Kōyū Ohara
Life and career. Early life. Kōyū Ohara attributes his interest in film to the fact that his grandfather had worked at Nikkatsu as a director. As a child, he claims to have seen up to 200 movies a year. Though he studied law at Keio University and worked as a secretary to a member of the House of Representatives, rather than take the bar exam, he took an entrance exam at Shochiku studios. He failed the Shochiku exam, but tried out for Nikkatsu, and began working there as an assistant director in 1961. He was assigned to director  Koreyoshi Kurahara, under whom he worked with future "Roman Porno" master, Tatsumi Kumashiro. Section::::"Roman porno". When Nikkatsu made its decision to concentrate almost exclusively on its "Roman porno" version of the soft-core pink film genre, Ohara was not enthusiastic about the change. Many of Nikkatsu's other directors and actors left the studio at this time rather than work in sex films, but Ohara stayed with the studio, hoping for a chance to direct. He worked as chief assistant director to Shōgorō Nishimura on the first "Roman porno", "Apartment Wife: Afternoon Affair" (1971), and made his directorial debut the  following year with the successful period film, "Passion: Ohichi's Love Song" (1972). After a major success with 1973's "College Girl: Sex Equation", Ohara became one of Nikkatsu's busiest directors. He worked exclusively for Nikkatsu until the mid-1980s, directing 42 films for the studio, four of which were among Nikkatsu's top ten money-makers of all time. Summarizing his style, the Weissers say, "Director Ohara is one of Nikkatsu's most underrated filmmakers, finally recognized in the late '90s for his forays into pop art... He was easily the studio's hippest director, interminably mixing contemporary music  and fashionable events-of-the-day within the traditional pinku eiga format." Ohara became known for his ability to direct successful "pink movies" in a variety of genres. He had successes in the S&M genre with "Fairy in a Cage" (1977) and "Wet Rope Confession". After Nikkatsu had stopped producing "violent pink" films following Yasuharu Hasebe's ""Rape! 13th Hour" (1976), Ohara revived the genre with "" (1979). Ohara directed women-in-prison films with the "True Story of a Woman in Jail" series, and the pink Catholic nun films "Sister Lucia's Dishonor" (1978) and "Wet Rope Confession: Convent Story  (1979). On television, he directed children's shows including Three Sisters Shushutorian". He directed successful satirical films like "Love Daydream" (1980), and office lady sex comedies like "I Like It From Behind" (1981), and even a pink science-fiction film, "Lady Momoko's Adventure" (1979) and the musical comedy pink film "Oh! Takarazuka" (1982). Critic Jasper Sharp considers Ohara's "finest work" to be the 1978 coming-of-age story "Pink Tush Girl" which gave rise to two sequels, "" and "Pink Tush Girl: Proposal Strategy". He worked with Nikkatsu's top actresses, including Naomi Tani in "Fairy in a Cage , Rope Hell" (1978) and "" (1977), all of which were based on scripts by Oniroku Dan. After directing some darker films, in 1978 Ohara started his light-hearted "Pink Tush Girl" trilogy. Centered around high-school life and popular music, these films were popular with both male and female audiences. After "Roman porno". In 1982 Ohara went to Hong Kong where he directed films for Golden Harvest, including the popular "China Scandal: Exotic Dance", a co-production with Nikkatsu. He left Nikkatsu in 1984 to concentrate on his interest in popular music. He directed music videos for teen-oriented singers with  the Warner/Pioneer label among other Japanese record companies. Ohara retired from full-time film work in 1988. In 1999, while walking home from a drinking bout, Ohara had a stroke and injured himself in a fall, causing a slow down in his lifestyle and filmmaking. Ohara died on February 20, 2004.