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Monthly Playboy

Cover of the February 1988 issue, featuring Brooke Shields
Categories	Men's magazine
Frequency	Monthly
Circulation	approx. 900,000 (1975), approx. 55,000 (final few years [1])
First issue	July 1975
Final issue Number	January 2009 408
Company	Shueisha
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Website	m-playboy.shueisha.co.jp

Monthly Playboy (月刊プレイボーイ, Gekkan Pureibōi), also known as Geppure (月プレ) or MPB, was a franchise of Playboy magazine in Japan.

Monthly Playboy was first published in July 1975. ^{[2] [3]} Influenced by the sophisticated designs and contents of Monthly Playboy, a number of magazines were launched to imitate it. ^[4] However, this was a magazine that translated and re-edited Playboy published in the United States for the Japanese market. As such, it is essentially unrelated to Weekly Playboy. ^[1] Kazuhiko Torishima, known for bringing Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama to the world, commented as follows. "Monthly Playboy was an interesting magazine with cutting-edge contents that attracted relatively young readers in their 20s and 30s, rather than older, and it also had a good advertising strategy". ^[5] The magazine ceased publication with the final January 2009 issue, due to a decline in readership. ^{[1] [6]}

Pop artist Keiichi Tanaami was the magazine's first art director. ^[7]

Mika Okuda, one of the 1988 Playmates, was an original member of Onyanko Club, the biggest female idol group of the 1980s, and was membership number 1. ^{[8] [9] [10]} However, only two weeks after the group was launched in April 1985, she was photographed by the weekly magazine Shūkan Bunshun smoking in a coffee shop with five other members. ^{[8] [9] [10]} This scandal led to Okuda's dismissal from Onyanko Club. ^{[8] [9] [10]} She had dropped her high school credits in March 1985. Therefore, she had to start her second grade all over again in April (schools in Japan start a new grade in April). ^{[9] [10]} She admitted that there was a time when she was a delinquent girl before becoming a member of Onyanko Club. ^[11] She had a part-time job at the amusement park Toshimaen during the summer vacation of the year she was fired. after starting the second trimester in September, she worked another part-time job after school. ^[12] In August 1986, she even appeared in the photo magazine Emma ( Emma).This magazine was published by Bungeishunjū, the same company that publishes Shūkan Bunshun, the magazine that forced her to be fired. ^[13] She also applied for the idol group audition organized by the manga magazine Weekly Young Magazine. However, she was not selected. ^{[9] [10] [14]} After graduating from Tokyo Metropolitan Kurume High School ( 東京都立久留米高校) in 1987, there was talk of her making her debut as a singer with Polydor Japan, but it did not come to fruition. ^{[9] [10] [15]} Her nudity was revealed in the October 1988 issue of Monthly Playboy for the first time after she was named runner-up in Playmate Japan 88. ^{[10] [16] [17]}

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008)

Playmate Japan (プレイメイト・ジャパン) ^[18]

• 1986 - Shiho Masui ( ますい志保), Emi Satō, Reiko Sugano
• 1987 - Minako Konno
• 1988 - Sayoko Kobayashi ( 小林沙世子), Mari Kokubu, Mika Okuda
• 1989 - Momo Aida ( あいだもも)
• 1990 - Kurisu Aoki, Akio Horisaka, Sachiko Kurachi, Haruka Morimura, Madoka Sugawara, Rie Sugimoto
• 1991 - Misuteriasu K
• 1992 - Kana Aiba, Reira Misaki, Chise Tokuda
• 1993 - Yūko Sugimoto ( 杉本夕子), Yoriko Ikuta ( 生田依子), Mio Asai

• Weekly Playboy

• Ishimaru, Genshō (September 23, 1989). ウワサを追いこせ! [Let's Pass The Rumors!] (in Japanese). Tokyo, Japan: Takarajimasha. ISBN  4-88063-616-9.

• Monthly Playboy
• Japanese Playboy Covers at PBCovers.com