The latest issue (November 23) is basically a love letter to mature beauty, and it’s stacked.
Cover girl is 46-year-old Akiko Yoshii, the oldest model to ever land the Weekly Playboy cover. The former NHK weather forecaster is serving pure onsen fantasy energy—towel barely hanging on in the hot spring, then switching to underwear shots that put her impressive bust front and center. She only made her gravure debut this past June (while she was still working at NHK), so this is still very fresh territory for her. And honestly? She’s killing it.
Then there’s Maki Miyamae, now 53. Former CoCo member who was a proper idol in the early ’90s. She basically stepped away from entertainment at 30 to go into food research, but she’s been slowly dipping her toes back in as an idol group producer and YouTuber. This is her first gravure shoot in about a decade, and she’s showing off a ridiculously toned body—back, ass, the whole package. There’s even a digital photo book to go with it.
The issue also features:
- 38-year-old actress Yuki Mizuhara
- 32-year-old actress Misao Ueda
- And the ever-stunning 38-year-old voice actress Yuka Iguchi
Late thirties really is that sweet spot for Japanese women right now. Peak jukujo energy.
This whole wave makes sense when you think about it. Japan’s getting older, and so are its idols and celebrities. Part of it is pure nostalgia—people love seeing the women they crushed on in their teens and twenties still looking incredible years later. We’ve already seen strong comebacks from people like Kumiko Takeda (late fifties) and Akiko Hinagawa (late forties). At the same time, more women are doing their first proper gravure work much later than usual. Tomoka Takenaka is another good example of someone who started leaning into it in her forties and is finding real success as a mature, busty beauty.
It’s a nice shift. Instead of only chasing 20-year-olds, magazines are realizing there’s a huge appetite for women who look like they actually know what they’re doing. And judging by how good everyone looks in this issue, the appetite is well-fed.
Who’s catching your eye the most out of this lineup?
