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.
