD.

A graduate of the prestigious Keio University — generally, most female announcers attend well-regarded private colleges — Nagisa Watanabe’s gravure debut is very modest, especially compared to her peers Yukari Oshima, Asako Tani, and Mariko Seyama.

But we can hope that her gravure debut enjoys a good reception and, health permitting, Nagisa Watanabe continues this new line of work with more adventurous shoots.

Famously, most guys want to marry girls who are like TV announcers, and some even go so as far to attend certain colleges like Aoyama Gakuin, Sophia University, or Meiji Gakuin with the hope of hooking up with a future TV star.

Over the years, we have seen a wide range of inspirations for masturbator toys, from numerous parodies of franchises to things like a hand grenade, heart, human brain, milk carton, or sea anemone.

Sticking with the latter’s marine theme, the spiral valve (scroll valve) is a part of a shark’s digestive tract that prevents backflow of liquid — and it has now inspired not one but two Japanese pocket pussy toys!

The corkscrew-shaped portion of the intestine is sometimes called a Tesla valve because it resembles a valve designed by the famed inventor.

The aptly named Shark Spiral Valve Pussy, available in soft and hard versions, is a new release from leading adult brand Magic Eyes and sold globally from top adult retailer Kanojo Toys.

The unique hentai onahole is a collaboration with adult goods designer CyberIguana, and comes with lubricant and a postcard of erotic art.

The medium-sized masturbator has an unusual entrance with large skin folds and a prominent clitoris “hooding” the vagina.

The inside is where things get really interesting: seven spirals modeled on the shark digestive valve that, as Kanojo Toys puts it, “enwrap and entangle your penis, refusing to let go until you release your full payload of semen inside.”

If this sounds a bit gimmicky, it is — and it’s not. Those seven ridges put lots of pressure on your penis and you pound the shark girl’s pussy. Squeeze the outer sleeve to enjoy the sensation of that pressure even more!

Both versions are hefty and realistically textured, but offer varying degrees of firmness in terms of the fit.

Get the Shark Spiral Valve Pussy onaholes now from Kanojo Toys.

Continuing a time-honored tradition of using up-and-coming celebrities for its models, the leading Japanese lingerie brand Peach John’s new choice of model is announcer Kasumi Mori.

Mori has recently established herself as a model and general celebrity, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Minami Tanaka, who launched a new career as an actress on the back of a bestselling photo book. Mori also released a debut photo book earlier this year, which revels in her shapely butt and pale skin, and has remained in the public eye through regular TV appearances.

Her shoot for Peach John could also have come from her photo book, which likewise featured pics of the model in revealing white and blue lingerie.

Here are some samples from the 29-year-old’s ravishing Peach John shoot.

For more pics of Kasumi Mori, including from her latest Peach John shoot, see our tumblr page.

Previous Peach John models include Fumika Baba, Aika Sawaguchi, Haruna Kojima, Miyuki Watanabe, Saeko, Anne Nakamura, and Elaiza Ikeda, mostly when these ladies were on their ascendancy to full stardom.

The rival brand Ravijour’s choice of models is more adventurous. It includes the porn star Minamo.

It also likes to use slinky biracial models, like Sonoya Mizuno and Elli Rose.

The revelation that the head of Japan’s third largest opposition party, Yuichiro Tamaki, has been having an affair with a former gravure model, Miyuki Koizumi, sparked a media frenzy at the start of this week.

The tabloids have continued to pump out stories about the affair, much of which is just speculation.

Of course, adulterous politicians is a story as old as the hills but this one has has longer legs because Tamaki is so prominent right now (his party arguably holds the keys to keeping the minority Liberal Democratic Party government in power) — and this is surely why the tabloids went after him in the first place.

It’s also helped by the optics: Miyuki Koizumi is an attractive woman who likes to dress in miniskirts and tight tops.

This, too, has prompted a lot of mean-spirited criticism that she is too old, at 39, for such clothing, or that she only has this one outfit because all the paparazzi pics from her clandestine meetings with Tamaki seem to show her wearing the same attire. We think she looks great and if you’ve got it, flaunt it!

Others have said that the whole story has been overblown, that it’s a private matter for Tamaki and his wife, and has no bearing on policy.

