The tabloids are full of reports that the gravure idol Risa Yukihira has been dating the pop singer Kei Inoo of Hey! Say! JUMP for perhaps as long as two years. The story was first broken by daily sports newspaper Sports Nippon (Sponichi), whose reporters have spotted the pair visiting each other’s homes.
The past romantic partners of 33-year-old Kei Inoo, who graduated from the prestigious Meiji University, include retired porn star Kirara Asuka and Japanese announcer and model Misato Ugaki.
Risa Yukihira is one of the most popular gravure idols right now. With her pale skin and alluring beauty, she has graced many covers and appears in shoots for major gravure magazines almost weekly.
She is also a ring girl and makes appearances at wrestling and boxing matches.
She emerged into the mainstream of the industry only relatively recently and, at 29, she is on the older end of the spectrum among her peers.
Those gravure models we love are, of course, not nuns. As women in the prime of their lives and with beauty, a certain degree of fame, and entertainment world contacts, they inevitably meet a lot of guys, from singers and actors to sports players and comedians. (Gravure models are also not especially well paid and making ends meet through compensated dating is not uncommon, as the case of Shoko Takahashi revealed.)
In general, though, until the marriage announcement (sometimes preceded by a surprise “I’m leaving my agency” or “I’m retiring” announcement), these love lives are kept under close wraps.
While not as extreme as music idols, for whom dating is a sackable offense, gradols may find themselves sidelined by magazine editors if their love lives get into the public eye. Who wants to put a model on the cover of their weekly magazine if it has become well known that she isn’t available?
As such, the damage to Yukihira’s burgeoning career may be more significant than for Inoo, whose fans know he has a precedent for dating beautiful women.
Yukihira is also a tarento, a generic name for an all-purpose celebrity who appears on TV, so perhaps she can cultivate more work that way to make up for the gravure gigs she may lose. Given that she turns 30 this year, which is a significant milestone in the gravure industry, this scoop about her private life might be a natural way to transition out of modeling for the likes Flash and Playboy.
For more pics of Risa Yukihira, see our tumblr page.
