Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#70852
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Kazuko Yoshiyuki works on quiet performance 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.
Kazuko Yoshiyuki appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kazuko. When Marnie Was There is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, emotional range, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for war, tv movie, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Yojiro Takita, Hayao Miyazaki, Kazuko Yoshiyuki 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.
When Marnie Was There (2014) as Nanny (voice) · Ponyo (2008) as Toki (voice) · Departures (2008) as Tsuyako Yamashita
Career snapshot
Ranked #70852 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2008–2020
Career length
12 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
When Marnie Was There
Average Nutevio score
5.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
When Marnie Was There
Most frequent director
Hiromasa Yonebayashi
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 23m
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
6.1
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. When Marnie Was There — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Departures, Ponyo.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.41 film | 7.71 film | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008Departures
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tsuyako Yamashita.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2008Ponyo
7.7 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
The current state of the argument, as おざわあい / OZAWA Ai.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Nanny (voice)
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
as Toki (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as Tsuyako Yamashita
Directed by Yojiro Takita
as おざわあい / OZAWA Ai
Directed by Unknown
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Nanny (voice)
When Marnie Was There (2014)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Nanny (voice) gives Kazuko Yoshiyuki a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Toki (voice)
Ponyo (2008)
Performance score7.5
Ponyo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Toki (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tsuyako Yamashita
Departures (2008)
Performance score7.2
Departures asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tsuyako Yamashita is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
おざわあい / OZAWA Ai
あとかたの街〜12歳の少女が見た戦争〜 (2020)
Performance score6.5
あとかたの街〜12歳の少女が見た戦争〜 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. おざわあい / OZAWA Ai 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 Nanny (voice)
Start here. When Marnie Was There is the clearest statement of what Kazuko Yoshiyuki does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kazuko 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.
Ponyo (2008)
Keeps the family register of When Marnie Was There but asks for a colder reading of it.
Departures (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Ponyo — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
あとかたの街〜12歳の少女が見た戦争〜 (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Departures but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
When Marnie Was ThereHayao Miyazaki
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PonyoYojiro Takita
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DeparturesSix 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
Departures
as Tsuyako Yamashita
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
When Marnie Was There
as Nanny (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
Ponyo
as Toki (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Departures
as Tsuyako Yamashita
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
When Marnie Was There
as Nanny (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. Kazuko Yoshiyuki 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Ponyo
as Toki (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ponyo
as Toki (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
When Marnie Was There
as Nanny (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ponyo
as Toki (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
When Marnie Was There
as Nanny (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
When Marnie Was There
as Nanny (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
When Marnie Was There
as Nanny (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
あとかたの街〜12歳の少女が見た戦争〜
as おざわあい / OZAWA Ai
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Rumi Hiiragi
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Miyu Irino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Mari Natsuki
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Takashi Naito
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Yasuko Sawaguchi
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Tatsuya Gashuin
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Kazuko Yoshiyuki performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
