Yuuri Morishita got her start as a booth companion back in 2003, appearing at events like the Tokyo Game Show. But by 2007, she was appearing as an on-stage guest to promote games. And now, she's releasing an x-ray video. Not x-rated, x-ray.
Like many pin-up hopefuls, Morishita paid her dues, passing out fliers and posing for pictures at TGS and the Tokyo Motor Show. The model developed a big enough following to make the leap to the world of "gravure idols", releasing photo-books and image DVDs.
Besides the typical skimpy swimsuits, Morishita stayed near games, cosplaying as characters ranging from Mai Shiranui to Lara Croft. She was even roped in to dress as Chun-Li for a pachinko game based on the character. When not dressing up as game characters or appearing in b-movies, she was posing with hard to get game machines, like the super limited edition Bathing Ape Nintendo DS.
Her geek appeal was why Sony used her to help promote the God of War Collection in Japan.
Like most pin-up models in Japan, her photos typically are as nude as one can get without actually being nude. In that way, most gravure pictures are old style pin-ups - more explicit examples of you'd see before the advent of Playboy's full nudity revolution in the 1950s.
Morishita's latest effort is quite unusual. She's releasing a new DVD "Hone Made Aishite" (Love Me To The Bone) that features her "nude". "Nude" in the sense that the video shows her getting x-rays, not to mention having her blood drawn, and not "nude" in the traditional softcore sense.
Japan is fascinated by measurements, blood types and classifications, as evident by the plethora of stats given for pin-up models. The fascination with blood types actually has its root sin 19th century stereotyping, but today it's basically used much like astrological charts: to peg people's personalities. Like in the West, the fascination with measurements makes something as unattainable and abstract even as a pin-up seem more "real". Make no mistake, Love Me To The Bone is a fetish video, but a highly unusual one - even for Japan.
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