barely legal

Naked guy encourages booze buying at Koenji’s Awa Odori

Just over a week ago, Koenji had its fantastic Awa Odori festival, and I took many photos of participants, food & booze sellers, & other attendees. I’m going to post them over a few posts and a few days.

This barely legal guy literally has the price of beer scrawled across his naked back. I love the very DIY, un-hemmed red fundoshi he’s sporting, and the brazenness of his pitch. Check out below where this customer is juggling his cigarette, man-bag, and wallet to get boozed up as quickly as possible. This is Japan when it’s not working.

Sho shows (almost) all on an・an

Arashi’s Sakurai Sho bares (almost) all in anan magazine’s special “male body” issue. Sho is one of the most popular members of the Johnny’s boy band Arashi, a Keio graduate from a wealthy family, and now a night-time newscaster on Zero presenting serious news, including the current state and history of Japan-US relations. The husband thinks Sho aspires to become Prime Minister one day, which would be a great triumph for the boy band creator Johnny.

anan is a young Japanese woman’s version of Cosmo. The magazine focuses on sexuality, appearance, polls, and men, men, men. This must be one of their sluttiest issues ever. There are taxonomies of the 8 male body types portrayed by comics and tarentos (all variations of skinny and boyish, except the normal sized “Big Boy” and the one fatty), photos of athletes and professional wrestlers, and a pictorial about how you might imagine young men at work without their clothes.

Dear readers, do you think Sho showing his skin will help or hinder his political aspirations? And, before I get any complaints, despite the fact that Sho is made up, waxed, and air-brushed to look barely legal (or younger), he is in fact 27 years old. I think he looks a bit like a Ken doll, plastic and a bit sexless.

What do you say? Should I post more images from this pictorial?