Ahead of the release in July of her new photo book, a preview image of Minami Minegishi has come out showing the slinky idol doing the classic semi-nude “hand bra” (tebura) pose.

While pretty tame considering what some AKB48 graduates get up to, this kind of photo shoot has become something of a rite of passage for AKB48 idols.

Haruna Kojima did it, covering her gorgeous pale flesh with her tiny hands. Likewise, Atsuko Maeda has done a tebura and so did Yuko Oshima in a Mika Ninagawa shoot.

Most notoriously, Tomomi Kasai’s tebura was so controversial it led Kodansha to cancel the release of her photo book.

Though once most famous for having sex and shaving her head in penitence, the 23-year-old Minami Minegishi has recently generated headlines for her overweight-to-muscular advertising campaign.

One thing seems sure: though Rino Sashihara may have won the AKB48 “election” this weekend for the second time running, the AKB paymasters are determined to push Minegishi as the new big idol.

A woman who fell asleep on a train woke up to find herself abducted and trapped in the home of a man she did not know.

The 28-year-old company employee from Adachi ward in east Tokyo was allegedly confined between June 4th and June 5th after she fell asleep on a train.

The suspect is 33-year-old Yoshifumi Kurita, a temp from Sagamihara, who was arrested by Kanagawa police on June 18th.

According to police, Kurita is maintaining silence, though there have been five similar cases in the area around where there crime took place.

The victim had been out drinking and was riding on a JR train in Tokyo in the early hours of June 4th when she fell asleep. The next thing she remembers is waking up on a futon in Kurita’s apartment in the morning. He was in the apartment as well, though the woman was able to run away and contact police.

Be careful about falling asleep on a train.

Japanese trains are dangerous places for women despite the female-only carriages. You might easily get groped (perhaps by multiple men) or find your panties have been snapped by the phone camera of a horny fellow passenger. You might even find your skirt has been cut.

And we all remember the case of the man who kissed a sleeping woman on a train.

It reminds us of those notorious pictures of former AKB48 idol Atsuko Maeda being carried home totally drunk — no doubt to wake up in the bed of the man carrying her.

Remember Yasumasa Yonehara? Big a few years ago, he’s the bald Japanese photographer with the habit of taking slutty pictures of slutty girls in hotel rooms.

He’s one of those people who just proves that if you are cocky enough and say you are a photographer, you can get almost any woman to pose for you.

Perhaps that’s why half the male foreigners we seem to meet in Japan claim to be photographers (the other half claim to be DJs).

Yonehara has now turned his attention to swimwear. After all, it is summer.

We have no idea what purpose this new project is meant to serve, but we like the boobies and butts on display.

He “directed” this video of gravure idol Airi Shimizu running on a treadmill with inevitably bouncy results.

Other “running girls” to come apparently include Mai Tsukamoto, Yuki Osaki, Una, Hanami Natsume.

In the past he has also shot gravure idols Anna Konno and Mai Sasaki, which makes him one hell of a lucky man indeed.

To the victor, the spoils!

Back when Mariya Nagao was one of the members of AKB48, we already took something of a liking to her.

But it is since leaving the (faltering) group that she has shined, stripping off to reveal her perfect bikini butt and body.

As we have discussed before, Japanese TV is a tame entity, though livened up by the occasional scene of Nanao in lingerie.

Nagao was recently gracing Japanese television screens to show us what it is like to kiss her in a swimming pool. Naturally, Nagao was wearing slinky swimwear.

The 22-year-old was kissed by Popteen model Koji Konishi on the aptly named TBS show The Last Kiss, which shows Nagao on a “date” in Guam with the man chosen for her by the producers.

The 21-year-old male model had some trouble controlling himself on camera, it seems, since online commentators are convinced he got an erection while filming the scene. What do you think?

We have no idea what this show is supposed to be, though watching from the studio was a series of “experts” including Rino Sashihara, who knows all about kissing and seducing men. One of the older women watching is the ravishing Saki Takaoka, whose birthday suit is surely still as amazing it was when she went fully nude in her twenties.

Yoshiwara was the main red-light district (yukaku) in Edo, the old name for Tokyo. Its legacy continues to resonate today: the area remains full of soaplands and prostitutes, and other parts of the east of the city, such as Ueno, Nippori and Akihabara, are also centers of cheap sex.