That argument, though, becomes harder to countenance when netizens dig up recent footage of Tamaki claiming he has made efforts to avoid honey traps, and even a much older comment in which he promises never to have an extramarital affair.

Curiously, people have also dug up old content by Koizumi — and this has sent her photo book racing to the top of the charts.

A photo book that she released in 2011, when she was around 26, is now a bestseller on Amazon. It helps that it’s incredibly cheap (free if you have Kindle Unlimited or just ¥198 otherwise). The 56-page, relatively low-budget book features Koizumi in a range of sexy office lady costumes and poses.

Sadly, though, it probably won’t mean much money for her at a time when her job prospects and future look bleak.

The whole affair has highlighted the different standards to which we hold men and women, especially when it’s a powerful man. Tamaki still has his job (for now) and likely won’t face severe political consequences for his affair. Koizumi is apparently about to lose her job as a Takamatsu tourism ambassador and will probably struggle to find employment, and has had to delete all her social media.

Perhaps she could embrace the notoriety and make a gravure comeback, remaking herself as a jukujo femme fatale who seduces older men?!

How many idols find true happiness? Of course, the majority who do tend to retire and live the rest of their lives in quiet obscurity.

The ones who remain in the news often do so because their post-idol lives are filled with hiccups, personal or professional. If you just read the celebrity news, you might be forgiven for thinking that all former music and gravure idols were divorced or rocked by one scandal or other.

Nonetheless, we suspect that divorce rates among idols is a bit higher than the general populace, perhaps because their jobs and the closed nature of the idol industry means they are not always socially well-adjusted and may struggle to meet “regular” people.

As we reported last year, Kana Kobayashi announced her quickie divorce from her husband, who was under arrest for fraud.

The 33-year-old is a former member of AKB48, joining the group right back in the mid-2000s near the very start. She remained in the group until 2016.

Her post-AKB48 personal life became a bit of a whirlwind. She married in July 2021, gave birth in March 2022, and divorced at some point afterwards (which she announced in January 2023).

The idol is known for her candor, being one of the few who openly admits to having had plastic surgery (and which might explain the angular shape of her face today).

Because her ex-husband apparently took all her money, she was left penniless and raising a child by herself.

To make ends meet, she turned to the means she knew best: her female charms.

Kobayashi started working as a hostess in Ginza at the club produced by retired adult video star Kirara Asuka.

But on November 14, the single mom announced that she would no longer do hostess work, and had quit the club. She said on social media that she now just wants to live a peaceful life with her child.

Her Instagram, at any rate, suggests a woman who looks younger than her years and seems to be living her best life with trips to Disneyland and Hawaii. It doesn’t indicate someone having financial trouble (nor someone tied down by a young child), so perhaps she was doing very well for herself in Ginza.

Which then begs the question: How will she earn money now?

Hot Powers is best known as a retailer but it also produces its own toys to great acclaim and success.

One example is the high-quality Favorite Things Hole, which take the best elements of a masturbator and packs them into a single toy.

It was created in collaboration with the YouTuber efty, who is known for innovative use of 3D printers to make stuff.

We were exploring efty’s YouTube channel and came across this video made of a visit to Hot Powers’ factory in Saitama, which probably marked the start of their creative collaboration.

We once visited the factory of renowned sex doll manufacturer Orient Industry, but most toy manufacturers’ facilities are not located so accessibly.

As such, we were interested to see inside the Hot Powers workshop. Though it’s a short video at under three minutes, it highlights the almost mundane reality of making sex toys: they begin life as various colorful materials in tubs and cups, as rubbery parts in a bucket, and then are heated and stirred in pots to get the right consistency, before being placed in molds to set and, finally, their all-important inner holes created with a kind of plunger tool, and then the finished toy is pulled out of the mold.

Perhaps spare a thought for the hardworking artisans who make your pleasure a reality the next time you reach for a sex toy!

Hot Powers’ line of toys are available internationally, along with literally thousands of other great Japanese sex toys, from our friends at Kanojo Toys.

Who’s your favorite gravure idol? Who do you like to see grace the covers of the tabloid magazines every month?

These are the questions constantly running through our minds on an almost daily basis — and we’re clearly not alone.

If you want to let the world know which lady you love best, you can now do so via a contest run by gravure magazine Weekly Friday.

The Grademy Award seeks to find Asia’s top gradol. Celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Friday, voting is now open online via the dedicated website.

