Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4241
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Toru Furuya represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Toru is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Toru Furuya appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Toru. Pokémon: The First Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 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, mystery, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yuzuru Tachikawa, Susumu Mitsunaka, Koichi Sakamoto and others, Toru Furuya 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.
Pokémon: The First Movie (1998) as Sorao (voice) · Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine (2023) as Bourbon / Toru Amuro (voice) · Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (2021) as Amuro (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #4241 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1986–2023
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Pokémon: The First Movie
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Ultraman Regulos: First Mission
Most frequent director
Koichi Sakamoto
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Koichi Sakamoto
Most common genre
Animation
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 21m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.7
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
1990s
6.9 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Pokémon: The First Movie — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.2
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. Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | — | — | 6.11 film | 6.73 films |
| Action | 6.71 film | 6.91 film | 6.11 film | 6.66 films |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | — | — |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.62 films |
| Romance | — | — | 6.11 film | 5.81 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 Yamcha (voice).
Highest rated performance
6.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2021The Journey
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2023Detective Conan: The Story of Ai Haibara: Black Iron Mystery Train
The current state of the argument, as Bourbon (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.
13 of 13 films
as Amuro Ray (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Aus (voice)
Directed by Kobun Shizuno
as Amuro Ray (voice)
Directed by Ko Matsuo
as Ultraman Scott (voice)
Directed by Koichi Sakamoto
as Yamcha (voice)
Directed by Daisuke Nishio
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
Amuro Ray (voice)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island (2022)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Amuro Ray (voice) gives Toru Furuya a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Aus (voice)
The Journey (2021)
Performance score7.2
The Journey asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aus (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Amuro Ray (voice)
Mobile Suit Gundam G40 (2020)
Performance score7.0
Mobile Suit Gundam G40 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Amuro Ray (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ultraman Scott (voice)
Ultraman Regulos: First Mission (2022)
Performance score6.9
Ultraman Regulos: First Mission asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ultraman Scott (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 Amuro Ray (voice)
Start here. Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island is the clearest statement of what Toru Furuya does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 6.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Toru 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.
Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies (1986)
Keeps the action register of Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mobile Suit Gundam G40 (2020)
Keeps the science fiction register of Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Journey (2021)
Keeps the animation register of Mobile Suit Gundam G40 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ultraman Regulos: First Mission (2022)
Keeps the action register of The Journey but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Koichi Sakamoto
Director
2 films together
Notably Ultraman Regulos: First Mission
Daisuke Nishio
Director
1 film together
Notably Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies
Kunihiko Yuyama
Director
1 film together
Notably Pokémon: The First Movie
Ko Matsuo
Director
1 film together
Notably Mobile Suit Gundam G40
Tomoya Takahashi
Director
1 film together
Notably The World's Greatest First Love: Proposal
Kobun Shizuno
Director
1 film together
Notably The Journey
Shukou Murase
Director
1 film together
Notably Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway
Susumu Mitsunaka
Director
1 film together
Notably Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween
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.
Koichi Sakamoto
Director
2 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Ultraman Regulos: First MissionKunihiko Yuyama
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pokémon: The First MovieYuzuru Tachikawa
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Detective Conan: Black Iron SubmarineShukou Murase
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mobile Suit Gundam HathawayDaisuke 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 RubiesKobun Shizuno
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The JourneySusumu Mitsunaka
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Detective Conan: The Bride of HalloweenKo Matsuo
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mobile Suit Gundam G40Tomoya Takahashi
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The World's Greatest First Love: ProposalSix 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
Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine
as Bourbon / Toru Amuro (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 Relative Worlds
as Narrator (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
Pokémon: The First Movie
as Sorao (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Pokémon: The First Movie
as Sorao (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island
as Amuro Ray (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. Toru Furuya 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
12 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
Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine
as Bourbon / Toru Amuro (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine
as Bourbon / Toru Amuro (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The World's Greatest First Love: Proposal
as Zen Kirishima (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine
as Bourbon / Toru Amuro (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Pokémon: The First Movie
as Sorao (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ultraman Regulos: First Mission
as Ultraman Scott (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Relative Worlds
as Narrator (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The World's Greatest First Love: Proposal
as Zen Kirishima (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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