Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ken Takemoto appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ken. Kubo and the Two Strings 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 romance, comedy, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mark Waters, Travis Knight, Michael Bay, Ken Takemoto 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.
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) as Ken (voice) · Just Like Heaven (2005) as Chinese Neighbour · He's All That (2021) as Union Station Takashi
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Ken Takemoto.
Films in Nutevio
7
1999–2021
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Kubo and the Two Strings
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Kubo and the Two Strings
Most frequent director
Mark Waters
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Mark Waters
Most common genre
Romance
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.5
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Kubo and the Two Strings, Transformers: Dark of the Moon — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Snow Falling on Cedars.
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.21 film | — | — | — |
| Action | — | — | 6.41 film | 6.21 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.72 films | — | 6.51 film |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.21 film |
| Romance | 6.21 film | 7.01 film | — | 6.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Monk.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
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
2021He's All That
The current state of the argument, as Union Station Takashi.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Ken (voice)
Directed by Travis Knight
as Chinese Neighbour
Directed by Mark Waters
as Union Station Takashi
Directed by Mark Waters
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
Ken (voice)
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ken (voice) gives Ken Takemoto a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Chinese Neighbour
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Performance score6.9
Just Like Heaven asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chinese Neighbour is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sensei
The Onion Movie (2008)
Performance score6.8
The Onion Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sensei is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Union Station Takashi
He's All That (2021)
Performance score6.5
He's All That asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Union Station Takashi 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 Ken (voice)
Start here. Kubo and the Two Strings is the clearest statement of what Ken Takemoto does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ken 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.
Just Like Heaven (2005)
A deliberate change of key after Kubo and the Two Strings — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Onion Movie (2008)
Keeps the comedy register of Just Like Heaven but asks for a colder reading of it.
Break Even (2020)
Same director as The Onion Movie, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
He's All That (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Break Even — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
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.
Mark Waters
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Just Like HeavenTravis Knight
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kubo and the Two StringsMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Transformers: Dark of the MoonSix 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
Kubo and the Two Strings
as Ken (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
Kubo and the Two Strings
as Ken (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
Kubo and the Two Strings
as Ken (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
as Japanese Executive
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Kubo and the Two Strings
as Ken (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. Ken Takemoto 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
22 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Romance Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in romance, 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
Kubo and the Two Strings
as Ken (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Break Even
as Mr. Wu
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Snow Falling on Cedars
as Monk
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Just Like Heaven
as Chinese Neighbour
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Kubo and the Two Strings
as Ken (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
as Japanese Executive
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Just Like Heaven
as Chinese Neighbour
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Break Even
as Mr. Wu
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
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Reference
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