[1][2] He is most famous as one half of the owarai duo Bakushō Mondai along with Yūji Tanaka, where he acts as the boke.

Ōta is known for his strained, long-winded speeches, though it is perhaps his profound and sometimes dangerous comments that make him a staple of modern Japanese entertainment, and reflect his rather remarkable personality.

In 2010, Ōta published his first fictional literary work, a collection of short stories, "Maboroshi no Tori"[3] (マボロシの鳥 / Legendary Bird) which he followed with a novel "Bunmei No Ko[4]" (文明の子 / Child of Civilisation) in 2012.

Ōta has recently found a niche for his relatively extremist and sometimes ridiculous world views as the main speaker in the Nippon TV show, Hikari Ōta's If I Were Prime Minister... Secretary Tanaka, where he acts as the Japanese Prime Minister and addresses various social problems with his own style of radical solutions.

Ōta also voiced Sid the Sloth in the Japanese dubbed version of the animated franchise Ice Age.