That being said, Yoshiwara is gentrifying to a certain extent — and here’s an interesting example, first reported on Spoon Tamago.

But for designer Yayoi Okano, Yoshiwara was more than just a neighborhood known for its sex trade. It was home.

Okano grew up in Yoshiwara where, despite its reputation, people looked out for each other. She recalls her and her friends getting to know the barkers who stood out on the street trying to get male clientele into their establishments. They’d talk to her and her friends, offering them water if they were thirsty.

Last year Okano decided to create a brand of Yoshiwara-inspired souvenirs called Shin-Yoshiwara (shin means “new”). Together with her friend and designer Daisuke Yokoyama, they came up with a fitting logo that proudly represents what Yoshiwara stands for. The pair of female breasts carries the characters of the name inside them, and is simple and classy without being overtly erotic. It’s a brilliant logo that doesn’t run or hide; it stands proud of its heritage.

The recently opened shop, Okano Yayoi Shouten, sells all kinds of items with an erotic, historical style, from old-style fans to hand towels, pens, clothing and more.

The motifs include a smoking oiran, the famous “top courtesans” who dominated the pleasure quarter of Yoshiwara.

What a great idea!

If you’re in Yoshiwara, pop in… before visiting a soapland.

Yoshiwara was established as a yukaku in 1617, one of the many ways the clever feudal government kept a tight lease on the population by giving them controlled outlets for fun. By the late 19th century, there were thousands of women working there as courtesans.

Though the akasen red-light districts thrived during the American occupation after the licensed brothels were closed, prostitution was made formally illegal in 1956, leading to the situation today where everything and anything is available — but not penetrative sex (at least, officially that is).

Yoshiwara today corresponds roughly to Senzoku 4-chome in Taito ward.

Tenga is back — and we mean they are BACK.

Because it’s return of the Flip Hole, Tenga’s biggest hit of all.

After the Black, White, Silver and Red versions, followed by the more compact Flip Lite (aka the Flip Air), where was there still to go with this amazing concept?

Somewhere, actually — and somewhere that feels might fine when you are there.

Behold, the Tenga Flip Zero.

The Tenga Flip Zero is all you’d expect from the Apple of the Japanese adult toy industry: it looks just incredible and, as per the key design for this series, “splits” right open so you can apply lube inside easily and also clean and dry it effectively. The casing is now a semi-transparent white

Made with the same enhanced gel materials as the recent Premium Tenga Onacup series, the Flip Zero has an incredible array of features to surprise you: first encounter the “biting dome” as you push in; then slide over the “gear wall” that leads onto the clenching “triple chain gate”, before finally finishing you off with the “layered end orb”. Check out the tight, clenching entrance, too.

There will probably be an English-language video at some point in the near future. For now, here is the Japanese version.

The Tenga Flip Zero is available internationally from Kanojo Toys.

The revolution in male pleasure continues.

Yuki Aoyama and his Schoolgirl Complex series has fast become the pseudo-artistic erotic photography phenomenon of the 2010s.

If you have a thing for waif-like, slender angels, then Aoyama’s work is for you.

Well, School Complex 4 has come out and this time the theme is schoolgirls “flipping” each other’s skirts — a theme also explored in calendars, of course. As Kenny Everett said: All in the best possible taste!

To celebrate, there is an exhibition at Yukai Hands Gallery, in the Waseda area, from July 22nd to July 31st.

We love how a section of the Japanese photography and art scene has no problem with what would be decried as pure fetish art in other countries. Photography is inherently voyeuristic but when you have a male photographer who has made his whole career out of this kind of images, many feminists would be horrified. Here it is “cute” and acceptable as mainstream, and popular with girls too.

Last year, an exhibition dedicated to panchira (panty shot) attracted 20,000 visitors in a week.

While Yuki Aoyama stops short at actual panchira (is that the next book?), we predict the exhibition and new release will be hits.

Sometimes it can be hard to hold back. You see a hot girl in close proximity and you may have to force yourself not to try to grope her. Being under the influence of alcohol doesn’t help either.

What if this was a sultry gravure model?!

