Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1295
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Manaka Iwami 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.
Manaka Iwami appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Manaka. Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era is the clearest case: a film rated 8.6 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, science fiction, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tadahiro Yoshihira, Soichi Masui, Ken Yamamoto and others, Manaka Iwami 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.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era (2024) as Rice Shower (voice) · Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top Movie (2024) as Rice Shower (voice) · Unanswered//butterfly (2026) as Stina (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1295 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2018–2026
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.6
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.6
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
Most frequent director
Tadahiro Yoshihira
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tadahiro Yoshihira
Most common genre
Animation
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 32m
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
6.3
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
2010s
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. For Whom the Alchemist Exists, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.9
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. For Whom the Alchemist Exists, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 7.61 film | 6.05 films |
| Action | — | 7.62 films |
| Comedy | — | 8.03 films |
| Romance | — | 3.52 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Maquia (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2024Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
8.6 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
2026Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend
The current state of the argument, as Miori Mito (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.
10 of 10 films
as Rice Shower (voice)
Directed by Ken Yamamoto
as Maquia (voice)
Directed by Mari Okada
as Rice Shower (voice)
Directed by Liao Chengzhi
as Stina (voice)
Directed by Tadahiro Yoshihira
as Tohru Honda (voice)
Directed by Yoshihide Ibata
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
Rice Shower (voice)
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era (2024)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Rice Shower (voice) gives Manaka Iwami a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Maquia (voice)
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (2018)
Performance score8.1
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maquia (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Rice Shower (voice)
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top Movie (2024)
Performance score8.0
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rice Shower (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Stina (voice)
Unanswered//butterfly (2026)
Performance score7.8
Unanswered//butterfly asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stina (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 Rice Shower (voice)
Start here. Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era is the clearest statement of what Manaka Iwami does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 8.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Manaka 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.
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (2018)
Keeps the fantasy register of Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fruits Basket -prelude- (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms but asks for a colder reading of it.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top Movie (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Fruits Basket -prelude- but asks for a colder reading of it.
Unanswered//butterfly (2026)
Keeps the animation register of Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mari Okada
Director
1 film together
Notably Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
Masanori Takahashi
Director
1 film together
Notably For Whom the Alchemist Exists
Yoshihide Ibata
Director
1 film together
Notably Fruits Basket -prelude-
Takayuki Hamana
Director
1 film together
Notably The Klutzy Witch: Fuuka and the Dark Witch
Takashi Katagiri
Director
1 film together
Notably SPY x FAMILY CODE: White
Liao Chengzhi
Director
1 film together
Notably Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top Movie
Tatsuyuki Nagai
Director
1 film together
Notably Fureru
Ken Yamamoto
Director
1 film together
Notably Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
Soichi Masui
Director
1 film together
Notably Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend
Tadahiro Yoshihira
Director
1 film together
Notably Unanswered//butterfly
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ken Yamamoto
Director
1 film together · 8.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New EraLiao Chengzhi
Director
1 film together · 8.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Road to the Top MovieTadahiro Yoshihira
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Unanswered//butterflyMari Okada
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maquia: When the Promised Flower BloomsTakashi Katagiri
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SPY x FAMILY CODE: WhiteYoshihide Ibata
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fruits Basket -prelude-Tatsuyuki Nagai
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FureruMasanori Takahashi
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
For Whom the Alchemist ExistsTakayuki Hamana
Director
1 film together · 4.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Klutzy Witch: Fuuka and the Dark WitchSoichi Masui
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear FriendSix 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
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
as Rice Shower (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
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
as Maquia (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
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
as Rice Shower (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
as Rice Shower (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
as Rice Shower (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. Manaka Iwami 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
10 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
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
as Rice Shower (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Unanswered//butterfly
as Stina (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend
as Miori Mito (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
as Maquia (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Unanswered//butterfly
as Stina (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
SPY x FAMILY CODE: White
as Millie (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
as Rice Shower (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Unanswered//butterfly
as Stina (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
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Reference
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