Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6709
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Yurika Kubo 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.
Yurika Kubo appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yurika. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 romance, mystery, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Soichi Masui, Kenji Nagasaki, Naoyuki Tatsuwa and others, Yurika Kubo 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.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid (2023) as Kaede Azusagawa (voice) · Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out (2023) as Kaede Azusagawa (voice) · Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (2019) as Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #6709 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2019–2026
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl
Most frequent director
Soichi Masui
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Soichi Masui
Most common genre
Animation
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 14m
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
6.1
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
2010s
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion, The Island of Giant Insects — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
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. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion, The Island of Giant Insects.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.71 film | 4.85 films |
| Action | 7.71 film | 6.23 films |
| Comedy | 7.71 film | 6.91 film |
| Romance | 7.72 films | 0.01 film |
| Horror | 4.21 film | 4.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
2019Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kaede Azusagawa (voice). 7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2023Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
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 Kaede Azusagawa (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 Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Directed by Soichi Masui
as Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Directed by Soichi Masui
as Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Directed by Soichi Masui
as Loki (voice)
Directed by Katsushi Sakurabi
as (voice)
Directed by Kenji Nagasaki
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
Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid (2023)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kaede Azusagawa (voice) gives Yurika Kubo a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out (2023)
Performance score8.0
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kaede Azusagawa (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (2019)
Performance score7.5
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kaede Azusagawa (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Loki (voice)
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion (2019)
Performance score7.5
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Loki (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 Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
Start here. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid is the clearest statement of what Yurika Kubo does — accessible, 75 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yurika 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.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (2019)
Same director as Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion (2019)
Keeps the romance register of Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl but asks for a colder reading of it.
My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission (2021)
Keeps the action register of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out (2023)
Keeps the animation register of My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Soichi Masui
Director
4 films together
Notably Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
Takeo Takahashi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Island of Giant Insects
Katsushi Sakurabi
Director
1 film together
Notably Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion
Hirofumi Ogura
Director
1 film together
Notably Cells at Work!! The Return of the Strongest Enemy: A Huge Uproar in the Body’s Bowels!
Jun Nakagawa
Director
1 film together
Notably High School Fleet Movie
Naoyuki Tatsuwa
Director
1 film together
Notably The Island of Giant Insects
Kenji Nagasaki
Director
1 film together
Notably My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Soichi Masui
Director
4 films together · 5.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack KidKatsushi Sakurabi
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the OrionKenji Nagasaki
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Hero Academia: World Heroes' MissionHirofumi Ogura
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Naoyuki Tatsuwa
Director
1 film together · 4.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Island of Giant InsectsTakeo Takahashi
Director
1 film together · 4.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Island of Giant InsectsJun Nakagawa
Director
1 film together · 4.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
High School Fleet MovieSix 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
My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission
as (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
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
as Kaede Azusagawa (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
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl
as Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission
as (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
as Kaede Azusagawa (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. Yurika Kubo 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
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid
as Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission
as (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 Kaede Azusagawa (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Island of Giant Insects
as Ai Ino (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission
as (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission
as (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion
as Loki (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Island of Giant Insects
as Ai Inou (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
Community
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Reference
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