But it it’s okay if it’s a professional, right? This “bust booster” expert has helped 30,000 women increase their bust size by massage techniques. She demonstrated this on Japanese television with gravure model Anna Konno, whose breasts are already more than impressive.

In other words, Anna Konno had her F-cup breasts groped on TV for the benefit of the viewing nation.

We love the fact that the expert is this old woman, who gets to travel the country putting her hands on women’s breasts.

Here’s a before and after: can you tell the difference? Has Anna Konno’s not inconsiderable bust improved?

Personally we prefer breast groping on Japanese TV when it’s done for charity and with already men and porn stars.

Japanese porn star Nozomi Aso has been arrested on drug charges, according to the July 21st Shukan Jitsuwa weekly tabloid that went on sale today.

The 27-year-old AV star is a graduate of Senshu University and made her debut in 2012. She left Soft on Demand in 2014 and then joined MAXING. Since then she has switched again to chacha promotion. She appeared in many releases in 2015 and 2016. One of her films from December last year was aptly called “Fucking Machine Sex Nozomi Aso”. As well as enjoying commercial success in Japan, the slender actress with a G-cup is also popular in China. She appeared in the Hong Kong film Naked Ambition 2, released in 2014.

According to the Shukan Jitsuwa, she was arrested when drugs were confiscated from her apartment last month. Why police searched her apartment is currently unknown. Perhaps they got a tip-off, but then who had Nozomi Aso annoyed to justify such a targeting?

On her official Twitter feed, the last post is from June 19th.

As we know, drugs are rife in both the mainstream entertainment world, as the recent arrest of Noboru Takachi showed, as well as the gravure and music idol scene. Needless to say, hostesses and AV stars are also often users of recreational drugs, not surprisingly given that their lifestyles are so closely linked to organized crime.

Previously Minako Komukai was arrested on drug charges, and then became a stripper and porn star. However, we cannot think of a recent porn star of Nozomi Aso’s fame who was ever arrested for drugs, making this a not inconsiderable scandal. The mainstream porn world is bound by the rules of the market and is controlled by several large companies and studios like Soft on Demand, much like the regular entertainment agencies. While there is a lot of dubious activities that go on behind the scenes, including coercion and trafficking, on the surface the industry operates like any other respectable one.

The Japanese AV industry is under a lot of pressure right now.

Just today we heard that top porn star Nozomi Aso has been arrested on drug charges.

Then there have been all the reports and criticisms about alleged coercion and exploitation in the industry, which even led to the arrest of porn industry staff and an official industry apology last month.

Now the arrests have led to new charges. This time, the president of production company CA, Yoshihide Murayama, is one of 52 people — 9 actresses 24 male performers, plus crew — accused of indecent exposure during a shoot a camping site in Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, on September 30th and October 1st, 2013. This is an unprecedented number of arrests for such a case, indicating that the police are possibly cracking down on the porn industry.

The woman who accused Murayama of coercion was one of the performers in the film, which apparently led to these secondary charges. The shoot involved talent agency Marks Japan, whose former president was among the arrests in June, and also the production company CA.

We haven’t seen the AV in question but we can easily imagine the genre: the kind of film where a handful of women are chased or enslaved by multiple men (often played by amateur performers). These types of outdoor shoots are risky and usually done at private resorts to avoid charges of indecent exposure.

Murayama denies the charges, claiming that the section of the camping site was sealed off to prevent ordinary members of the public seeing what they were doing. The male and female performers all admit the charges, so presumably will escape with light fines.

Who says politics is boring? Politics encourages you to masturbate!

Yes, you read that right.

Tenga is never one to miss a marketing opportunity. Previous gimmicks include an advertising contest, a business card holder, and a beach cleanup event.

This weekend it’s the House of Councillors election in Japan and it’s special because it’s the first time that 18- and 19-year-olds can vote.

To encourage the newly enfranchised youngsters to head to the voting booth on July 10th, Tenga is giving away 100 Pocket Tenga sex toys, which is probably the brand’s most convenient way to jack off.

To enter the competition, just tweet your photo of your completed voting certificate with the hashtag #投票行ってTENGAゲット.

