Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7504
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Akira Kamiya represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Akira is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Akira Kamiya appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Akira. The Keeper of the Camphor Tree is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are transformation, versatility, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for mystery, fantasy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tomohiko Ito, Yuichi Satoh, Kenji Kodama and others, Akira Kamiya helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree (2026) as Tōichirō Ōba (voice) · Pom Poko (1994) as Tamasaburo (voice) · Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone (1989) as Garlic Jr. (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7504 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1989–2026
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
Most frequent director
Tomohiko Ito
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tomohiko Ito
Most common genre
Animation
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.9
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2020s
7.3 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Keeper of the Camphor Tree, City Hunter — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone.
Most productive era
2020s
2 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1980s | 1990s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | — | 8.01 film |
| Action | 6.81 film | — | 6.41 film | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.41 film | 6.51 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Garlic Jr. (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once. The current state of the argument, as Tōichirō Ōba (voice).
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
5 of 5 films
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
Directed by Tomohiko Ito
as Ryo Saeba (voice)
Directed by Kenji Kodama
as Tamasaburo (voice)
Directed by Isao Takahata
as Garlic Jr. (voice)
Directed by Daisuke Nishio
as TV News Announcer
Directed by Yuichi Satoh
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree (2026)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tōichirō Ōba (voice) gives Akira Kamiya a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ryo Saeba (voice)
City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes (2019)
Performance score7.1
City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ryo Saeba (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tamasaburo (voice)
Pom Poko (1994)
Performance score6.9
Pom Poko asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tamasaburo (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Garlic Jr. (voice)
Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone (1989)
Performance score6.7
Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Garlic Jr. (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
Start here. The Keeper of the Camphor Tree is the clearest statement of what Akira Kamiya does — accessible, 114 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Akira at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone (1989)
Keeps the fantasy register of The Keeper of the Camphor Tree but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pom Poko (1994)
Keeps the fantasy register of Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone but asks for a colder reading of it.
City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes (2019)
Keeps the animation register of Pom Poko but asks for a colder reading of it.
City Hunter (2024)
Keeps the action register of City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Daisuke Nishio
Director
1 film together
Notably Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone
Isao Takahata
Director
1 film together
Notably Pom Poko
Kenji Kodama
Director
1 film together
Notably City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes
Yuichi Satoh
Director
1 film together
Notably City Hunter
Tomohiko Ito
Director
1 film together
Notably The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tomohiko Ito
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Keeper of the Camphor TreeIsao Takahata
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pom PokoDaisuke Nishio
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dragon Ball Z: Dead ZoneYuichi Satoh
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City HunterKenji Kodama
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City Hunter: Shinjuku Private EyesSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Pom Poko
as Tamasaburo (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Akira Kamiya has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
37 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Animation Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in animation, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Pom Poko
as Tamasaburo (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Keeper of the Camphor Tree
as Tōichirō Ōba (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
City Hunter
as TV News Announcer
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes
as Ryo Saeba (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
City Hunter
as TV News Announcer
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Bonnie Hunt
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Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
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Reference
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