Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1750
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Tessyo Genda represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Tessyo is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tessyo Genda appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tessyo. Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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 action, science fiction, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tomomi Kamiya, Masakazu Hashimoto, Masashi Ando and others, Tessyo Genda 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.
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie (2019) as Kurt von Rudersdorf (voice) · Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon (2025) as Isao Shinomiya (voice) · Ghost in the Shell (1995) as Director Nakamura (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1750 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1988–2025
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie
Average Nutevio score
7.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie
Most frequent director
Tomomi Kamiya
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tomomi Kamiya
Most common genre
Animation
9 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
7.3
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
7.1
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. Akira — 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
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.
Most productive era
2010s
4 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 | 1990s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | — | 7.02 films |
| Action | 7.91 film | 7.91 film | 7.24 films | 7.62 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.41 film | 7.21 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1988Akira
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ryûsaku (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie
8.1 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
2025Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon
The current state of the argument, as Isao Shinomiya (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 Kurt von Rudersdorf (voice)
Directed by Yutaka Uemura
as Isao Shinomiya (voice)
Directed by Tomomi Kamiya
as Ryûsaku (voice)
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
as Director Nakamura (voice)
Directed by Mamoru Oshii
as Ramsas (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.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Kurt von Rudersdorf (voice)
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie (2019)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kurt von Rudersdorf (voice) gives Tessyo Genda a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Isao Shinomiya (voice)
Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon (2025)
Performance score8.0
Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Isao Shinomiya (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ryûsaku (voice)
Akira (1988)
Performance score7.9
Akira asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ryûsaku (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Director Nakamura (voice)
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Performance score7.7
Ghost in the Shell asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Director Nakamura (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 Kurt von Rudersdorf (voice)
Start here. Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie is the clearest statement of what Tessyo Genda does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tessyo 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.
Akira (1988)
Keeps the action register of Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Keeps the action register of Akira but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Testament of Sister New Devil: Departures (2018)
Keeps the action register of Ghost in the Shell but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon (2025)
Keeps the action register of The Testament of Sister New Devil: Departures but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Katsuhiro Otomo
Director
1 film together
Notably Akira
Mamoru Oshii
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghost in the Shell
Shinji Aramaki
Director
1 film together
Notably Appleseed Alpha
Yutaka Uemura
Director
1 film together
Notably Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie
Kenji Kodama
Director
1 film together
Notably City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes
Takayuki Shibasaki
Director
1 film together
Notably Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations
Masashi Ando
Director
1 film together
Notably The Deer King
Masakazu Hashimoto
Director
1 film together
Notably Crayon Shin-chan: The Tornado Legend of Ninja Mononoke
Tomomi Kamiya
Director
1 film together
Notably Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Yutaka Uemura
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The MovieTomomi Kamiya
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kaiju No. 8: Mission ReconMamoru Oshii
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ghost in the ShellKatsuhiro 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
AkiraMasakazu Hashimoto
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crayon Shin-chan: The Tornado Legend of Ninja MononokeTakayuki Shibasaki
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kamen Rider: Beyond GenerationsMasashi Ando
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Deer KingShinji 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 AlphaKenji 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 EyesSix 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 Ryûsaku (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
The Deer King
as King Akafa (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
Akira
as Ryûsaku (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations
as Leonidas Crisper (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie
as Kurt von Rudersdorf (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. Tessyo Genda 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
37 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
9 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
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie
as Kurt von Rudersdorf (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon
as Isao Shinomiya (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Deer King
as King Akafa (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes
as Umibozu (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon
as Isao Shinomiya (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations
as Leonidas Crisper (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Movie
as Kurt von Rudersdorf (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Appleseed Alpha
as Two Horns (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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