Miri Hanai says nudity a possibility in the future

The most recent Flash magazine (#989) had a short, and very odd, pictorial of Hanai Miri. Delving into the artsy side of things, Miri did a four-page spread, seemingly wearing nothing but bopdy paint. Not my cup of tea, and gives me flashbacks to her disappointing book Aikakko Runrun.

The final page of the spread had a short bit of text, and if nothing else, Miri suffered for this one - it took about 13 hours total to apply all the paint to her body - 3 for the front, 10 for the back. Ouch. Anyways, she said that the paint covered everything so she didn't feel very nervous during the photo session, but also mentioned that she would be willing to pose nude if the right project came along.

Now, far be it for me to raise an eyebrow at that statement, but considering the Miri has already appeared essentially nude save for some pasties and a thong in various photoshoots and one DVD (Yarujan!), I don't really think that she has much left to hide at all, and hence not much to gain career-wise. But for the LCD, two small patches of skin and some hair (or perhaps lackthereof) make all the difference. Still, if that's route she choose, I can't say I won't be watching with great interest.

I don't think I'll be adding these photos to Miri's proper gallery as IMHO they aren't really to my taste. But if that's your thing, enjoy!

And finally, for those of you who have already dropped your pants at the thought of a nude Miri - at least wait until you go look for proper porn. Perverts.

Dear... (Nonami Takizawa) review

Before getting on to the DVD proper: what the hell happened to Takizawa Nonami's voice?!? Somehow, she went from having a nice, if somewhat stereotypical, Japanese girl's voice to something you'd hear in a typical 'magical girl' anime: a shrill, almost piercing, parody of a feminine vocalizations. I'm going to blame this on the director – let's face it: the gravure idol genre is based on the idea of hyper-femininity which don't exist in reality – this might just be the next step. With that gripe out of the way, Nonami's Dear... is a generally enjoyable although somewhat schizophrenic release: the…

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Gallery updates

The galleries have been updated:

• Matsugane Yôko: 61 images added.
• Natsume Rio: 8 images added.
• Takizawa Nonami: 63 images added.

Enjoy!

Nozomi Takeuchi's new CD covers Every Little Thing

First off, before I get to the CD, a big screw you to the marketing geniuses over at Girls Record: Takeuchi Nozomi's CD Fuyu Ga Hajimaru Yo was released on the fifth of this month. There was a promotional event on the eighth with received very little advance promotion in a place which that is not normally known for hosting idol events (Sofmap Zaurus - a software store!), and featured both Nozomi and the equally cute and busty Horii Mizuki. I only found out on the same day as I was browsing for a new game or two and noticed the advert in the store. I had a commitment that I couldn't break at that point, so, to paraphrase a legend, "NO BUSTY IDOLS FOR YOU!!!" Damn it.

Okay, enough griping. Nozomi's new DVD covers well known J-pop band Every Little Thing with a solid cover of Fuyu Ga Hajimaru Yo as well as an original song, Sweet Good-Bye ~White Love Letter~. The requite instrumental versions follow. If you hate the manufactured nature of J-pop, then Nozomi will do very little to change your mind about the genre, but she her musical training does show through. Plus, props to her for actually writing her own stuff. She seems to be embracing her musical side, as she also released another CD in November of original songs, Dramatical, as well as an accompanying music DVD, Nozomi No Uta.

As usual for Girls' Record stuff, a DVD came with the CD, which had the video for the title track as well as a half hour making-of segment. Unlike fellow idols Kitamura Hitomi and Takizawa Nonami recent ventures into music videos, the video for Fuyu is not a cheesecake-fest, but rather focuses on Nozomi as a cute, girl-next-door type as opposed to going straight for the lowest common denominator. She does appear in a bikini in some of the scenes, but they are all too brief glimpses of her wonderful body and boobs. Still, there is something inherently watchable about Nozomi which very few, if any, idols can match: like her idol videos, she has a great connection with the camera and hence the viewer. She displays charisma as well as cleavage.

She's her usual charming, upbeat self on the making-of track and is more than watchable: probably the most entertaining behind-the-scenes for a video since Hanai Miri's Yokan. Of course, your mileage will vary with your understanding of Japanese.

And again, screw you, Girls' Record promotional team. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Nonami Takizawa is a lighting rod for Chinese hate

Direct from the holy-shit-don't-people-have-anything-better-to-do-with-their-time files comes this report that Nonami has attracted the ire of a bunch of Chinese xenophobes/nationalists. The initial story, as well as a follow up on CNet both incorrectly label Nonami as an AV idol, but I suppose that's beside the point.

Apparently, Nonami and a crew shot a promo in rural China for Sabra and this attracted the attention of certain elements of the Chinese web surfers to decry this as "pollution" of the Chinese Way Of Life. Having essentially no knowledge of Chinese, I can't verify these claims personally, but given the history or relations between Japan and China, I can believe it when some say that the language used to describe poor Nonami was rather vulgar.

Anyway, I don't want to get into the politics of it all, so check the two links above for more complete (but still quite biased) takes on the situation. If you want to see the oh so dreadful video which is causing the disintigration of morality of China, you can check the video on a Chinese version of YouTube.