After working more than 10 years as editor-in-chief for a successful magazine catering to young, skinny Japanese male "hosts" who entertain female clientele at nightclubs, Norihito Kurashina made a 180-degree shift and launched a magazine targeting plump middle-aged men more like himself.
Touted as Japan's first "fashion and lifestyle magazine of chubby men, by chubby men and for chubby men," the first issue of Mr. Babe hit bookstores Oct. 26, with American actor Jack Black featured on the cover.
Smiling sardonically into the camera, Black forms the letter L on each side of his head using the thumb and index fingers of both hands to signify the magazine's catchphrase — "Love and Large," a man of big heart and big body is loved — created by the 52-year-old Kurashina who calls himself "a debu (fatso) of 25 years."