Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#22633
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Katsuhisa Namase 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.
Katsuhisa Namase appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Katsuhisa. My Hero Academia: Two Heroes is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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 mystery, action, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Akira Tanaka, Noriyoshi Sakuma, Tōya Satō and others, Katsuhisa Namase 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.
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes (2018) as David Shield (voice) · The Confidence Man JP - The Movie - (2019) · Kaiji: Final Game (2020) as Kotaro Sakazaki
Career snapshot
Ranked #22633 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2018–2025
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
Most frequent director
Akira Tanaka
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Akira Tanaka
Most common genre
Mystery
6 titles
Average runtime
2h 3m
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Confidence Man JP - The Movie -, Masquerade Hotel, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. The Confidence Man JP - The Movie -, Masquerade Hotel, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | 6.11 film | 7.11 film |
| Action | 6.82 films | 7.02 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.22 films |
| Comedy | 6.72 films | 6.61 film |
| Crime | 6.71 film | 7.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
Where our catalogue meets this career, as David Shield (voice). 7.6 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
2025Black Showman
The current state of the argument, as Daisuke Kogure.
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.
9 of 9 films
as David Shield (voice)
Directed by Kenji Nagasaki
Directed by Akira Tanaka
as Kotaro Sakazaki
Directed by Tōya Satō
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
David Shield (voice)
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes (2018)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. David Shield (voice) gives Katsuhisa Namase a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Takagi
Bad Lands (2023)
Performance score7.4
Bad Lands asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Takagi is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
The Confidence Man JP - The Movie -
The Confidence Man JP - The Movie - (2019)
Performance score7.2
The Confidence Man JP - The Movie - asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kotaro Sakazaki
Kaiji: Final Game (2020)
Performance score7.0
Kaiji: Final Game asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kotaro Sakazaki 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 David Shield (voice)
Start here. My Hero Academia: Two Heroes is the clearest statement of what Katsuhisa Namase does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Katsuhisa 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.
The Confidence Man JP - The Movie - (2019)
A deliberate change of key after My Hero Academia: Two Heroes — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Kaiji: Final Game (2020)
Keeps the mystery register of The Confidence Man JP - The Movie - but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Confidence Man JP – Episode of the Princess – (2020)
Keeps the mystery register of Kaiji: Final Game but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bad Lands (2023)
A deliberate change of key after The Confidence Man JP – Episode of the Princess – — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Akira Tanaka
Director
3 films together
Notably The Confidence Man JP - The Movie -
Kyouhei Yamaguchi
Director
1 film together
Notably Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever
Kenji Nagasaki
Director
1 film together
Notably My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
Masayuki Suzuki
Director
1 film together
Notably Masquerade Hotel
Tōya Satō
Director
1 film together
Notably Kaiji: Final Game
Noriyoshi Sakuma
Director
1 film together
Notably Your Turn to Kill: The Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Akira Tanaka
Director
3 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Confidence Man JP - The Movie -Kenji Nagasaki
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Hero Academia: Two HeroesTōya Satō
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kaiji: Final GameMasayuki Suzuki
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Masquerade HotelKyouhei Yamaguchi
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kamen Rider Heisei Generations ForeverNoriyoshi Sakuma
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Your Turn to Kill: The MovieSix 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 Confidence Man JP - The Movie -
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
as David Shield (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
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
as David Shield (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Your Turn to Kill: The Movie
as Junichiro Tamiya
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
as David Shield (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. Katsuhisa Namase 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.
Mystery Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in mystery, 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 Confidence Man JP - The Movie -
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kaiji: Final Game
as Kotaro Sakazaki
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
as David Shield (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Masquerade Hotel
as Kenji Kurihara
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
as David Shield (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
as David Shield (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever
as Junichirou Tokiwa
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Confidence Man JP – Episode of the Princess –
as Ho Namushen
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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