Erika Ikuta: Her slightly unassuming first photobook "Tencho" scans.... a repost....

 

 A few times recently have said a goal was to have at least one post a day for June which in the past may not have been too difficult but it sure is these days! We're now a third of the way through the month and the streak of a post a day is still active though almost took today off. Once again not much has been going on with most of my favorites who I try to have posts for but then also remembered that project that I've mentioned a few times. Which is of cleaning up older photobook posts, almost all are for actresses or gravure models. But a few will be for ex J-Pop Idols and you did see the first three days ago, this is the first of perhaps five Nogi books that will be reposted. Most of the older ones will be of books that had been cut into two posts and there was no reason for doing that, sometimes the repost will be because of better scans but that wasn't the case for this book. However those first two posts for this book contained 91 photos, this one has 103 so why did I leave a dozen out? What also happens is that when a book is broken up into two posts one gets many more views and it's usually the first of the pair. But oddly the second post for this book drew 4,000 more views, 9,100 for post #2 compared to 5,200 for the first and can't recall that ever happening before. One other reason for reposts it's that often books or a woman has been forgotten about so posts such as this are like a stroll down Memory Lane....

 If you're not a long time Nogi fan you may be surprised to know that until 2017 most photobooks were so much tamer than the ones since then and I mean that there is a huge difference!!!! Which has paid off sales wise as this book in it's first week sold 38,000 copies, it did sell out so it may have sold more if they were available. But this book sold steadily and eventually reached over 125,000 copies sold which was the first Nogi book to hit six digits. However when the pictures began to leave little to the imagination the sales skyrocketed and Erika is the example of sales rising. This book was released on January 21, 2016 which was a day before her 19th birthday. Her second photobook "Intermission" came out on Erika's 22nd birthday in 2019 and that is one of Nogi's best ever books, we all knew Erika was so darn attractive but she proved she also had a figure second to none!!!! That second PB has sold close to 325,000 copies to date so what a jump in sales, close to 200,000 which means you'll never see any tame books like this one again. ErIka did have a third photobook for her December 2021 graduation, there weren't too many gravure pics but it was a superb book.

 Since leaving Nogi Erika has been the busiest of any ex-member though I've never done any posts for her. She does appear in many dramas with her newest beginning next month, she also appears in many stage plays. As her fans know Erika is quite an accomplished pianist and is currently on a min tour, she's had one album that came out last year and surprisingly it hit #5 on the charts. Erika has done a bit of regular modeling but all in all her activities aren't ones that make for interesting posts but I'm glad to see she's been very successful as she is so likable. If I had to say one minor complaint about Erika it's that in a way she's too perfect, doesn't seem as there's one thing she can't do in life at a very high level! On to the book and the photo shoot took place in Dusseldorf, Germany which is where she was born and lived there for five years though don't think she speaks the language. My favorite Nogi tune is "Danke Schoen" which was a coupling song to the group's eighth single, Erika was the center for the tune and there's such a terrific live version on YT(least at one time there was) from a TV show which I highly recommend viewing. As mentioned this book is very tame compared to Nogi books that came out after this one but Erika does look mighty fine but really blossomed by the time her "Intermission" book came out, can't think of any more adjectives to describe that book! Will have a few more Nogi books coming up in this series but have no set schedule on when those posts will be done.