You have to be 18 or 19 years old, though. Tenga will also ask for a photo of your ID.

If you were born after April 2nd, 1997, then you get Tenga Condoms, rather then the Pocket Tenga. The logic seems to be that high schoolers should only masturbate, while graduates get to have sex (safely).

Tenga’s reticence to encourage high schoolers to have sex may have something to do with the recent case of the male high school student who was expelled for having sex.

Was there ever been a better reason to head to the voting booth on July 10th? Perhaps the opposition parties should start offering free sex toys to encourage young supporters.

Rejoice! If you are a little overweight, you can still enjoy the unique charms of the naked restaurant.

Japan’s first nudist eatery, The Amrita, opens on July 29th. Frankly it’s so hot and sweaty right now that my home it a permanent nudist camp.

Originally it had made a big thing out of how you couldn’t be more then 15kg (33 lbs) over the average weight for your height — and that they would be weighing patrons at the entrance to check! After all, the logic went, who wants to be put off their dinner by excess flab?

Guests are served by near-naked hot guys, meaning this is a host club or strip club in a very scantily clad disguise (with apologies for the pun).

Aimed squarely at women, it seems, the costs of the courses are also similarly eye-watering like a host club.

There was a bit of a backlash against the snobbery about the restrictions against “fat” and “old” people (reservations were only taken from those up to 60).

The owners have listened and decided to lift the restrictions for two special events in August. On August 26th and August 27th, no matter how fat or old you are (as long as you are over 20), you can enjoy the benefit of a naked restaurant. Of course, you still have to wear the paper underwear like everyone else, though on these dates even the shy will be happy. The organizers have said that customers can wear their ordinary clothes, too, so you don’t even have to be naked now.

By the way, all cameras and phones are placed in a box on the table and locked away.

Even better, there seems to be so much buzz about the naked restaurant that Amrita has announced new branches in Kyoto and Nagoya! Roshutsu fetish is spreading!

Though the restaurant has got a lot of press attention and some surprise about the restrictions on age and weight, no one seems bothered by the ban on tattoos. It is normal for Japanese bathhouses, springs and pools are very strict about banning visitors with tattoos or making them cover them up, ostensibly because of their association with the yakuza. Amrita also bans customers with tattoos. Perhaps if we make enough of a fuss about this then they will listen?

We got pretty excited when news broke in May that model Haruna Yabuki was releasing a hair nude photo book by Kishin Shinoyama.

Now that the collection — called simply “Haruna” — has hit the shelves, we are pleased that some scans are making the rounds online.

More will surely emerge over the weeks — and hopefully better quality ones, too. For now, enjoy Haruna’s lush thirty-something body. If she seems too good to be true, remember that her celebrity boyfriend wasn’t satisfied and two-timed her with a hostess. She literally found him in bed with his other lover.

Some sad news, folks. The lovely Ayame Misaki has got married.

The 27-year-old actress and model apparently tied the knot on July 11th with a 36-year-old man who works as a salesman in energy conservation.

The couple met last May at a mahjong game run by married friends. As the game wore on, Ayame became attracted to the man. They started seeing each other last summer.

Ayame Misaki made her professional debut at 15 and has starred in some major films like the movie adaptation of Attack on Titan.

She was in the lesbian soft-core porn film Girl’s Blood (Aka x Pinku), where she played a dominatrix.

She also made her nude debut in the film Judas in 2013, where she showed off her amazing breasts.

We expect Ayame will be retiring and starting a family soon, so no more sexy photo shoots or movie nude scenes. So long, Ayame, and thanks for all the fish.

Shoko Takasaki stunned us when she made her porn debut earlier this year as Shoko Takahashi.

Though her switch to AV came because she was mired in a prostitution scandal, her release on the Muteki label was such a roaring success that is going to release a second film on September 1st. “G-cup Perfect Body Celebrity Shoko Takahashi” is being released by Moodyz as part of the AV Open 2016 series.

Takasaki/Takahashi has also been busy with several hair nude (full-frontal nude) shoots, showing off her gorgeous G-cup body for all the world to see.

Some of these are grainy scans, but we think you get the idea!

After Momona Kito won a top porn award for her debut as Yua Mikami in the AV industry, we predict Shoko Takasaki/Takahashi will be similarly rewarded with a gong after the year is done.

