Kazusa Okuyama is one of the top gravure idols in Japan right now, though she went quiet for a while from the end of last year with few social media updates. The last major gravure-related thing she did was release a 2023 calendar and hold an exhibition with top gravure photographer Chikashi Kasai (both in December 2022).
Her absence was essentially explained on February 14 (yes, Valentine’s Day), when there came the shock announcement that one of the most eligible ladies in the land had got married.
This typically would mean the end of a gravure career. (She also does occasional acting. In fact, the mainstream media reporting about this has referred to her as an actor, not a gravure model, which is perhaps what her agency wants.)
When a female celebrity in Japan at the peak of her fame announces her marriage, it is often a surprise. They frequently keep their dating secret, though tabloids might get wind of it (especially if their partner is another celebrity). Management agencies are famously controlling in Japan (they are the ones that employ the talent, not the other way around), even to the extent of preventing a woman from getting married because of the impact it will have on her career (especially in terms of advertising and brand ambassador contracts). As such, shotgun weddings (already quite common here due to the lack of regard for contraception) are apparently popular solutions among celebs: if you’re knocked up, management can’t exactly point to certain clauses and stop you from signing the marriage papers.
In Okuyama’s case, then, we were surprised by the fact that her marriage announcement did not include mention of a pregnancy. Was she expecting to continue her gravure career after her marriage? Or switch entirely to mainstream acting?
But then on March 17, the plot thickened: the media is now reporting that Okuyama is indeed pregnant, so her marriage was effectively a de facto shotgun wedding.
It means the 29-year-old is almost certain to leave gravure behind for good, unless she surprises us yet again with a maternity nude shoot (once very popular among celebrities) or pulls a Yuka Kuramochi and makes a postnatal comeback to gravure.
More details about her lucky husband have also emerged: he’s younger (25) and a newbie announcer at TV Asahi.
Weirdly, Okuyama’s agency is still refusing to confirm or deny the deports, suggesting they aren’t happy or are simply maintaining some polite distance from this new period in Okuyama’s career.
The Aomori native was a one-time race queen who launched a gravure career in 2016 after winning a contest. She made her acting debut in 2018, appearing in a tokusatsu sci-fi series. She has released three photo books.
Well, since we are unlikely to see more gravure shoots by Kazusa Okuyama in the future, check out our picture archive on tumblr to look back at what we’ll be missing.
