miwa Blog and Journals

Japan’s “Fairy on the Beach”

Miwa Asao is the name of one of Japan’s up and coming sports and sex sensations. She plays beach volleyball, is somewhat tall for a Japanese woman, and enjoys a part-time career as a model. Miwa hopes to make the Japanese Olympic team for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Perhaps one explanation for Miwa’s popularity with the media is the skimpy size of the bikini uniform worn in beach volleyball, which appears especially small when stretched along Miwa’s tall and large frame. Voyeurs and photographers, and the voyeuristic photographers in the media, enjoy focusing their lenses on Miwa’s slim bottom and genital areas whenever the opportunity arises.

Labeled by the media as the “fairy on the beach,” Miwa rejects the description. "A fairy has an immaculate image,” she said.

It must be difficult to maintain an immaculate image when news media and internet sites focus more on her private parts than on her ability to hit the volleyball.

In photo after photo, one sees close-ups of Miwa’s bum, or her nipples, or even the outline of her pubis mons through her sweat-soaked bikini. Highly erotic, the photos still pass the muster of government censors in Japan, Korea, China and Singapore, which often prevent users from viewing or downloading images which display genitals.

Close inspection reveals that highly suggestive photos of Miwa appear on sports pages and internet websites, which would not be permitted to appear in most "family" newspapers for general audiences. In other words, Asao Miwa reveals more with her tight-fitting volleyball bikinis than the sexy idols who appear all over the Asian internet.

Miwa apparently does not object to this treatment by the press, nor apparently does her coach. Her manager hand-picked Miwa during her high school years, and the two have specific goals in mind on Miwa’s ladder to success. She is to serve both as a sex symbol and as an Olympic star

 In February 2007, they launched Miwa’s first photographic album with additional bathing suit shots. By late August 2007, the shashinshu had sold more than twenty thousand copies at the price of sixteen US dollars or one thousand, nine – hundred and ninety-five yen.

Beyond the color album, there is a video available of Miwa in action on the volleyball court, as well as at leisure, swimming in a lake or relaxing at home in her underwear. The video costs 3,990 yen, nearly forty US dollars. Books or videos bearing her autograph fetch ten times these prices.

In comparison with other Japanese pinup idols, Miwa is neither well-endowed, like Megumi or Nor does she enjoy the compelling beauty of Miwa Oshiro (Oshiro Miwa). Although attractive, she is not particularly beautiful.

Her (business) manager bets on the combination of a somewhat tall and somewhat talented and somewhat attractive athlete who plays the exotic sport of women’s beach volleyball in sexy bikini uniforms, as their ticket to international success.

Indeed, women’s beach volleyball combines the competitiveness of sport with the grace and elegance of the almost-nude bodies of female athletes. In this sense, women’s beach volleyball approaches the Olympic spirit perhaps more closely than any other spectator sport. There is perhaps nothing more openly erotic than the spectacle of near-nude athletic women sweating, jumping and running about a sandy patch in fierce competition alongside the ocean.

We shall certainly continue to follow the story of Japan’s women’s beach volleyball, to see whether Miwa achieves her goal of reaching the Beijing Summer Olympics of 2008 or the London Olympics of 2012. Miwa faces an uphill challenge since she places 52^nd in world competition, far behind Mika Saiki and Chiaki Kusuhara in the 29^th position, and fourth in Japan.

Miwa and her teammate, Takemi Nishibori, will have to play a hard game of catch-up in order to make the Beijing Olympics next year, since each nation is allowed only two teams to compete in the women’s beach volleyball tournament. They will need to displace two other Japanese teams in order to win a spot in Beijing, where the government has imported seventeen-thousand tons of fine-grain sand to fill an Olympic-sized women’s volleyball stadium which holds up to twelve thousand spectators.

Miwa may need to put her part-time modeling career on hold if she is to win the ticket to Beijing. She reports that her body-building adds too much muscle and bulk and so conflicts with the need for a soft and gentle body needed for success as a model in Japan. We may see fewer modeling shots of her in the coming year, and more photos of her on the sandy court wearing skimpy bikinis.

That doesn’t seem to prevent the hundreds of news photographers and spectators from taking her photo, hoping to catch an image of her tight bottom and slim body. Some sixty-eight media companies covered the Tokyo Open last May, and a skirmish broke out when officials refused to allow the public to take photos of Miwa’s famous bum.

The phenomenon of Asian pop idol began perhaps as a Japanese cultural borrowing from America after the Second World War, especially during the 1960’s, with the global popularity of rock music. Although arguably American in origin, as many aspects of modern global culture tend to be, the pop idol phenomenon takes on specifically Japanese aspects, and then by extension, Asian aspects.

The profusion of photos of pretty young Japanese women on the internet boggles the mind and the eyes. Stunning photos, done with excellent quality and in high style, for the most part, document the curves of an endless gaggle of nubile twenty-something Japanese women, in various states of dress.

The women are usually portrayed in fabulous Pacific Island settings – Belau, Yap, Guam, Saipan – the “Southern Ocean” of the Japanese imagination. At other times, women are shown in expensive hotel rooms and intimate, dark settings. Some innovative photographers shoot their models in decrepit old buildings, contrasting the delicate beauty of young women with the harsh environs of demolished old buildings.