BuzzFeed Japan asked some of the top gravure idols to come into the studio and spill some home truths for them.

Each gravure idol was asked to pose with a notepad telling us what their life was really life.

Here is Nanoka, saying “Life is simple.” Apparently she spends her days off just sitting around at home.

Rina Hashimoto dispels one of the myths of her job. “I don’t enjoy the locations.” While it might seem like paradise to fly to Hawaii or other exotic locations for photo shoots, the reality of the job is apparently less glamorous. You spend all day shooting from morning till night, and the food you get time for is instant noodles.

Rin Tachibana says: “I never meet people.” Despite being gorgeous, Rin claims she hasn’t had a boyfriend since she launched her gravure career.

Iroha Yanagi says: “It’s tough.” All that posing for photo shoots takes its toll on the body.

Saki Yanase says: “I’m really an I-cup.” People tend to think that gravure idols lie about their all-important bust sizes, but Saki says hers is really that big.

Continuing a trend here, Hikaru Aoyama says: “I love being at home.” Again, she spends her days off just relaxing at home.

Asuka Kishi says: “My dog is my play partner.” Shame, we are available for that role!

Finally, the butt-astic Yuka Kuramochi says: “It’s not comfort.” What she means by is that she spends her life posing for photos in long shoots that cause her body to ache. Moreover, the money isn’t very good!

One of the big misconceptions about gravure is that you get get rich posing in a bikini. Not true. If you can branch out into TV appearances or acting roles you can make some reasonable money. But your salary is dedicated by an agency, who take most of the cash — and there is a lot of competition out there. The market is basically saturated. The gravure idols are only really one up from booth companions at events or race queens or ring girls. It’s quite a far cry from fashion modelling.

Oh, and then there are all the other secrets, such as the coercion and sex with management, drugs and yakuza involvement.

The “hair nude” is a curious Japanese-English phrase. It refers not just to naked flesh; it’s naked flesh with genital hair.

What is “shocking” here is the display of pubic hair, the line by which art and entertainment is usually fettered in Japan. It is fine to have plenty of nudity in films and publications, but to avoid the century-old ambiguous obscenity laws, people censored or did not show actual pubic hair.

The hair nude set out to deliberately show this was something to be challenged, legally and artistically.

While the likes of Nobuyoshi Araki had already made erotic photography respectful, the “hair nude” is something else: a commercial genre sold as a photo book, often intended to shock and show how the subject (always a female model or actress) has moved onto a new, exciting stage in their career. It is pornographic, yes, but the effect is different to when certain idols advance into full adult video careers. It is more like a fashion statement.

And it got around the obscenity law because it was marketed as an artistic photo book, not smut.

That being said, though the hair shows us that this is the woman in all her glory and breaks a taboo, if she was fully shaved — not so common in Japan, where rather the bush is quite long — it would have been impossible. Showing the hair crosses a line, but actually also still prevents you from seeing the genitals.

Where did it all start?

1980s

Maiko Kawakami had done a shoot back in 1983 when she was 17, which was never released for legal fears.

Other 1980’s nude shoots include a legendary one with Aki Mizusawa and also Mayumi Horikawa, though this not strictly speaking a “hair nude”.

Kishin Shinoyama is a name we see a lot here. His Gekisha series in the 1980s was a provocative line of gravure photo books with prominent models

1990s

The genre launched properly in 1991 with Kanoko Higuchi’s “Water Fruit”, shot by the hair nude pioneer Kishin Shinoyama. Before this, the “hair” in adult photo-books was often scratched out by hand when sold in bookstores.

With Rie Miyazawa’s “Santa Fe” in 1991, the hair nude photo-book became very famous and fully mainstream. Suddenly it was popular for young stars to announce their maturity — plus a way to relaunch their career, as Miyazawa very successfully did. Controversially, Miyazawa was probably under 18 when she did the shoot, which may make it illegal to possess the “Santa Fe” photo book.

“Santa Fe” sold an incredible 1.55 million copies while “Water Fruit” also shipped half a million. They established the two ladies as major stars (Miyazawa had been suffering a temporary setback in her career due to scandal) and a precedent for others to follow.

