Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2311
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ryusei Nakao 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.
Ryusei Nakao appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ryusei. HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, animation, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Susumu Mitsunaka, Masayoshi Takesue, Ayako Kono and others, Ryusei Nakao 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.
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle (2024) as Tanji Washijo (voice) · Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018) as Frieza (voice) · One Piece Film: Strong World (2009) as Dr. Indigo (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2311 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2009–2024
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Dragon Ball Super: Broly
Most frequent director
Susumu Mitsunaka
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Susumu Mitsunaka
Most common genre
Animation
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 30m
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
2000s
7.4 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. One Piece Film: Strong World — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.4
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. One Piece Film: Strong World.
Most productive era
2020s
4 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 | — | 6.51 film | 6.02 films |
| Action | — | 7.12 films | 6.43 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 7.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009One Piece Film: Strong World
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dr. Indigo (voice).
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
2024HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Tanji Washijo (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.
8 of 8 films
as Frieza (voice)
Directed by Tatsuya Nagamine
as Tanji Washijo (voice)
Directed by Susumu Mitsunaka
as Mito Avatar (Voice)
Directed by Ayako Kono
as Dr. Indigo (voice)
Directed by Munehisa Sakai
as Edison Crisper (voice)
Directed by Takayuki Shibasaki
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
Frieza (voice)
Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Frieza (voice) gives Ryusei Nakao a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tanji Washijo (voice)
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle (2024)
Performance score7.6
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tanji Washijo (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mito Avatar (Voice)
Sword Art Online the Movie - Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night (2021)
Performance score7.2
Sword Art Online the Movie - Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mito Avatar (Voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Indigo (voice)
One Piece Film: Strong World (2009)
Performance score7.2
One Piece Film: Strong World asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Indigo (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 Frieza (voice)
Start here. Dragon Ball Super: Broly is the clearest statement of what Ryusei Nakao does — accessible, 101 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ryusei 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.
One Piece Film: Strong World (2009)
Keeps the animation register of Dragon Ball Super: Broly but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sword Art Online the Movie - Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night (2021)
Keeps the fantasy register of One Piece Film: Strong World but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations (2021)
Keeps the action register of Sword Art Online the Movie - Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night but asks for a colder reading of it.
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Munehisa Sakai
Director
1 film together
Notably One Piece Film: Strong World
Tatsuya Nagamine
Director
1 film together
Notably Dragon Ball Super: Broly
Yuta Murano
Director
1 film together
Notably Seven Days War
Takayuki Shibasaki
Director
1 film together
Notably Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations
Ayako Kono
Director
1 film together
Notably Sword Art Online the Movie - Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night
Masayoshi Takesue
Director
1 film together
Notably Ultraman Decker Finale: Journey to Beyond
Susumu Mitsunaka
Director
1 film together
Notably HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Susumu Mitsunaka
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster BattleTatsuya Nagamine
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dragon Ball Super: BrolyMunehisa Sakai
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One Piece Film: Strong WorldAyako Kono
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sword Art Online the Movie - Progressive - Aria of a Starless NightTakayuki Shibasaki
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kamen Rider: Beyond GenerationsYuta Murano
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Seven Days WarMasayoshi Takesue
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ultraman Decker Finale: Journey to BeyondSix 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
Dragon Ball Super: Broly
as Frieza (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
One Piece Film: Strong World
as Dr. Indigo (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
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle
as Tanji Washijo (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle
as Tanji Washijo (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dragon Ball Super: Broly
as Frieza (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. Ryusei Nakao 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.
Animation Legend
Awarded
6 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
One Piece Film: Strong World
as Dr. Indigo (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dragon Ball Super: Broly
as Frieza (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
One Piece Film: Strong World
as Dr. Indigo (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
One Piece Film: Strong World
as Dr. Indigo (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dragon Ball Super: Broly
as Frieza (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations
as Edison Crisper (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Seven Days War
as High-level Politician (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Seven Days War
as High-level Politician (voice)
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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