Bikiniing 5 Stardom Visual Photobook Review

The Bikiniing Visual Book series is one of the most popular Stardom photobooks each year. Beginning in 2012, Stardom has released a Bikiniing Photobook every year, featuring the Stardom wrestlers wearing bikinis or other swimwear (as the name implies). Not all wrestlers participate if this type of photoshoot goes against their wrestling character or personal preferences, however the majority of the wrestlers in the promotion do take part. You can read reviews for more magazine and photobooks on the Joshi Photobook Reviews page.

Full Details

Title: Bikiniing 5 Stardom Visual Book
Release: July 31st, 2016
Cost: ¥2,500
Where to Buy: Third Party Vendors (eBay, Buyee, etc.)

For the 5th edition of the photobook, the following wrestlers were featured:

• Io Shirai
• Mayu Iwatani
• Kairi Hojo
• Jungle Kyona
• Hiromi Mimura
• Toni Storm
• Chelsea
• Shanna
• Yoko Bito

Stardom has gotten into a grove on Bikiniing photobooks by now, as instead of featuring the entire roster and all the gaijins available, they focus on a smaller sample of wrestlers so that more photos of each can be shown. The usual suspects are included in Bikiniing 5, with Io Shirai, Mayu Iwatani, and Kairi Hojo all making their annual appearance, but we have some newer faces as well. Yoko Bito returned to Stardom in 2016 and thus made her return to Bikiniing, plus we get newer wrestlers Hiromi Mimura and Jungle Kyona. They are joined by three gaijin this year – Toni Storm, Chelsea, and Shanna. While Toni Storm and Chelsea were regulars in Stardom for a stretch of time, Shanna wasn’t there as long and is the biggest surprise in this year’s edition.

As is generally the case, the photoshoot focused on the wrestlers in swimwear, with multiple outfits for each. No underage wrestlers this year, which is always a plus, and any photobook with Io and Kairi is going to be a hit. Here are a sample of pictures from the photobook: