Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14040
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Hisako Kyoda represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Hisako is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Hisako Kyoda appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hisako. Warriors of the Wind is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are emotional range, transformation, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for fantasy, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tomotaka Shibayama, Taichi Ishidate, Sunao Katabuchi and others, Hisako Kyoda 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.
Warriors of the Wind (1984) as Obaba (voice) · Violet Evergarden: The Movie (2020) as Nerine (voice) · Millennium Actress (2002) as Chiyoko's Mother (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #14040 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1984–2024
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Warriors of the Wind
Average Nutevio score
7.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Violet Evergarden: The Movie
Most frequent director
Tomotaka Shibayama
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tomotaka Shibayama
Most common genre
Animation
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
1980s
7.9 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Warriors of the Wind — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
8.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Warriors of the Wind.
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 | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.51 film | 7.41 film | 7.71 film |
| Romance | — | 7.51 film | — | 7.71 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 Obaba (voice). 7.9 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
2024My Oni Girl
The current state of the argument, as Gozen (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.
6 of 6 films
as Obaba (voice)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
as Nerine (voice)
Directed by Taichi Ishidate
as Chiyoko's Mother (voice)
Directed by Satoshi Kon
as Ito Morita (voice)
Directed by Sunao Katabuchi
as Xiao's grandmother (voice)
Directed by Munehisa Sakai
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
Obaba (voice)
Warriors of the Wind (1984)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Obaba (voice) gives Hisako Kyoda a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Nerine (voice)
Violet Evergarden: The Movie (2020)
Performance score7.5
Violet Evergarden: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nerine (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Chiyoko's Mother (voice)
Millennium Actress (2002)
Performance score7.3
Millennium Actress asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chiyoko's Mother (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ito Morita (voice)
In This Corner of the World (2016)
Performance score7.2
In This Corner of the World asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ito Morita (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 Obaba (voice)
Start here. Warriors of the Wind is the clearest statement of what Hisako Kyoda does — accessible, 95 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hisako 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.
Millennium Actress (2002)
Keeps the animation register of Warriors of the Wind but asks for a colder reading of it.
One Piece Film: Strong World (2009)
Keeps the animation register of Millennium Actress but asks for a colder reading of it.
In This Corner of the World (2016)
Keeps the animation register of One Piece Film: Strong World but asks for a colder reading of it.
Violet Evergarden: The Movie (2020)
Keeps the drama register of In This Corner of the World but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Hayao Miyazaki
Director
1 film together
Notably Warriors of the Wind
Satoshi Kon
Director
1 film together
Notably Millennium Actress
Munehisa Sakai
Director
1 film together
Notably One Piece Film: Strong World
Sunao Katabuchi
Director
1 film together
Notably In This Corner of the World
Taichi Ishidate
Director
1 film together
Notably Violet Evergarden: The Movie
Tomotaka Shibayama
Director
1 film together
Notably My Oni Girl
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hayao Miyazaki
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Warriors of the WindTaichi Ishidate
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Violet Evergarden: The MovieSatoshi Kon
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Millennium ActressSunao Katabuchi
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In This Corner of the WorldMunehisa 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 WorldTomotaka Shibayama
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Oni GirlSix 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
Violet Evergarden: The Movie
as Nerine (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
Warriors of the Wind
as Obaba (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
Warriors of the Wind
as Obaba (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Violet Evergarden: The Movie
as Nerine (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Warriors of the Wind
as Obaba (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. Hisako Kyoda 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
40 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
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
Warriors of the Wind
as Obaba (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Warriors of the Wind
as Obaba (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
My Oni Girl
as Gozen (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
One Piece Film: Strong World
as Xiao's grandmother (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Warriors of the Wind
as Obaba (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
My Oni Girl
as Gozen (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Millennium Actress
as Chiyoko's Mother (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
One Piece Film: Strong World
as Xiao's grandmother (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
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
Have your say
Community
Which Hisako Kyoda 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
