東雲うみ - Shinonome Umi 東雲うみ (Jun 08, 2021) | iroppoiさんより

Umi Shinonome was born on September 26, 1996, and is from Saitama Prefecture. She belongs to PP Enterprise and has achieved solid results in every field she's in — gravure, cosplay, and YouTube.

The road to show business is the interesting part. She loved cameras and photography since her student days and worked as a portrait model, then after university joined a trading company that sells photography equipment. For her first month she made 100 phone calls every day and came in two hours earlier than her colleagues to learn the job, eventually becoming the top salesperson. But when the company's performance declined, she decided to switch careers to gravure. That boldness and competitive spirit seem to be her starting point.

She debuted in 2020 with the DVD "Shinonome-chan" and won the Grand Prix at the "Beautiful Butt Gravure Idol General Election 2020" that same year. The YouTube channel she started that autumn passed 10,000 subscribers in a week and reached 1 million in 2023. She has since appeared in the drama "Oshi ga Joushi ni Narimashite Full Throttle" and the film "Joriku," and in 2024 debuted as an idol as a member of PPE41.

And you can't leave out her side as a Gunpla (Gundam plastic model) fan. It started when she fell in love at first sight with a finished Zeta Gundam model in Akihabara during university, and now she's skilled enough that model magazines ask her for showcase builds. On top of that, oil painting, needle felting, flower arrangement, kyudo, balloon art, and street performance — the range of her skills and hobbies is almost unreal. The way she effortlessly leaps over sayings like "don't make your hobby your job" may be why so many fans support her.