Models
Fireworks
Natsuki Kojima, helping you celebrate Independence Day. The little speech bubble reads “smiles and swimsuits are free”, and she uses these freedoms well.
Dear Hello!Project Costume Designers,
CanCam dresses your girls better. Or, in this case, undresses them better, as Satan shows off a little bit of denim and a whole lot of Satan. Bonus: she’s not singing.
Cheesecake: Miwako Kakei
A rising star in the magazine-cover business is almost-20-year-old Miwako Kakei (筧美和子). An image search will turn up many pleasantly distracting images, of which this is one.
In full makeup, she tends to look about as Japanese as I do, but that has more to do with stylists than genetics. She looks thoroughly Japanese in most of the photos on her blog.
Holiday cheesecake
So I spent part of my Christmas Day watching cheesecake, specifically this Blu-ray disc featuring Kaho Takashima (pics). I have some rather rude words for the cameraman’s ability to handle lighting and contrast (pro-tip: if your lighting makes the model’s ribs look bruised, you’re doing it wrong), and his insistence on using a wide-angle lens for closeups, but Kaho’s a very pretty girl with a great smile, and usually manages to project personality despite poor direction.
The audio in this sort of video can be hit-or-miss. They often just use the on-camera microphone, so when the model isn’t talking, they play whatever music they could afford. In this case, I was generally satisfied with the instrumental pieces they used, until I reached the segment where they put her in a school uniform and started shooting upskirt shots (because Japan), and accompanied it with a quite pleasant piano solo of Amazing Grace.
Fortunately I’m not part of the target audience for schoolgirl upskirts, so the rather jarring contrast just increased my amusement.
I’ll end with a seasonal picture from Kaho’s blog, from a recording session for Japan TV’s Idol League:
Did someone order cheesecake?
Well, technically, he ordered extra-dimensional animated naked electro-girls, but I choose to respond with… something else.
Queen's Blade, The Live
Queen’s Blade, the ecchi anime, was based on a set of game books featuring art by popular character designers, with rules from the old Lost Worlds game books.
To attract a new audience, the latest set features photos of popular cheesecake models such as Ayaka Sayama, who takes the role of Captain Liliana.
No Bodacious Space Pirates were harmed in the production of these books.
