Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3526
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Mami Koyama represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 38 years in, and Mami is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mami Koyama appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mami. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2 is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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 mystery, fantasy, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yuzuru Tachikawa, Eisaku Kawanami, Mamoru Hosoda and others, Mami Koyama 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.
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2 (2021) as Queen Serenity (voice) · Akira (1988) as Kei (voice) · Belle (2021) as Swan (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #3526 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1986–2024
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
Most frequent director
Yuzuru Tachikawa
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Yuzuru Tachikawa
Most common genre
Animation
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
7.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Millennium Actress — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.9
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. Akira, Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | — | 7.33 films |
| Action | 7.32 films | — | 6.41 film | 7.53 films |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | 6.41 film | 6.11 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.41 film | 7.01 film |
| Romance | — | 7.51 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1986Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Pasuta (voice).
Career peak
1988Akira
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2021Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
8.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain
The current state of the argument, as Utayama (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.
11 of 11 films
as Kei (voice)
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
as Queen Serenity (voice)
Directed by Chiaki Kon
as Chiyoko Fujiwara (20-40's) (voice)
Directed by Satoshi Kon
as Swan (voice)
Directed by Mamoru Hosoda
as Utayama (voice)
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.
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The defining work
#1
Kei (voice)
Akira (1988)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kei (voice) gives Mami Koyama a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Queen Serenity (voice)
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2 (2021)
Performance score7.9
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Queen Serenity (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Chiyoko Fujiwara (20-40's) (voice)
Millennium Actress (2002)
Performance score7.8
Millennium Actress asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chiyoko Fujiwara (20-40's) (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Swan (voice)
Belle (2021)
Performance score7.4
Belle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Swan (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 Kei (voice)
Start here. Akira is the clearest statement of what Mami Koyama does — accessible, 124 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mami 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 Akira but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2 (2021)
Keeps the drama register of Millennium Actress but asks for a colder reading of it.
Belle (2021)
Keeps the drama register of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024)
Keeps the animation register of Belle but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Daisuke Nishio
Director
1 film together
Notably Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies
Katsuhiro Otomo
Director
1 film together
Notably Akira
Satoshi Kon
Director
1 film together
Notably Millennium Actress
Kenji Kodama
Director
1 film together
Notably City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes
Chiaki Kon
Director
1 film together
Notably Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
Mamoru Hosoda
Director
1 film together
Notably Belle
Eisaku Kawanami
Director
1 film together
Notably Free! the Final Stroke the Second Volume
Yuzuru Tachikawa
Director
1 film together
Notably Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Chiaki Kon
Director
1 film together · 8.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2Katsuhiro Otomo
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AkiraMamoru Hosoda
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BelleSatoshi 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 ActressYuzuru Tachikawa
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Detective Conan: Black Iron SubmarineDaisuke Nishio
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood RubiesKenji Kodama
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City Hunter: Shinjuku Private EyesEisaku Kawanami
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Free! the Final Stroke the Second VolumeSix 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
Akira
as Kei (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
Millennium Actress
as Chiyoko Fujiwara (20-40's) (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
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
as Queen Serenity (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
One Piece Film Red
as Big Mom (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Akira
as Kei (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. Mami Koyama 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
38 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
11 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
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
as Queen Serenity (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
as Queen Serenity (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Millennium Actress
as Chiyoko Fujiwara (20-40's) (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain
as Utayama (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie Part 2
as Queen Serenity (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
One Piece Film Red
as Big Mom (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Free! the Final Stroke the Second Volume
as Haruka's Grandmother (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain
as Utayama (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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