Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#939
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kaito Ishikawa 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.
Kaito Ishikawa appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kaito. Your Name. is the clearest case: a film rated 8.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, mystery, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Soichi Masui, Tensai Okamura, Susumu Mitsunaka and others, Kaito Ishikawa 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.
Your Name. (2016) as Shinta Takagi (voice) · HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle (2024) as Tobio Kageyama (voice) · My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (2019) as Tenya Iida (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #939 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2016–2026
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.7
Your Name.
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.5
Your Name.
Most frequent director
Soichi Masui
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Soichi Masui
Most common genre
Animation
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 29m
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
6.3
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
7.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, For Whom the Alchemist Exists — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.5
Across 5 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. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, For Whom the Alchemist Exists.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 8.22 films | 5.44 films |
| Action | 7.72 films | 7.21 film |
| Comedy | — | 7.72 films |
| Romance | 8.22 films | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2016Your Name.
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Shinta Takagi (voice). 8.7 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
2026Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend
The current state of the argument, as Sakuta Azusagawa (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.
13 of 13 films
as Shinta Takagi (voice)
Directed by Makoto Shinkai
as Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
Directed by Soichi Masui
as Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
Directed by Soichi Masui
as Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
Directed by Soichi Masui
as Tobio Kageyama (voice)
Directed by Susumu Mitsunaka
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
Shinta Takagi (voice)
Your Name. (2016)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Shinta Takagi (voice) gives Kaito Ishikawa a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid (2023)
Performance score8.2
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sakuta Azusagawa (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out (2023)
Performance score8.2
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sakuta Azusagawa (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (2019)
Performance score8.2
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sakuta Azusagawa (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 Shinta Takagi (voice)
Start here. Your Name. is the clearest statement of what Kaito Ishikawa does — accessible, 106 minutes, and rated 8.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kaito 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.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (2019)
Keeps the romance register of Your Name. but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid (2023)
Same director as Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out (2023)
Same director as Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle (2024)
Keeps the animation register of Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Soichi Masui
Director
4 films together
Notably Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
Kenji Nagasaki
Director
2 films together
Notably My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
Shunsuke Tada
Director
2 films together
Notably Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These - Intrigue 1
Makoto Shinkai
Director
1 film together
Notably Your Name.
Masanori Takahashi
Director
1 film together
Notably For Whom the Alchemist Exists
Minoru Ashina
Director
1 film together
Notably Isekai Quartet the Movie: Another World
Susumu Mitsunaka
Director
1 film together
Notably HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle
Tensai Okamura
Director
1 film together
Notably My Hero Academia: You're Next
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Soichi Masui
Director
4 films together · 5.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack KidKenji Nagasaki
Director
2 films together · 7.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
My Hero Academia: Heroes RisingShunsuke Tada
Director
2 films together · 3.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These - Intrigue 1Makoto Shinkai
Director
1 film together · 8.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Your Name.Susumu Mitsunaka
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster BattleMinoru Ashina
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Isekai Quartet the Movie: Another WorldTensai Okamura
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Hero Academia: You're NextMasanori Takahashi
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
For Whom the Alchemist ExistsSix 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
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (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
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (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
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Isekai Quartet the Movie: Another World
as Naofumi Iwatani (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (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. Kaito Ishikawa 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
13 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
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend
as Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
as Sakuta Azusagawa (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
as Tenya Iida (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
My Hero Academia: You're Next
as Tenya Iida (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Your Name.
as Shinta Takagi (voice)
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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Built a career in the same territory: animation and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and comedy
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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