Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki.

Akiko Wakabayashi (born August 26, 1941) is a Japanese actress, best known in English-speaking countries for her role as Bond girl Aki in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Prior to this, she made many films in her native Japan, especially Toho Studio’s monster films such as Dagora, the Space Monster and Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster (both of which were also released under various other titles).

When production of You Only Live Twice began, Wakabayashi was originally slated to play the main Bond girl, Kissy Suzuki while her co-star Mie Hama played Suki, one of Tiger Tanaka’s top agents. When learning English proved to be a major hurdle to Hama, the two women switched roles, with Hama now playing the smaller part of Kissy and Wakabayashi playing the bigger part of Suki.

At her suggestion, the character of Suki was renamed to Aki. This is probably partly due to the fact that in 1966, Woody Allen took the Japanese action film International Secret Police: Key of Keys (in which both Mie Hama and Wakabayashi starred), re-edited, re-dubbed, re-plotted, and renamed it What’s Up, Tiger Lily?. In the film, Wakabayashi’s character was “Suki Yaki” whereas her You Only Live Twice co-star Hama played “Teri Yaki”.

Wakabayashi made only one more film (and a guest TV appearance) before mysteriously disappearing from both the big and small screen altogether. In an interview in G-FAN magazine, Wakabayashi said she retired from acting due to injuries suffered while making a film.