Friday is taking a broad definition of gradol — basically anyone who does gravure shoots, from full gravure models to general celebrities, fashion models, cosplayers, cheerleaders, race queens, and more.

It also says “regardless of gender” for some reason. Are we allowed to vote for guys or trans models?!

Voting is open until December 16.

There are 232 candidates to choose from. That’s right — two hundred and thirty-two! That’s a lot of lovely ladies.

But you can only vote for one!

The candidates includes “classics” who have been around for years like Sayaka Isoyama, Rina Koike, and Nami Iwasaki, hotties in their forties like Shiori Usui, and newcomers like Nene Shida, Runa Toyoda and Aika Sawaguchi.

The oldest entry on the list is probably Tomoko Nakajima, who is now in her fifties.

We were surprised, though, to find that Hina Kikuchi is not among the candidates, despite being one of the biggest names in gravure right now. Kisumi Amau is another notable absence, as is Umi Shinonome.

Some of the ladies on the list have since, we understand, retired from gravure, such as Tomomi Morisaki and Yurina Yanagi, either officially or de facto.

There are also some non-Japanese models among the candidates, though it’s predominantly Japanese, so the claim to find “Asia’s no. 1” gradol might be challenged by people who like Southeast Asian, Chinese, or Korean models.

Oh no. One of those surveys has appeared.

Despite our best efforts to celebrate the diverse and exciting sexual landscape in Japan, these perennial surveys reporting on sexlessness in the country get lots more attention and tarnish the reputation (probably made worse by our own regurgitation of them on these digital pages).

Of course, decline in sexual activities between long-term partners is common across the world and so is a decline in dating and sex among the young, though the reporting on it in Japan tends to veer toward the orientalist.

This latest survey is a bit different, because it’s a global one conducted by the France-based Ipos.

People in different countries were asked if they were satisfied with their romantic and sexual lives. Japan placed last among the 31 countries — for the second year in a row!

According to the Ipos branch in Japan, this means that locals are “clearly dissatisfied” with their love lives and relationships.

The survey was carried out online with 24,269 adults from 31 countries.

Participants were asked if they felt satisfied with their romantic and sexual lives, if they felt loved, and if they felt satisfied in their relationships with partners or spouses.

Japan had a satisfaction rate of just 37% — the lowest. It was somewhat higher for the rate of people who said they felt loved, at 51%, but it was still the lowest. The result suggests that almost half of couples have at least one partner who doesn’t feel loved, which is a bit sad.

Japan was “beaten” to the bottom rank in the final category — satisfaction with their partner or spouse — by South Korea, though Japan still placed second to last, making it a bad showing for East Asia.

Where were people happiest in their romantic and sexual lives? Apparently India and Mexico, 76% of people said they were satisfied.

Ipsos Japan relied on familiar tropes to explain the low ranking: it “may be partially due to the fact that Japanese people are not good at clearly expressing their romantic feelings and attitudes,” the researchers said, according to media reports.

You might think the the younger Japan were getting more sex and feeling more satisfied, but the survey suggested that Generation Z were actually more dissatisfied than baby boomers and millennials, though it could be that they just expect more and better sex than their older peers. Or are the screens making them unable to achieve satisfying IRL experiences?

Back in 2019, we lamented the (fortunately temporary) closure of Osaka’s red-light district Tobita Shinchi in a bid to stave off a crackdown by the authorities ahead of the G-20 summit. (Because the 2020 Olympics ended up being held in 2021 and with basically no visitors, the Tokyo Games ultimately did not involve as much of a crackdown on porn and sex services as expected.

There’s nothing we hate more than hypocrisy and trying to hide what society is truly like, but Osaka is at it again.

With next year’s expo fast approaching, Osaka police have raided a strip club called the Toyo Show Gekijo in Tenma, in the north of the city, arresting the staff on a charge of public indecency, including the 66-year-old owner.

Toyo Show Gekijo is the the largest strip club in West Japan, seating around 90 people. It opened in 1985 in the area of Osaka just north of the castle. It holds four shows a day (at least, it did until police shut it down) and, according to an NTV report, would make around ¥700,000 in sales a day. Apparently as much as 10% of its customers are foreigners as the tourism continues to boom in Japan. Residents have also complained about the strip club.

