HIRO (安田大サーカス HIRO), a member of the comedy trio Yasuda Dai Circus, appeared on the TV Tokyo variety show “Naze Soko?+” on September 17, 2026, where he opened up about a health scare that nearly killed him and the dramatic lifestyle change that followed. HIRO, 49, once weighed as much as 180 kilograms at his heaviest, but has since lost 48 kilograms after relocating back to his hometown of Wakayama City to overhaul his diet.
HIRO said that during his years at his peak weight, he was eating at all-you-can-eat restaurants six days a week, often “until my stomach felt like it would burst.” The turning point came when he was 40 years old. He suddenly experienced vomiting and a headache so severe it felt “like being hit full-force with a metal bat,” he recalled. He was rushed to a university hospital, where his blood pressure was measured at between 250 and 270. Doctors determined he had suffered a brain hemorrhage, and he said the survival rate following surgery was described to him as only around 20 percent.
HIRO said he has no memory of the two to three days following the emergency surgery. When he regained consciousness, he found himself restrained to the hospital bed, and was told it was because he had been thrashing violently. According to HIRO, seeing his mother in tears at his bedside made him resolve that he needed to “get serious” about his health. He subsequently paused his entertainment work and moved back to Wakayama to begin a new diet and lifestyle focused on recovery.
Who is HIRO?
HIRO is one-third of Yasuda Dai Circus, a Japanese comedy trio formed alongside Dancho Yasuda and Kurochan that has been a fixture of Japanese television variety shows since the mid-2000s, known for its slapstick and physical comedy routines. HIRO joined the talent agency Shochiku Entertainment at age 23 to begin his career. Since his health crisis, he has largely stepped back from the entertainment spotlight to focus on his recovery in Wakayama, with the program noting that he now appears to be “laughing again” and living a healthier day-to-day life.
Author’s Comment
A 20% survival rate and he’s out here casually recapping it on a Tuesday night variety show like he’s describing a bad hangover. That’s the specific brand of Japanese showbiz stoicism I both love and find slightly alarming. But let’s be real: "eating until my stomach felt like it would burst, six days a week" is a sentence a shocking number of Japanese entertainers could say out loud, because the industry practically rewards it as a personality trait until the body sends an invoice. I’m genuinely glad HIRO traded the all-you-can-eat circuit for quiet life back home with his mom’s cooking and his blood pressure under 200. Japan loves a comeback narrative, but I’ll take the boring, alive version over the dramatic one every single time.
