Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#28048
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Michiko Yamamoto works on emotional range 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.
Michiko Yamamoto appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Michiko. 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 emotional range, quiet performance, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for fantasy, family, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Hayao Miyazaki, Michiko Yamamoto 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 (voice) · Spirited Away (2001) as (voice) · Princess Mononoke (1997) as (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #28048 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
1997–2008
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.4
Spirited Away
Average Nutevio score
8.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.6
Spirited Away
Most frequent director
Hayao Miyazaki
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Hayao Miyazaki
Most common genre
Fantasy
4 titles
Average runtime
2h 1m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.8
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
7.5
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
2000s
8.6 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Ponyo, 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
8.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
8.3
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. Princess Mononoke.
Most productive era
2000s
3 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as (voice).
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001Spirited Away
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
2008Ponyo
The current state of the argument, as (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.
4 of 4 films
as (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
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 5 of 5 titles · 5 total credits · active 1997–2025
The defining work
#1
(voice)
Spirited Away (2001)
Performance score9.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. (voice) gives Michiko Yamamoto a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
(voice)
Spirited Away (2001)
Performance score8.4
Spirited Away asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
(voice)
Princess Mononoke (1997)
Performance score8.1
Princess Mononoke asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
(voice)
Ponyo (2008)
Performance score7.5
Ponyo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. (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 (voice)
Start here. Spirited Away is the clearest statement of what Michiko Yamamoto 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 Michiko 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.
Princess Mononoke (1997)
Same director as Spirited Away, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Spirited Away (2001)
Same director as Princess Mononoke, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Ponyo (2008)
Same director as Spirited Away, 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
4 films together
Notably Spirited Away
Rumi Hiiragi
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Miyu Irino
Actor
1 film together
Notably Spirited Away
Mari Natsuki
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
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hayao Miyazaki
Director
4 films together · 8.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Spirited AwaySix 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 (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 (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 (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Princess Mononoke
as (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Spirited Away
as (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. Michiko Yamamoto 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 | 8.3 | 8.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Career ranking | #144 of 681 | #243 of 681 |
| Awards on file | Unknown | Unknown |
| Oscar wins | Unknown | Unknown |
| Oscar nominations | Unknown | Unknown |
| Average Nutevio score | 9.4 | 9.4 |
| Genres | Animation, Fantasy, Family | Animation, Fantasy, Family |
| Directors | Hayao Miyazaki | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Performance DNA | Emotional range, Screen presence, Quiet performance | Screen presence, Emotional range, Quiet performance |
| Career timeline | 2001–2001 | 2001–2001 |
| Most iconic role | (voice) — Spirited Away | Chihiro (voice) — Spirited Away |
| Most rewatchable film | Spirited Away | Spirited Away |
| Filmography | 1 catalogue film | 1 catalogue film |
Films together
Spirited Away
Shared directors
hayao-miyazaki
Shared collections
Best Family Movies, Fantasy Movies, Animation Movies
Collaborators in common
Hayao Miyazaki · Miyu Irino · Mari Natsuki · Takashi Naito · Yasuko Sawaguchi · Tatsuya Gashuin · Ryunosuke Kamiki · Yumi Tamai
Our editors cannot separate them on the catalogue as it stands. Michiko Yamamoto and Rumi Hiiragi score within a rounding error of each other.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Editor's Icon
Awarded
Named by our desk for a body of work we return to when we need to explain what screen acting is for.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Greatest Screen Presence
Awarded
The rare quality that makes an edit reluctant to cut away. Our DNA reading puts this near the top of the catalogue.
Fantasy Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in fantasy, 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 (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Spirited Away
as (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ponyo
as (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Spirited Away
as (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spirited Away
as (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Princess Mononoke
as (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Spirited Away
as (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Spirited Away
as (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
From the magazine
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
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Reference
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