Bikiniing Winter 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 Winter
Release: February 2022
Pages: 68
Size: A4
Cost: ¥4,000
Where to Buy: Various Third Party Vendors (eBay, Buyee, Mercari, etc.)

For this special edition of Bikiniing, the following wrestlers were featured:

• Tam Nakano
• Mina Shirakawa
• Unagi Sayaka
• Mai Sakurai
• Waka Tsukiyama
• Mayu Iwatani
• Lady C
• Momo Watanabe
• AZM
• Utami Hayashishita
• Saya Kamitani
• Giulia
• Syuri
• Maika
• Himeka
• Natsupoi

For the first time since the series launched, Stardom surprised its fans with a “bonus” edition of Bikiniing. This edition did not follow the traditional numbering system as it came out (as the name implies) in the winter, and thus was simply called “Bikiniing Winter.” Even though it isn’t part of the official series, it still is the same size as the regular photobook with the same basic content, so while some may see it as an easy cash-in at least they did not produce an inferior product in the process.

The photobook follows the regular themes of Bikiniing – no wrestlers from Oedo Tai (doesn’t fit the gimmick!) and no one under the age of 18 (a development since Bushiroad took over but an appreciated one). Also, all pictures are of wrestlers in some type of beach-wear, although not necessarily bikinis. Bikiniing Winter is what you’d expect from a Stardom Bikiniing photobook so I’ll take a moment to complain about one aspect – I wish they had just gone full into the gimmick and had the wrestlers in (studio, not real) winter scenes. It would have made it stand out from the other Bikiniing photobooks, they gave themselves an excuse to have unique scenery but for the most part its just standard model posing/backgrounds like most of their other photobooks. A couple of the wrestlers did wear some type of jacket/fur in their photos but that was the extent of it. A missed opportunity to do something a little different from the norm.

Beyond that, the roster for the photobook is strong and every wrestler got at least three photos, plus most wrestlers had multiple outfits so the variety is certainly there. For those that like photobooks featuring the whole roster and not just one wrestler/faction, its hard not to recommend Bikiniing Winter, even if I wish they had leaned more into the “Winter” aspect beyond it just acknowledging when the photobook was released. Here is a sample of pictures from the photobook: