22 Years Later, Kaori Ohara Is Back — and Showing a Bold New Side in Her Long-Awaited Photo Book

Her first photo book in 22 years

“Releasing a photo book at the age of 50 is dangerous in itself. My looks are dangerous, and I probably smell dangerous too,” she joked.

Kaori Ohara laughed freely as she said it.

Thirty years after her debut, she appeared to promote her first photo book in 22 years, “Dangerous Kaori♡: Kaori Ohara Photo Book” (Futabasha). But what came across from her was not the composure one might expect from a 50-year-old. Rather, it was a burning desire to once again compete at the very center of the entertainment world.

“Thinking you’re not dangerous is much more dangerous. But I suppose a 50-year-old like me who’s still trying to claw her way back up is pretty dangerous, isn’t she?” she said with a laugh.

She joked as she spoke, and her natural rhythm carried the air of someone who had spent 30 years working in television.

Ohara entered the entertainment industry at the age of 20 after being scouted on a street corner in Roppongi. Soon after joining her agency, she landed an audition for a dieting project on a live television program.

“When I first joined the agency, the president was really strict with me, telling me, ‘Lose weight, go to the gym, go running.’ But when I went to audition for the program, the staff told me, ‘You’re too thin—you won’t get the part.’ Then the president completely changed his tune and said, ‘Eat! Eat now, you idiot!’” she recalled with a laugh. “I desperately ate all the midyear gifts the agency had received and forced myself to gain weight until I had a double chin. That’s how I passed the audition.”

She had finally landed her first television appearance—but from there, things became even more grueling.

“We had a weigh-in every week, and if you gained even 100 grams from the previous week, you got a yellow card. Three yellow cards meant a red card, and you were fired. So even when I was sleep-deprived, I’d put on a sauna suit and go running, or close half the lid on the bathtub at my parents’ house to make myself sweat. Seriously, like a boxer, I was even spitting in the bathroom right up until the weigh-in,” she said, laughing.

“It was a competition among 20 girls, but in the end I lost about seven kilograms. After that, I started getting lots of swimsuit gravure work and jobs on late-night TV shows.”

There was even a time when she earned ¥5 million a month

After that, she quickly became a popular star. She appeared one after another on hit late-night programs such as “Gilgamesh Night and Shutsudō! Miniskirt Police” (both on TV Tokyo). She also became widely known to the public through an Earth Corporation commercial for “Gokipurun,” in which she played an office worker whose breasts bounced “purun, purun.”

Late-night shows, commercials, gravure photo shoots—work kept pouring in without interruption, and before she knew it, her schedule was completely packed.

“Back then, it was the era when gravure shoots mean Saipan. There was even a time when I went to Saipan four times in a single month. I also had five regular TV shows, and after they were over, they would let me take a taxi all the way back to my family home in Hachioji.

After work, I’d have dinner with senior comedians in Nakameguro or Nishi-Azabu, and I slept on the Shinkansen or on airplanes. I worked every single day—to the point where I didn’t even have time to spend money—but I never found it difficult. I genuinely loved getting laughs on variety shows.”

At the time, her monthly income surpassed ¥5 million. She rapidly rose through the entertainment industry, which still retained some of the excitement of the bubble era. But that momentum did not last forever. Around the age of 25, offers to appear on television gradually began to decline.

“I was offered acting jobs too, but I couldn’t memorize my lines, and I was just so terrible at it,” she laughs. “When TV work started decreasing and I was struggling, someone in the industry once told me, ‘We don’t give offers to people who are always out having fun.’ I like being around people, so whenever I had free time, I’d go out to eat with someone. But I guess that made me look like I was just fooling around.”

Realizing that she could not make a living solely from show business, she literally built something from the ground up: her dog clothing brand, Otty, which is now in its 21st year.

“I run almost everything by myself. I do everything—from creating the design instructions for the clothes and taking photos for the website to shipping products and issuing invoices. Even when I set up a booth at an event in Osaka, I pack a long HiAce van to the brim with merchandise, and another woman who helps me and I take turns driving and carry everything in ourselves.”

The brand got on track, and she established herself as a businesswoman. Even so, deep down, her desire to make people laugh on variety shows never disappeared.

Even her agency’s bankruptcy became material for a viral post

Then, in 2017, prompted by advice from a fortune teller, she took the unusual step of changing her stage name from Kaori Ohara to Gaori Ohara.

“I was told, ‘The reason you haven’t become successful is because of your name,’ and that changing the kacharacter so it had five strokes would improve my luck. So I changed my name without telling my agency. When I talked about it on ‘Ariyoshi Hanseikai’ (Nippon TV), someone even complimented me by saying, ‘You’re so incredibly stupid, and I love it.’”

Although it became a talking point, she says she still felt that something about it never quite sat right with her. Then, in 2024, a turning point arrived without warning: the agency she had belonged to for 28 years suddenly went bankrupt.

As her junior colleagues quickly found new agencies, Ohara took a surprising approach. Along with a photo, she posted on social media: “My agency went bankrupt, so I came here hoping to get scouted, but no one has approached me.”The post made online news and went hugely viral. Looking back, Ohara says, “No matter what the situation was, I wanted to turn it into a laugh in the end.”

The following year, 2025, brought another turning point. When she appeared on “Jikkuri Kiitarou” (TV Tokyo), she received some unexpected advice from host Jun Nagura.

“He said, ‘As “Gaori,” you haven’t left any real mark, and all you’ve gotten are laughs, so just go back to “Kaori.”’ Right there on the spot, I declared, ‘I’m changing it back!’” she says with a laugh.

“I’ve always wanted to get married.”

After taking a roundabout path for eight years, she returned to her original name, Kaori Ohara. Her signal flare for a fresh start was her first photo book in 22 years, “Dangerous Kaori♡.” It also represented a break from a bitter memory that had weighed on her for years.

“About 10 years ago, I was offered the chance to do a photo book, but they wanted me to show quite a lot. They asked me, ‘Could you do it if just the top of your breasts were visible through frosted glass?’ So I said, ‘Maybe if there were about three sheets of frosted glass,’ and they were like, ‘No, just one.’”

“I call it the frosted-glass incident,” she says with a laugh. “But this time, I’m challenging myself with some daring shots because I decided to—not because someone else told me to.”

Her passion for work remains unchanged. But when asked about her private life, she gave a slightly shy smile.

“Even though I run a dog clothing brand, I don’t actually have a dog. I thought, ‘I’ll get one when I get married,’ but that just never happened. I also thought I’d go to DisneySea when I found someone I really loved, but I’ve never gone, and now it’s already reached its 25th anniversary,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve always wanted to get married.”

After laughing self-deprecatingly, she quickly shifts back to talking about variety-show work. Perhaps that ability to switch gears so quickly is something she has developed through her many years in the world of variety television.

“Both the right and left sides of my brain are just itching to get moving again. It’s like telling someone who loves saunas that they’re not allowed to go to one for five years—it would only make them want to go even more. I want to use this brain that’s gotten rusty. I love those intense, nerve-racking environments where I can seriously play the fool with hardcore professional comedians, get seriously roasted in return, and trade lines like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?!’”

Even at 50, she refuses to give up on her dreams and continues running toward the forefront of the entertainment world. And perhaps that is precisely why this dangerous 50-year-old has no intention of ending her challenge anytime soon.

“Dangerous Kaori♡: Kaori Ohara Photo Book” (photographs by Tadao Matsuda / Futabasha)