English Translation
There’s a scent of danger.
Doesn’t 香り have a connotation of “fragrance”? Perhaps 匂い would be more appropriate to describe a negative thing like danger?
@ericaw
Great question!
香り (かおり) is basically an “attractive” scent. And sometimes a risky game (e.g. Romeo and Juliet kind of romance) is so attractive that you are easily allured and trapped. So, 危険な香りがする sounds very natural, and you can find the phrase in (cheesy) TV dramas quite often. The meaning is metaphorical and rhetorical.
If you replace 香り with 匂い (におい) or 臭い (also におい) in this lesson sentence, the altered sentence means that the speaker detected a hazardous smell physically by his nose. The difference between 匂い and 臭い is pleasant and unpleasant. So, 危険な「臭い」also makes sense if the speaker is in a factory and detects hazardous gas. But you cannot use 危険な「匂い」because there is no chemical, as far as I know, that has a pleasant scent and also is dangerous.
If something 危険な isn’t a chemical/physical one, if there is no rhetorical “attraction”, and if the pleasant/unpleasant dichotomy doesn’t perfectly work, におい in Hiragana is recommended, according to an article written by a proofreader at NHK (a national quasi-governmental TV broadcaster). The article gives example cases in Hiragana:
生活のにおい、犯罪のにおいがする、不正をにおわす
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