Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4060
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Chiwa Saito works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Chiwa Saito appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Chiwa. Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, science fiction, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jimmy Stone, Fumitoshi Oizaki, Yukihiro Miyamoto and others, Chiwa Saito 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.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion (2013) as Homura Akemi (voice) · Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings (2012) as Homura Akemi (voice) · Aria the Benedizione (2021) as Aika S. Granzchesta (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #4060 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2012–2026
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
Average Nutevio score
3.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
Most frequent director
Yukihiro Miyamoto
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Yukihiro Miyamoto
Most common genre
Animation
11 titles
Average runtime
0h 52m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
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
6.2
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
2010s
7.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion, Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion, Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 2.03 films |
| Action | — | 6.01 film |
| Thriller | 7.61 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.53 films |
| Romance | — | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2012Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Homura Akemi (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2013Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
7.8 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.
Most recent film
2026Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie -Walpurgisnacht: Rising-
The current state of the argument, as Homura Akemi (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.
12 of 12 films
as Homura Akemi (voice)
Directed by Yukihiro Miyamoto
as Homura Akemi (voice)
Directed by Yukihiro Miyamoto
as Aika S. Granzchesta (voice)
Directed by Takahiro Natori
as Nadeshiko Ōmuro (voice)
Directed by Naoyuki Tatsuwa
as Maya Yotsuba (voice)
Directed by Jimmy Stone
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
Homura Akemi (voice)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion (2013)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Homura Akemi (voice) gives Chiwa Saito a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Homura Akemi (voice)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings (2012)
Performance score7.9
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Homura Akemi (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Aika S. Granzchesta (voice)
Aria the Benedizione (2021)
Performance score7.7
Aria the Benedizione asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aika S. Granzchesta (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nadeshiko Ōmuro (voice)
Oomuro-ke: Dear Sisters (2024)
Performance score6.7
Oomuro-ke: Dear Sisters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nadeshiko Ōmuro (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 Homura Akemi (voice)
Start here. Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion is the clearest statement of what Chiwa Saito does — accessible, 117 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Chiwa 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.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings (2012)
Same director as Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Aria the Benedizione (2021)
Keeps the fantasy register of Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings but asks for a colder reading of it.
Oomuro-ke: Dear Sisters (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Aria the Benedizione but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Irregular at Magic High School THE MOVIE - Yotsuba Succession Arc - (2026)
Keeps the animation register of Oomuro-ke: Dear Sisters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Yukihiro Miyamoto
Director
3 films together
Notably Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
Takaharu Ozaki
Director
1 film together
Notably WAVE!! Surfing Yappe!! - Chapter 2
Takahiro Natori
Director
1 film together
Notably Aria the Benedizione
Hiromitsu Kanazawa
Director
1 film together
Notably Seitokai Yakuindomo the Movie 2
Shin Oonuma
Director
1 film together
Notably Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya: Licht Nameless Girl
Naoyuki Tatsuwa
Director
1 film together
Notably Oomuro-ke: Dear Sisters
Fumitoshi Oizaki
Director
1 film together
Notably Sgt. Frog
Jimmy Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably The Irregular at Magic High School THE MOVIE - Yotsuba Succession Arc -
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Yukihiro Miyamoto
Director
3 films together · 5.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: RebellionTakahiro Natori
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Aria the BenedizioneNaoyuki Tatsuwa
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Oomuro-ke: Dear SistersHiromitsu Kanazawa
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Seitokai Yakuindomo the Movie 2Shin Oonuma
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya: Licht Nameless GirlJimmy Stone
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Irregular at Magic High School THE MOVIE - Yotsuba Succession Arc -Fumitoshi Oizaki
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sgt. FrogTakaharu Ozaki
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WAVE!! Surfing Yappe!! - Chapter 2Six 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
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
as Homura Akemi (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
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings
as Homura Akemi (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
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
as Homura Akemi (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Seitokai Yakuindomo the Movie 2
as (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
as Homura Akemi (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. Chiwa Saito 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.
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
11 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
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
as Homura Akemi (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
as Homura Akemi (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Irregular at Magic High School THE MOVIE - Yotsuba Succession Arc -
as Maya Yotsuba (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
as Homura Akemi (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion
as Homura Akemi (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya: Licht Nameless Girl
as Chloe von Einzbern (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya: Licht Nameless Girl
as Chloe von Einzbern (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part I: Beginnings
as Homura Akemi (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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