Miyu Amasaki 超新星な彼女 Digital Photobook Review

Still in her rookie year, Miyu Amasaki is already being presented as a future star in Stardom. That push was particularly evident in August of 2022, as Miyu had a physical photobook released as well as two digital photobooks and a spread in Weekly Playboy. This is a look at one of her digital photobooks, titled “超新星な彼女.” You can read reviews for more magazine and photobooks on the Joshi Photobook Reviews page.

Full Details

Title: Miyu Amasaki 超新星な彼女
Release: August 29th, 2022
Pages: 67
Size: 1500px X 2500px (raw photo size)
Cost: ¥1,100
Where to Buy: Gravure Japan!

Even though some Stardom fans don’t want to admit it, and certainly don’t want to embrace it, the Stardom business model emphasizes not only the in-ring action but also the physical appearances of their wrestlers. While Stardom certainly has some of the best women’s wrestling in the world, they also release a lot of photobooks, employ former gravure idols, and at times have a wrestler’s appearance factor into storylines. For new wrestlers joining, the more they embrace both the in-ring and gravure side of Stardom, the more chances they will have to climb to the top of the promotion.

Miyu Amasaki debuted for Stardom in March of 2022 and almost immediately was pushed as a future star. Not necessarily by getting wins, but by her placement on some cards and who she was wrestling. Stardom wasted no time in getting Miyu up to speed on the gravure side as well, as in August of 2022 she had three photobooks released and a spread in Weekly Playboy. To say this is unusual would be an understatement – most wrestlers take a year or two at least to get a solo photobook, and no Stardom wrestler has gotten a digital photobook released since Hana Kimura. Its a very aggressive approach, and there is some risk of turning some fans off that think its too much, too soon for the 20 year old wrestler.

For this review we are looking at one of the digital photobooks released for Miyu Amasaki, titled 超新星な彼女. I am writing the title in Japanese as three different translation websites had three different translations, but it is something similar to “She’s a Supernova.” Anyway, unlike the Supernova photobook, this one shows Miyu Amasaki out and about in her normal life, her “true face” if you will. This includes pictures of her in casual attire, in training, and while wrestling. I always enjoy high quality pictures of wrestlers actually wrestling, so those are a big plus, and while the casual pictures are clearly still posed they show Miyu in a more natural setting than the modeling pictures do. This photobook is also ten pages longer but the same price as the companion photobook. For fans looking for modeling/gravure pictures, this is definitely not the photobook for you, buy the other one. But for general fans of Miyu that want to see Miyu in a more natural environment, or feel uncomfortable with gravure-style photos, I’d recommend purchasing this one.

The main issue with the digital photobook is simply in the way it is sold. To view the photos there are two options – in a browser or by downloading their app. The browser goes out of its way to not allow you to download the photos. You can screen grab of course, but unless you have a giant monitor, the picture will not be in its highest resolution to fit on the screen. The app is an excessive way to let people view the photobook, as few people want an app on their computer called Gravure J!, but the benefit there is it does allow you to cache the photos so you can view them offline. There is a method to save the photos in full quality, but its complicated. I still prefer a standard physical photobook since those can be more easily viewed and scanned, but at under $10 it is hard to complain too much, even if you may not feel like you really “own” the photobook in its digital form. Here are a sample of pictures from the photobook: