Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1314
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kaori Nazuka 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.
Kaori Nazuka appears in 18 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kaori. Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur- is the clearest case: a film rated 9.0 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 drama, animation, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Haruo Sotozaki, Tensai Okamura, Susumu Mitsunaka and others, Kaori Nazuka 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.
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur- (2026) as Joan (voice) · Revue Starlight: The Movie (2021) as Rei Sakuragi (voice) · Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo (2020) as Rei Sakuragi (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1314 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
18
2014–2026
Career length
12 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.0
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
Average Nutevio score
7.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.0
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
Most frequent director
Kenji Nagasaki
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Kenji Nagasaki
Most common genre
Animation
18 titles
Average runtime
1h 33m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.2
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
6.8
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
2020s
7.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle, My Hero Academia: You're Next — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.5
Across 12 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, KONOSUBA – God's blessing on this wonderful world! Legend of Crimson, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection.
Most productive era
2020s
12 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.65 films |
| Action | 7.04 films | 7.310 films |
| Comedy | 7.51 film | 7.81 film |
| Crime | 7.21 film | 7.61 film |
| Romance | — | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2014Appleseed Alpha
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Nyx (voice).
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.0 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. The current state of the argument, as Joan (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.
18 of 18 films
as Joan (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Rei Sakuragi (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as (voice)
Directed by Haruo Sotozaki
as Rei Sakuragi (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Kisaragi Mao (voice)
Directed by Naoyoshi Shiotani
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Joan (voice)
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur- (2026)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Joan (voice) gives Kaori Nazuka a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Rei Sakuragi (voice)
Revue Starlight: The Movie (2021)
Performance score8.1
Revue Starlight: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rei Sakuragi (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
(voice)
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle (2025)
Performance score7.8
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle 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
Rei Sakuragi (voice)
Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo (2020)
Performance score7.8
Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rei Sakuragi (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 Joan (voice)
Start here. Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur- is the clearest statement of what Kaori Nazuka does — accessible, 0 minutes, and rated 9.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kaori 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.
Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo (2020)
Same director as Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector (2020)
Keeps the action register of Revue Starlight: Rondo Rondo Rondo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Revue Starlight: The Movie (2021)
Keeps the action register of Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector but asks for a colder reading of it.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle (2025)
Keeps the action register of Revue Starlight: The Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Kenji Nagasaki
Director
3 films together
Notably My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
Shinji Aramaki
Director
1 film together
Notably Appleseed Alpha
Takaomi Kanasaki
Director
1 film together
Notably KONOSUBA – God's blessing on this wonderful world! Legend of Crimson
Kosuke Murayama
Director
1 film together
Notably Grisaia: Phantom Trigger the Animation - Stargazer
Naoyoshi Shiotani
Director
1 film together
Notably Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector
Hisatoshi Shimizu
Director
1 film together
Notably Eureka: Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution
Shin Oonuma
Director
1 film together
Notably Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya: Licht Nameless Girl
Susumu Mitsunaka
Director
1 film together
Notably HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle
Tensai Okamura
Director
1 film together
Notably My Hero Academia: You're Next
Haruo Sotozaki
Director
1 film together
Notably Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Kenji Nagasaki
Director
3 films together · 7.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
My Hero Academia: Heroes RisingHaruo Sotozaki
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity CastleSusumu 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 BattleNaoyoshi Shiotani
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Psycho-Pass 3: First InspectorTakaomi Kanasaki
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
KONOSUBA – God's blessing on this wonderful world! Legend of CrimsonTensai Okamura
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 Hero Academia: You're NextShinji Aramaki
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Appleseed AlphaHisatoshi Shimizu
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Eureka: Eureka Seven Hi-EvolutionKosuke Murayama
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Grisaia: Phantom Trigger the Animation - StargazerShin Oonuma
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya: Licht Nameless 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
Revue Starlight: The Movie
as Rei Sakuragi (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
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
as Joan (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
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
as Joan (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle
as (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
as Joan (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. Kaori Nazuka 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
18 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
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
as Joan (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Revue Starlight: The Movie
as Rei Sakuragi (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
as Joan (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection
as Nunnally vi Britannia (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Revue Starlight: The Movie
as Rei Sakuragi (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
My Hero Academia: You're Next
as Toru Hagakure (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Samurai Ballerina -L'étoile de Paris en fleur-
as Joan (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Revue Starlight: The Movie
as Rei Sakuragi (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and comedy
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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