Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#24194
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Yohei Matsukado works on drama 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.
Yohei Matsukado appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yohei. Howl's Moving Castle is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are drama, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, history, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kazuya Shiraishi, Zhang Yimou, Hayao Miyazaki, Yohei Matsukado 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.
Howl's Moving Castle (2004) as (voice) · A Pale View of Hills (2025) as Street Stall Vendor · The Flowers of War (2011) as Japanese Military Outside Affairs Officer
Career snapshot
Ranked #24194 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2004–2025
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Howl's Moving Castle
Average Nutevio score
7.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.4
Howl's Moving Castle
Most frequent director
Kazuya Shiraishi
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Kazuya Shiraishi
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
2h 18m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
7.0
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
8.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Howl's Moving Castle — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
8.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
8.4
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. Howl's Moving Castle.
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 | — | 7.41 film | 7.13 films |
| Action | — | — | 6.92 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as (voice). 8.5 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 Street Stall Vendor.
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.
5 of 5 films
as (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as Japanese Military Outside Affairs Officer
Directed by Zhang Yimou
as Irobe Nagato
Directed by Kazuya Shiraishi
as Nishiki Niimi
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
(voice)
Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. (voice) gives Yohei Matsukado a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Street Stall Vendor
A Pale View of Hills (2025)
Performance score7.4
A Pale View of Hills asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Street Stall Vendor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Japanese Military Outside Affairs Officer
The Flowers of War (2011)
Performance score7.2
The Flowers of War asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Japanese Military Outside Affairs Officer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Irobe Nagato
11 Rebels (2024)
Performance score7.0
11 Rebels asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Irobe Nagato 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. Howl's Moving Castle is the clearest statement of what Yohei Matsukado does — accessible, 119 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yohei 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.
The Flowers of War (2011)
A deliberate change of key after Howl's Moving Castle — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai (2021)
Keeps the drama register of The Flowers of War but asks for a colder reading of it.
11 Rebels (2024)
Keeps the action register of Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Pale View of Hills (2025)
Keeps the drama register of 11 Rebels 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.
Hayao Miyazaki
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Howl's Moving CastleZhang Yimou
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Flowers of WarKazuya Shiraishi
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
11 RebelsSix 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
Howl's Moving Castle
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
A Pale View of Hills
as Street Stall Vendor
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Howl's Moving Castle
as (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Howl's Moving Castle
as (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Howl's Moving Castle
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. Yohei Matsukado 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
21 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 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
Howl's Moving Castle
as (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
11 Rebels
as Irobe Nagato
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Pale View of Hills
as Street Stall Vendor
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Howl's Moving Castle
as (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Howl's Moving Castle
as (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
11 Rebels
as Irobe Nagato
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
11 Rebels
as Irobe Nagato
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Howl's Moving Castle
as (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Yohei Matsukado 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
