Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12500
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Mari Natsuki represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Mari is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mari Natsuki appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mari. Spirited Away is the clearest case: a film rated 9.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, emotional range, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, romance, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Takahiro Miki, Wes Anderson, Hayao Miyazaki, Mari Natsuki 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.
Spirited Away (2001) as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice) · Spirited Away (2001) as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice) · SEE HEAR LOVE (2023) as Tae Izumoto
Career snapshot
Ranked #12500 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.4
Spirited Away
Average Nutevio score
7.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.6
Spirited Away
Most frequent director
Hayao Miyazaki
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Hayao Miyazaki
Most common genre
Animation
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.4
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
7.2
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
2000s
9.1 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Spirited Away, Spirited Away — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
9.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
8.6
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. Spirited Away, Spirited Away.
Most productive era
2020s
3 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 | — | — | 6.43 films |
| Comedy | — | 7.81 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | 7.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001Spirited Away
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice). The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.4 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 Hanako Shimizu.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as Tae Izumoto
Directed by Unknown
as Auntie (voice)
Directed by Wes Anderson
as Mori Obaa-chan (voice)
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.
Showing 8 of 8 titles · 8 total credits · active 2001–2026
Until We Meet Again
2026 · Hanako Shimizu
Private Banker
2025 · TV · Mikoto Tenguuji
Teruko & Lui
2025 · TV · Lui Morita
SEE HEAR LOVE
2023 · Tae Izumoto
Hold My Hand at Twilight
2023 · TV · Yukihira Kyoko
Over the Sky
2020 · Mori Obaa-chan (voice)
Isle of Dogs
2018 · Auntie (voice)
Spirited Away
2001 · Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
The defining work
#1
Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
Spirited Away (2001)
Performance score9.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Yubaba / Zeniba (voice) gives Mari Natsuki a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
Spirited Away (2001)
Performance score8.9
Spirited Away asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yubaba / Zeniba (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tae Izumoto
SEE HEAR LOVE (2023)
Performance score7.6
SEE HEAR LOVE asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tae Izumoto is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Auntie (voice)
Isle of Dogs (2018)
Performance score7.6
Isle of Dogs asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Auntie (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 Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
Start here. Spirited Away is the clearest statement of what Mari Natsuki does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 9.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mari 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.
Spirited Away (2001)
Same director as Spirited Away, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Isle of Dogs (2018)
Keeps the animation register of Spirited Away but asks for a colder reading of it.
Over the Sky (2020)
Keeps the animation register of Isle of Dogs but asks for a colder reading of it.
SEE HEAR LOVE (2023)
Same director as Over the Sky, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Hayao Miyazaki
Director
2 films together
Notably Spirited Away
Wes Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Isle of Dogs
Takahiro Miki
Director
1 film together
Notably Until We Meet Again
Rumi Hiiragi
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Miyu Irino
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Takashi Naito
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Yasuko Sawaguchi
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Tatsuya Gashuin
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Ryunosuke Kamiki
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Yumi Tamai
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Yo Oizumi
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Koba Hayashi
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Tsunehiko Kamijô
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Takehiko Ono
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Bunta Sugawara
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hayao Miyazaki
Director
2 films together · 9.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Spirited AwayWes Anderson
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Isle of DogsTakahiro Miki
Director
1 film together · 4.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Until We Meet AgainSix 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
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (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
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (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
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Isle of Dogs
as Auntie (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (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. Mari Natsuki has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
| Nutevio Performer Score | 8.4 | 8.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Career ranking | #73 of 681 | #267 of 681 |
| Awards on file | Unknown | Unknown |
| Oscar wins | Unknown | Unknown |
| Oscar nominations | Unknown | Unknown |
| Average Nutevio score | 9.4 | 9.0 |
| Genres | Animation, Fantasy, Family | Comedy, Adventure, Drama, Romance |
| Directors | Hayao Miyazaki | Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry |
| Performance DNA | Emotional range, Quiet performance, Screen presence | Emotional range, Quiet performance, Screen presence |
| Career timeline | 2001–2001 | 2004–2014 |
| Most iconic role | Yubaba / Zeniba (voice) — Spirited Away | Dr. Mierzwiak — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
| Most rewatchable film | Spirited Away | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
| Filmography | 1 catalogue film | 2 catalogue films |
Films together
Nothing in common in the library yet.
Shared directors
Nothing in common in the library yet.
Shared collections
Best Family Movies
Mari Natsuki takes it on our scale, largely on the strength of the catalogue's rating of the films Mari chooses.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
25 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
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
4 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
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
SEE HEAR LOVE
as Tae Izumoto
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Isle of Dogs
as Auntie (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Spirited Away
as Yubaba / Zeniba (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
Across the library
Every Nutevio collection this name turns up in, and how high they rank there.
Collection footprint
Appears in 3 Nutevio collections
Keep reading
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Have your say
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Reference
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