EasyOCR not reading Japanese text

[TLiley2]

For some reason unknown to me EasyOCR will or will not at times read clearly legible Japanese text at random and I need help getting to the bottom of why? Can anyone help?

img = cv2.imread(imgap)
    if img is None:
        print("Image not found at path")

    # Increase contrast
    contrast = cv2.convertScaleAbs(img, alpha=1.5, beta=1)

    # Greyscale
    gray = cv2.cvtColor(contrast, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)

    # Denoise the image with Gaussian Blur
    blurred = cv2.GaussianBlur(gray, (3, 3), 0)

    # Threshold the image (binary)
    _, threshold_img = cv2.threshold(blurred, 128, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY + cv2.THRESH_OTSU)

    # Calculate the percentage of black pixels
    import numpy as np
    black_pixels = np.sum(threshold_img == 0)
    total_pixels = threshold_img.size
    black_ratio = black_pixels / total_pixels

    # Invert the image if black pixels dominate
    if black_ratio > 0.75:
        processed_img = cv2.bitwise_not(threshold_img)
    else:
        processed_img = threshold_img

    # Perform OCR on the processed image
    reader = easyocr.Reader(['ja'], gpu=True)
    result = reader.readtext(processed_img, text_threshold=0.6, low_text=0.2)
    print(result)