The hair nude has also been a way to celebrate flowering into full womanhood. Miho Kanno similarly celebrated her twentieth birthday with a series of very explicit shots. Shinoyama also shot Chiaki Kuriyama in 1997, when she was still an underage teenager.

Now everyone from actresses to models and singers wanted to get in on the act. Around this time there were many hair nudes (either as genuine hair nudes or overtly imitating the style) by the likes of Yoko Shimada, Makiko Esumi, Linda Yamamoto, Eri Ishida, Mari Henmi, Ai Soatome (pictured above), Natsumi Nanase, Saori Ono, Tae Kimura (sadly, not fully nude), Tamo Sato, Hitoe Otake, Terumi Azuma, Mariko Uranishi, the late Naomi Kawashima, Chikako Aoyama, Hiromi Kurosawa, Natsuki Okamoto, Keiko Oginome, Saki Takaoka, Chieko Shiratori, Kaori Shimamura, Kanako Kojima, Asami Kanno, Aya Sugimoto, Chiharu Komatsu, Natsuko Tohno, the ballerina and actress Tamiyo Kusakari, Junko Asanuma, Mai Kitajima, Sakiko Mamiya, Yoko Chousokabe, Azumi Kawashima, Kumiko Takeda, Yuu Kawakami, Eri Kimura, Chiaki Hara (again, shot by Kishin Shinoyama), Harumi Inoue, Miyuki Komatsu, Yoshimi Yokosuka, Riona Hazuki, Noriko Hamada (below)…

It was a veritable golden age.

2000s

Recent ones are rarer and seem to be relegated for idols and stars who are trying to make a comeback from a serious scandal or whose career is flagging and they need the cash.

For example, we have seen Shinoyama shoot Haruna Yabuki (Mari Abe) as well as hair nudes from others like Tomoko Nakajima, Miu Nakamura, the snowboarder Mero Imai, and Akane Suzuki.

Sometimes, the hair nude is just a step before the declining idols begin a career in porn, as in the case of Risa Goto or Yoko Kamon.

There are some examples of idols who choose to do hair nudes for other reasons, such as hitomi who was pregnant (pregnant hair nudes are a whole subgenre of their own).

There are also idols who do because their whole appeal is based on their fundamental sexiness and erotic appeal. For them, it is just a logical step. E.g. YURI, Reon Kadena, Minako Komukai, Megumi Kagurazaka, Asami Sakanoue, Rio Matsushita, Mayu Sakuma, Kokone Sasaki, and, of course, Mitsu Dan.

There are also some mainstream women who do a hair nude in the early part of their career for no reason other than they want to do it, and it doesn’t damage their careers, such as Eimi Kuroda.

We have seen idols who are on the verge of starting a porn career or who have already committed to AV, and the hair nude is just part of the promotion for their new line of work. Nothing makes better marketing than naked flesh, it seems. Notable examples include Kimika Yoshino, Risa Naruse, Machiko Tezuka, Rumi Yonezawa, Momona Kito/Yua Mikami, and Shoko Takasaki/Takahashi.

We should also point out that hair nudes are not just for the young. Whereas Kumiko Takeda had been 25, Saki Takaoka 22 and Aya Sugimoto 24, it was not unusual for the older woman to make a splash with a hair nude even before the genre became self-referential. Yoko Shimada was 39 when he nude photo book shipped half a million. She then launched an AV career — when in her late fifties! Keiko Matsuzaka also showed off her ravishing body when she was well into the MILF stage of her life.

Disclaimer: we’ve been a little loose with the “hair nude” definition. Some of these may not have counted since there was no hair visible, but were almost-rans that we liked. In the same way, we haven’t included AV stars who pose nude for pictures (with the actual genitals censored, though bush is visible) since that’s part of the course for them.

Whither the hair nude?

The obscenity laws have not changed — or to be precise, the police’s interpretation of them — and publicly exhibiting a fully nude scene or image without censoring the hair is still likely to get you arrested, though you are more likely to get away with it in an artistic photo book.

But with the rise of different guidelines for popular beauty, the hair nude is no longer common for big stars, and is largely confined to minor or waning idols.

