"Ugly? I'm a Beauty Now"...Remarkable Transformation of Japanese Woman Who Took 30,000 Selfies Over 13 Years

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[The Financial News] A Japanese woman who had been tormented by appearance-related anxiety after being called "ugly" since childhood has drawn attention after it became known that, instead of undergoing plastic surgery, she brought about change through effort by taking more than 30,000 full-body selfies over 13 years.
The woman in question is 51-year-old Kozue Sakurada, who lives in Tokyo, Japan. On the 15th, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in Hong Kong reported her story under the headline that a Japanese woman who was mocked for her "ugly" looks refused plastic surgery and transformed herself through makeup.
Sakurada was reportedly bullied throughout her school years because of her looks, and these experiences left deep scars, causing her to suffer from severe appearance-related obsession even as an adult. Her anxiety was so intense that if someone laughed on the train, she immediately assumed they were laughing at her and would hurriedly get off. Around the age of 37, after breaking up with the boyfriend she was dating at the time, she encountered a turning point.
When her boyfriend said, "I wish you were just a little prettier," Sakurada poured tremendous effort into grooming herself to match his preferences. However, they eventually broke up after six months. Through this experience, she realized that her desire to become beautiful was not for her boyfriend, but "solely for myself."
Plastic surgery was not the method Sakurada chose to change herself. Determined not to avert her eyes from her current appearance but to face it and make adjustments, she decided to take full-body photos and post them on her blog. "Since 2012, I have been running a blog titled ‘I’m almost 40, but can I still become pretty from now on?’ and working hard to become beautiful," she recalled. "I used to upload photos with my face always pixelated because I was ashamed of looking ugly, but in 2019 I was finally able to reveal my face for the first time and declare, ‘I have become a beautiful woman.’"
Sakurada’s efforts continued for a full 13 years. By taking more than 30,000 full-body photos, she kept observing herself, and, referring to fashion magazines and social media, she made gradual changes "like a scientific experiment using my appearance as the subject." She analyzed her body structure to find fashion styles that suited her, attended psychology workshops, and tried on skirts she had made herself, experiencing the power of "self-affirmation." As a result of these steady efforts, she says that by 2023, when she turned 48, she became convinced that she had indeed "become a beautiful woman."
The process of change was not always smooth. "From the summer of 2021, I became afraid of taking photos, so I stopped taking selfies altogether," Sakurada said. "Even when I showed my face and called myself ‘beautiful,’ I fell into a slump, sinking into extreme pessimism and thinking I was still ugly. But once I overcame that slump, I gradually began to feel confidence welling up from within. As my inner self grew stronger, the changes in my outward appearance also sped up."
Today, Sakurada is an influencer with more than 70,000 followers and runs an online shopping mall. The video she posted on her social media showing her transformation through "30,000 photos over 13 years" has received nearly 40,000 likes. Reflecting on the journey, she said, "While making the video and looking back at the enormous number of photos I took back then, I felt a deep affection for myself—for the person who kept facing her inferiority complex head-on and continued to make an effort, no matter how many walls she ran into."
bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter