Manatsu Akimoto: Her fourth(!) photobook "Awaawa" scans....

 

 The top four pics are from her second book "Shiwase ni Shitai" and did the post for the book back in August 2020, the book had so many sizzling photos a few deserved to be seen again! So many times have talked about doing a list of my favorite Nogi books and have done a pair of lists for my all time books but not for the group. I keep stalling on that with the main reason being they have so many close to perfect books how can I make a list of a dozen or perhaps sixteen? Even a book I would rank 25th is often better than most other group's top books, I do think Hina's books are the best but Nogi has so many more. If I did make a list the recently married Hinako's second book would probably be my number one, Nagi's first book from last year would be second. In third would be the one and only book for Nogi's current captain which had been my #1 for a while. That book was from Minami and in some fabulous news her second book is coming out on February 3rd and she's my current favorite member. Have seen a few promo pics for the photobook and they made me dash for a cold shower so hopefully can do a post for her real soon, yesterday she celebrated birthday #27.

 Mentioned the "Shiwase ni Shitai" book which the above four photos are from and what a super duper book that was! It's was Manatsu's second and with over 100,000 copies sold it's easily been her most popular book. That post I did for it is also extremely popular as it has close to 16,000 views, the book for today is darn good but not at the level of that second book. Correct me if I'm wrong but think five Nogi members have had a trio of books while a member, four had graduation books which included Manatsu. But think she's the first of the five to have a fourth book and this was released last August 20th which was her 32nd birthday! Manatsu did pass the original audition but didn't join the group until their fourth single because of her schooling, I can recall the old 'Doko' variety episode when she was introduced.

 Sure most Nogi fans know Manatsu's history and she was the group's second captain, I had always liked her so much but when a group becomes very large only so many can be in your top ten for members. Since graduating Manatsu has been busy but doing many under the radar activities such as appearing on variety shows but acting roles have been increasing the past year, she left Nogi in February 2023. On to the book which was a bit of a low key affair as it didn't get a lot of publicity plus was so much tamer than her first three books. You will see a lot of pages that are of an essay which Manatsu had written about her life to date, being an Idol, what's it like being 30+ in age and included them if anyone can read Japanese. For the photo shoots Manatsu traveled to Ishigaki island for the swimsuit shots and more of them were needed. That was the Summer photos, for the Autumn pics the location was Goju which is in the prefecture of Gifu and for the Winter theme the setting was the city of Akita. There's 133 pics in the book and Manatsu does look quite good, a book doesn't need a lot of gravure pictures to be an excellent one but after seeing her scantly clad in those first three books wish there were a few more gravure photos but all in all this is a decent book.