On the other hand, the Gekkan series of highly sexual and stylized photo portraits sold as “mook” magazines have been big. Actresses and models still do release photo books, but without as much fanfare. Meisa Fujishiro is the most famous/successful in this area.

Let’s hope for a full revival of the hair nude soon!

It’s the usual story. An idol hits 30 and her career is on the verge of waning. What can she do to raise the ante? Oh, right: strip off.

And so it goes that Shoko Hamada has revealed her cute butt to us at the ripe old age of 30.

The former race queen, gravure idol and so-time music idol (yes, we all remember that classic from 2004, “Lolita Race Queen”) has dropped her clothes for a photo shoot, and the results are petty fine.

Sure, her butt’s a bit flat — this is Japan, after all — but it has grab-me-now charm.

Of course, all this flesh is designed to promote Shoko Hamada’s latest DVD, which comes out in late August. Next stop, an AV from MUTEKI?

Here’s an older shot of Shoko that we like. Sometimes showing less is more.

We spotted this story shuttling around various overseas media outlets. It’s been a few weeks since it was first published but, given that foreign press don’t think this kind of story ever gets old, we decided to run it anyway.

Of course, it is that old trope: a lonely Japanese guy and his fake girlfriend.

This might be a virtual one or a music idol he’ll never meet, or a dakimakura hug pillow — or, as in this case, a a sex doll.

Here we go on that merry-go-round again…

Despite being married with two children, 61-year-old Senji Nakajima admits that his heart lies with his sex doll, Saori.

Senji first started his life with Saori six years ago.

Living away from home due to work, he used to imagine that the ‘love doll’ was his first girlfriend – and used it solely for sexual purposes in order to fill the loneliness void within.

Beady-eyed readers will spot that this is an Orient Industry sex doll, one of their luxury silicone models.

Senji maintains that Saori has a “personality” and he apparently takes her everywhere, including on trips in his car and out in a wheelchair — even to the hair salon.

“She needs much help, but she is still my perfect partner who shares precious moments with me and enriches my life.”

What do you think? Is this whole story a put-up job? It seems far too good to be true. Where did it actually come? A wire service piece?

“An increasing number of men have taken on the Lars And The Real Girl approach to the dolls, transporting them around town and treating them to trips.”

Hmm… we’ve never seen them and we, natch, have a pretty good eye for this kind of thing.

Sex dolls are great and Orient Industry ones are probably the best quality ones we have ever seen. But take it seriously. Don’t just put together some exaggerated piece of copy for clickbait and mocking.

The controversy over exploitation and coercion in the Japanese porn industry continues to rage.

Following allegations, condemnations, arrests, and apologies, now comes another development. The popular AV star Saki Kouzai has come forward with the revelation that her porn debut was also coerced.

In a 20-hour interview with Bunshun Shukan, she has come forward alleging both coercion and makura eigo, or the casting couch: you have to sleep with people to get ahead.

She is currently suing Ryo Aoki, the head of Marks Japan who was previously arrested for a previous coercion case. Three people were fined over that case. Kouzai says she was then “brainwashed” into believing the production company was her family.

Kouzai has some 300 titles to her name. She was originally a race queen who made her porn debut in 2011 after she was scouted in front of Gotanda Station. She says she was deceived by Aoki and then on the subsequent shoot in the countryside, there were 20 men present and she couldn’t say no. After three years with her production company she then formed her own company in June 2014 to have better control over her career.

Kouzai has since opened a women-only section at Love Toys Shop Max, an adult store located in Umeda, Osaka. All the staff are women and Kouzai herself is often there. The store opened earlier this summer and features a Tenga store on the lower floors. It is Tenga’s second Osaka shop, after the first one in Namba.

But it should be noted that the 30-year-old Kouzai is still very much part of the industry and appears in new releases.

The grim reality of the porn industry is that you may get just ¥30,000 for an appearance. A major star may command large fees, perhaps even ¥1 million — but then the management company will take almost all of it. Contracts are often made in advance before an actress knows the industry or establishes herself, and she is later bound to various clauses regarding fees and appearances.

The management companies and production companies are often linked, creating a web of businesses dominated by men who are naturally looking to raise their profits. The needs of the performers caught in the middle are not the priority.