Ten members of staff were arrested. The charges stem from allegations that dancers showed their lower genitalia to customers. Showing the naked lower half of the body at a strip club (though it would seem to the whole point) is dangerous as, for curious reasons, the general, rather arbitary interpretation of Japan’s indecency/obscenity law is that it applies only when showing a penis or vulva, hence the pixellation in porn and mainstream movies, but all other nudity is acceptable.

Full-frontal nudity is tolerated for certain kinds of photo books deemed artistic, but a strip show would struggle to make this argument.

Strip clubs are a dying breed in Japan, especially the old cabaret-style ones. It seems that Osaka is determined to stamp them out locally before the world descends on Kansai for the world expo.

We expect this will scare after strip clubs in the area to close during the expo (Toyo Gekijo did during the G20 summit in 2019, for instance).

The expo is unpopular, behind schedule, and massively over budget. As if we didn’t dislike it enough already, this is another reason to go on the list.

It feels like it’s been quite some time since we’ve got excited about a current member of the once-might idol groups like Nogisaka46 or AKB48. Sure, the former members give us plenty of material to wax lyrical about on these digital pages — we’re looking at you, Haruka Kodama and Ruka Kitano — but are we alone in lacking a crush among current members?

Perhaps that’s going to change soon.

Renka Iwamoto (岩本蓮加) is still just 20 years old but a veteran of Nogizaka46, having joined the group way back in 2016.

She’s now developed into a mature young woman, as her debut solo photo book, Itazura na Kaze (Mischievous Wind), amply demonstrates with several semi-nude shoots.

The book came out on November 19 in Japan. Though she’s still maintaining that girl-next-door charm that has won her many fans, the pics of her in skimpy lingerie, swimwear, and naked in the bath reveal a more sensual side to the slinky Tokyo native’s appeal.

Let’s hope she continues this more mature streak in her twenties.

For more, bigger pics of Renka Iwamoto, see our tumblr page.

In her new photo book, 36-year-old Haruna Kojima goes nude with some pics that are going to send her legions of fans’ pulses racing.

We’ve been following Kojiharu’s career ever since her AKB48 days and we are pretty sure this is perhaps her most explicit shoot yet, though it sadly stops short of actual nudity in terms of nipples or full butt (luckily Sayaka Nitori showed us how to do shoots with nipples well earlier this year).

Still doing lingerie modeling despite both her age (approaching 40) and success as an entrepreneur, Haruna’s first photo book in nine years came out at the end of October. It’s a lavish publication, shot in Barcelona and with a lot of money behind the publicity.

Unfortunately, the promo campaign for the release of Kamoshirenai (Maybe) hit a serious snag when she was attacked by a fan outside the venue of a meet-and-greet event last month.

The appearance of these highlights from the photo book should definitely boost sales.

In one shot, Haruna Kojima is in the shower, holding the showerhead so that the spray of water conceals her breast. We see her naked back, side boob, and the top of her ass.

In another pic, she’s looking to the camera with one hand covering her breast in the classic gravure “hand bra” (tebura) pose.

She’s done similar shoots before but with her full arm covering her breasts. Ladies get more confident with age and experience!

Which Japanese adult video stars look like other Japanese celebrities?

Some Japanese porn performers have a striking resemblance to well-known models, idols, actresses, and other celebrities. This is sometimes just coincidence but the likeness is also often ruthlessly exploited in the marketing for certain releases, even to the extent of the choice of performer name.

We listed a few examples below.

Mitsuki Takahata and Minamo.

Minami Minegishi and Asuka Momose.

Kanna Hashimoto and Kanon Kanade (and something tells us that the marketing department was fully aware of the likeness).

Maomi Yuuki and Mami Yuuki. The 2011 DVD cover mimics Yuuki’s famous nude shoot for Anan magazine (another example of JAV’s regular indulgence in parody).

Yuko Oshima and Mio Oshima.

Chiaki Kuriyama and Riku Shiina (Tsubasa Haruya).

Ai Shinozaki and Rika Goto.

This is surely just a small selection of such lookalikes. Which others do you know?

Our friends at Kanojo Toys have launched their Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale.

You can now get 20% off any order until December 4 if you use the promo code BFCM. (A bigger discount is available for newsletter subscribers, so sign up for the newsletter to hear more.)

