Jimmy Onishi

Onishi has one of the strangest and most likable careers in Japanese entertainment. Born on New Year's Day in Yao, just outside Osaka, he came up the old-fashioned way as an apprentice to the comedian Sanma Akashiya, and became a household name through the long-running Osaka variety show Tantei! Knight Scoop, where his guileless, completely unfiltered reactions were the whole act. What stays with me is what he did next. Instead of settling into a comfortable television career, he moved sideways into painting and built a real second identity as an artist. Comedians almost never gamble their standing on an entirely different medium. He kept both faces, the comic and the painter, and the canvases are as unguarded and loudly colored as he is. Trading a sure thing for an uncertain one takes more nerve than most people ever find.

Name (English)

Jimmy Onishi

Name (Japanese)

ジミー大西

Reading

じみー大西

Born

January 1, 1964 (age 62)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Dragon

Origin

Yao, Osaka Prefecture, Japan

Height

160 cm

Occupation

painter / owarai tarento

High school

Osaka University of Commerce Sakai High School

University

Osaka University of Commerce Sakai High School

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttp://www.j-onishi.com/index.html
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/jimmyonishi/
• Xhttps://x.com/j_hideaki
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%83%9F%E3%83%BC%E5%A4%A7%E8%A5%BF

Tags

• Osaka Prefecture
• painter
• owarai tarento

Last updated

2026-07-27

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.