The poses are almost the same, and some might argue the girls themselves almost look the same as one another. Asian modesty prevents the publishing of photos which expose genitals or naughty bits. The challenge for the photographer, then, is to capture the alluring aspects of each woman while not overstepping the bounds of Japanese censors and Japanese morality.

Not every photographer successfully meets this challenge, nor does every pop idol successfully bear the heavy responsibility of appearing stunningly beautiful in every frame. Of the thousands of images of young Japanese women floating around the internet between Beijing, Tokyo, Taipei, Paris and Los Angeles, only a rare few combinations of model and photographer measure up to the highest standards.

One of the rare young women who meet this standard is the achingly beautiful Oshiro Miwa, a twenty-something from Hokkaido (featured at the head of this blog). By the changes in her appearance, one might judge that Miwa has been on the internet for some five years or so. With each passing year, her beauty grows that much more alluring. From a fresh-faced, doe-eyed young lass in her earliest photos, Miwa has grown into a lithe but fully-developed young woman, blossoming across computer screens as one views the various galleries which host her work.

Showing too much of oneself can be a drawback in the online world. A case in point is the luscious beauty of another young Japanese woman, Oshima Hiromi, who has graced several photo layouts for Playboy with her astounding physique. Unfortunately, Playboys standards, while tame for the US audience, are far more than allowed in most Asian nations. Thus, even though Oshima Hiromi is arguably as beautiful as Oshiro Miwa, only a few of her photos appear in Asian websites – her photos too risqué for areas with heavy restrictions.

Who is the audience for this endless stream of feminine beauty? One might imagine a host of teenage boys collecting their favorite images of their favorite DVD star, just as American boys might have collected baseball cards in earlier generations. Then there are the boys at heart, those in their twenties, thirties, and perhaps even forties who never outgrew their desire for sexy young women. Alas, the desirability of beautiful young women is a wonderful thing that most men perhaps never outgrow, even those of eighty or ninety years.

In a sense, then, the beautiful young Japanese idols who grace millions of computer screens across Asia serve as peace ambassadors, agents of goodwill. Perhaps these screen sirens help smooth relations between the men of Asia, sending the message that not everything Japanese is bad, and perhaps even some Japanese things are indeed quite desirable, if not admirable. Thus the admiration for women like Oshiro Miwa.

The phenomenon of Asian pop idol began perhaps as a Japanese cultural borrowing from America after the Second World War, especially during the 1960’s, with the global popularity of rock music. Although arguably American in origin, as many aspects of modern global culture tend to be, the pop idol phenomenon takes on specifically Japanese aspects, and then by extension, Asian aspects.

The profusion of photos of pretty young Japanese women on the internet boggles the mind and the eyes. Stunning photos, done with excellent quality and in high style, for the most part, document the curves of an endless gaggle of nubile twenty-something Japanese women, in various states of dress.

The women are usually portrayed in fabulous Pacific Island settings – Belau, Yap, Guam, Saipan – the “Southern Ocean” of the Japanese imagination. At other times, women are shown in expensive hotel rooms and intimate, dark settings. Some innovative photographers shoot their models in decrepit old buildings, contrasting the delicate beauty of young women with the harsh environs of demolished old buildings.

The poses are almost the same, and some might argue the girls themselves almost look the same as one another. Asian modesty prevents the publishing of photos which expose genitals or naughty bits. The challenge for the photographer, then, is to capture the alluring aspects of each woman while not overstepping the bounds of Japanese censors and Japanese morality.

Not every photographer successfully meets this challenge, nor does every pop idol successfully bear the heavy responsibility of appearing stunningly beautiful in every frame. Of the thousands of images of young Japanese women floating around the internet between Beijing, Tokyo, Taipei, Paris and Los Angeles, only a rare few combinations of model and photographer measure up to the highest standards.

One of the rare young women who meet this standard is the achingly beautiful Oshiro Miwa, a twenty-something from Hokkaido (featured at the head of this blog). By the changes in her appearance, one might judge that Miwa has been on the internet for some five years or so. With each passing year, her beauty grows that much more alluring. From a fresh-faced, doe-eyed young lass in her earliest photos, Miwa has grown into a lithe but fully-developed young woman, blossoming across computer screens as one views the various galleries which host her work.

Showing too much of oneself can be a drawback in the online world. A case in point is the luscious beauty of another young Japanese woman, Oshima Hiromi, who has graced several photo layouts for Playboy with her astounding physique. Unfortunately, Playboy's standards, while tame for the US audience, are far more than allowed in most Asian nations. Thus, even though Oshima Hiromi is arguably as beautiful as Oshiro Miwa, only a few of her photos appear in Asian websites – her photos too risqué for areas with heavy restrictions.

Who is the audience for this endless stream of feminine beauty? One might imagine a host of teenage boys collecting their favorite images of their favorite DVD star, just as American boys might have collected baseball cards in earlier generations. Then there are the boys at heart, those in their twenties, thirties, and perhaps even forties who never outgrew their desire for sexy young women. Alas, the desirability of beautiful young women is a wonderful thing that most men perhaps never outgrow, even those of eighty or ninety years.

In a sense, then, the beautiful young Japanese idols who grace millions of computer screens across Asia serve as peace ambassadors, agents of goodwill. Perhaps these screen sirens help smooth relations between the men of Asia, sending the message that not everything Japanese is bad, and perhaps even some Japanese things are indeed quite desirable, if not admirable. Thus the admiration for women like Oshiro Miwa.