Kanojo Toys is the biggest Japanese adult toys store shipping internationally, with almost 9,400 products in stock as of writing and with around 30 more added each week.

It offers a wide range of toys for men, including masturbators, dolls, fetish lubes, and hug pillows, and also various toys for women and couples, including BDSM, lingerie, cosplay costumes, and arousal enhancers.

We’ve been checking out some of the latest arrivals and we’re particularly interested to try the Innocent Hips (since we do love some prone bone action), Long Tongue Gyaru Blowjob, Chitsukoki Childhood Friend Seeding Press Pussy, and Schoolgirl on Commuter Train Smell Spray.

Yuka Oki has just graduated STU48, the Setouchi-based version of AKB48, and seems determined to make a name for herself.

And as past members of the AKB and Nogizaka sister groups have demonstrated (most recently Miku Tanaka and Ruka Kitano), stripping off is a surefire way to get attention.

She hasn’t done quite that, but Oki has done probably her sexist shoot yet.

Aptly titled “Breaking Compliance,” Oki’s shoot for Flash sees her switch from music idol to gravure idol with aplomb, wearing a figure-hugging leotard or swimsuit that buttons up along the middle.

The high-cut item really shows off her shapely legs, thighs, and buttocks.

The 24-year-old graduated SKU48 in April this year. Her shoot in the December 10 issue of Flash is accompanied by a digital photo book.

Oki has already released a print photo book, No Swimming Allowed, in April 2023. Let’s hope there are many more to come.

Former Morning Musume music idol Maki Goto has caused a sensation with her new photo book, flos

Many years ago, she did some great semi-nudes shoots (one on a bed showing off her naked side and barely hiding her tits, and another where she lies naked on a sandy beach).

Gomaki, as she is known to fans, married in 2014 and has two kids, but her image was hit by allegations of adultery with her former boyfriend, leading to a public apology in 2019. Her husband sued the boyfriend for several million yen.

She has subsequently made a comeback as a singer and model.

Part of this comeback was her successful photo book Ramus in 2021, where she showed off her butt and side boob.

Now aged 39 but still as slender and cute as ever, flos came out at the end of November and immediately became a trending topic on social media. It’s not hard to see why.

While she hasn’t gone the whole hog and shown us her naked breasts (she didn’t follow in the bold footsteps of Sayaka Nitori), it’s a nude photo book in all but name: her impressively shaped breasts and nipples are clearly visible under her wet clothing. And even when her T-shirt is dry, those perky tits dazzle under the fabric.

In a couple of other shots, she is standing or sitting naked in a onsen hot spring bath and netizens have been zooming in to try to see pubic hair. Is this actually a stealth hair nude?!

There are some nice shots of her butt too, albeit while wearing panties.

It’s a tried-and-tested strategy: strip off to shift copies. It’s working. The initial buzz meant the book already went through three printings even prior to release. And now the internet has practically exploded with people talking about the nudity, so the book will surely go through further print runs.

Goto’s photo book, which is her tenth and celebrates her 25th anniversary in the entertainment industry, continues a trend for such older models and idols to do provocative shoots as they reach the end of their thirties. Other recent examples include former AKB48 idol Haruna Kojima and voice actress Yuka Iguchi.

The book, which was shot in South Korea and Yamagata over the summer and winter, also joins the end-of-year rush of publications. It’s a season in which lots of models and female celebrities release books.

The internet recently went bonkers over the arrival of former Morning Musume idol Maki Goto’s nipples, not least because she is almost 40 and it might be her last hurrah.

But a younger star, 25-year-old Rui Shido (紫藤るい), has set a precedent for doing nudity early on her career with her new photo shoot, which appears in Weekly Friday.

The gravure idol used to be known as Yuuri Rukawa, under which name she worked as a junior idol from the age of eight.

She is also a former cram school teacher, though her shoot reveals assets that surely would have distracted her students, especially the young, horny boys suffering through puberty. Education’s loss is our gain.

Shido’s breasts are apparently an I-cup. We’re not sure about that, but the shoot choice to have wet clothing clinging to and accentuating the shape of her nipples and breasts is a winner at any cup size.

The semi-nude pics are taken from an upcoming photo book, her first, which is set to come out from Kodansha in January. They really show off her slender body and pale skin, coupled with those huge breasts.