[1] In the same magazine, in 1984, she started publishing the series Fancy Dance about a Buddhist monk who is trained in becoming the new head of the temple.
[2] The same year, the series was adapted into a live-action film directed by Masayuki Suo.
For the series Onmyōji, based on an original work by Baku Yumemakura, she received the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2001[3][4] and the Seiun Award in 2006.
[6] She went on to produce a sequel version, Onmyōji: Tamatebako, which was serialized from 2011 until 2017 in the comic magazine Melody.
Tomoko Yamada assesses that her style is influenced by sentiments of women's media: "One can see this in the graceful beauty of the conduct of Okano’s characters, the picturesque and polished structure of every frame, and the emphasis on subtlety in story development.