"Kokuho" dominates the 49th Japan Academy Prize nominations

by Nathaniel R

KOKUHO is nominated across the board with Japan's Academy

While many other countries film awards operate on different time tables Japan and France, like the US, are calendar year with nominations in January and awards ceremonies in February or March. The French César nominations are a week away but Japan announced yesterday. They requiretwo continuous weeks in theaters for eligibility (the Oscars are less theatrical-focused *sigh* with only one week required). While Japan is inarguably the most successful Asian country at the Oscars, outside of anime (which Oscar ignores), Korean and Chinese cinema are more popular with US moviegoers with regular crossover hits. We've always wondered why there's that disconnect between the Oscars and arthouse moviegoers. But that's a larger and more complex topic. For now, let's look at the nominees for the 49th edition of Japan's Academy prizes. Japan's eye candy spectacle and Oscar finalist Kokuho received 17 (*gulp*) nominations with eight (*gulp x 2*) nominations happening within the 5 acting categories alone. We don't know if that's a record but it sounds like one. Kokuho has been so popular in release in Japan that it is already the highest grossing live-action Japanese film of all time there.

Nominees, commentary, and some history after the jump...

FILM 

• First Kiss - A romantic fantasy in which a widow travels back in time and relives the beginning of her relationship with her husband.
• Hero's Island - A drama about WW II vets reuniting to solve the mystery of their leaders disappearance in Okinawa. It's even longer than Kokuho!!!
• Kokuho - a 3 hour epic melodrama about the son of a gangster who is adopted into a theatrical kabuki family and becomes a celebrated onnagata (an actor playing female roles). [OPENS FEBRUARY 5TH IN  LIMITED RELEASE]
• Suzuki = Bakudan A crime thriller about a police negotiator trying to stop bombings in Tokyo
• Tokyo Taxi A drama about a taxi driver and his 85 year old passenger. This is a remake of the French film Driving Madeleine (2022).

Some recent winners of this prize that were also popular in the US: Shin Godzilla (2016), Shoplifters (2018 - Oscar Nominee Best International Feature), Drive My Car (2021 - Oscar Winner Best International Feature), and Godzilla Minus One (2023 - Oscar Winner Visual Effects) 

DIRECTOR
Stats here and elsewhere are from that category (or all categories within one craft) alone. 

• Ayuko Tsukahara (2nd nomination) First Kiss 
• Keishi Ōtomo -(1st nomination)  Hero's Island
• Lee Sang-Il - (4th nomination, 1 win) Kokuho
• Eiji Uchida - (2nd nomination) Night Flower
• Akira Nagai -(1st nomination)  Suzuki = Bakudan

The lone wolf here is Eiji Uchida whose movie isn't up for Best Film, presumably displacing the director of Tokyo Taxi. He was previously nominated for Midnight Swan (2020) which won Best Film but he didn't take Best Director. And given who he is up against here, he'll have to wait again.

 Lee Sang-Il, a Japanese director of Korean descent (hence the name), previously won this prize for the comedy Hula Girls (2006)

SCREENPLAY

• 366 Days - a high school set romantic drama
• Kokuho 
• Night Flower - a drama about a mother struggling to make ends meet who becomes a drug dealer [RENTABLE IN SOME MARKETS, IF NOT THE US YET]
• Suzuki = Bakudan
• Tokyo Taxi 

ANIMATION OF THE YEAR

100 METERS

• 100 Meters - a sports drama about sprinters. It's good! [STREAMING ON NETFLIX]
• Chainsaw Man -  The Movie: Rez Arc [AVAILABLE TO RENT]
• Demon Slayer...Infinity Castle -The title is so long that I condensed it. Forgive me. I struggle with titles with anime. They always feel like they're part of some tv franchise that has suddenly been promoted to cinema ("The Movie!") and then becomes a franchise there, too, thus the ever convoluted titling... but I don't know for sure. Perhaps it's a "me" problem. [IN US THEATERS]
• Detective Conan: One-Eyed Flashback 
• Peleliu: Guernica of Paradise 

Both 100 Meters and Chainsaw Man are eligible for the Animated Feature Oscar this year. While anime is hugely popular internationally, Oscar voters have typically avoided honoring them unless the name Hayao Miyazaki is attached. The Japan Academy didn't add this category until 2006 and in the 19 years since only four films -- three winners (The Wind Rises, Mira, The Boy and the Heron) and one nominee (The Tale of Princess Kaguya) --  have also been nominated in the parallel Oscar category. Two films by Hayao Miyazaki have won on both sides of the ocean: Spirited Away (2001) which won Best Film from the Japanese Academy and Best Animated Feature at the Oscars and The Boy and the Heron (2024) which won the animation prizes at both ceremonies. 

ACTRESS 

• Masami Nagasawa -(11th nom, 5 wins) - Dollhouse
  Dollhouse is a supernatural horror about a mother who becomes too obsessed with a doll that looks like her dead daughter. The 38 year old actress won this category most recently with Mother (2021), a thriller about a promiscuous single mother that's streaming on Netflix.
• Takako Matsu - (6th nom, 1 win) First Kiss 
  Matsu previously starred in Japan's 2010 Oscar submission Confessions. 
• Keiko Kitagawa -(2nd nom) - Night Flower
  Keiko Kitagawa is best known for starring in the live action version of popular anime Sailor Moon 
• Suzu Hirose - (8th nom, 2 noms) A Pale View of Hills
  Hirose also co-stars in Best Film nominee Hero's Island. She might be the most well known actress fron this shortlist internationally having starred in competition films at major festivals like Our Little Sister (Cannes), The Third Murder (Venice), and in the Netflix series Asura. Pale View... is a dual timeline drama set in both the 1950s and the 1980s about a widow's memory of Post-War Nagasaki.
• Chieko Baisho -(8th nom, 2 wins)  Tokyo Taxi
  Baisho is the 84 year-old veteran of this group having been nominated at the very first ceremony for the Best Film winner Yellow Handkerchief (1977). Her most recent film was the Cannes competition and Japanese Oscar submission near-future drama Plan 75 (2022)

Of previous Best Actress winners Sakura Ando, who has won the Japanese Oscar five times -- three times as lead for Oscar submission 100 Yen Love (2015), Oscar nominee Shoplifters (2018), and Monster (2023) and twice in supporting for A Man (2021) and international sensation Godzilla Minus One (2022) is surely the most well known internationally.

ACTOR 

Ryo Yoshizawa stars as "Kikuo" in KOKUHO

• Hokuto Matsumura (3 noms, 1 win)- 5 Centimeters
  Romantic Drama. He's also up for Supporting Actor 
• Satoshi Tsumabuki (10th nom, 4 wins)- Hero's Island
  His previous prizes come from Waterboys (his breakthrough), Villain, Rage, and A Man.
• Ryô Yoshizawa (3rd nom, 2 wins) - Kokuho
  More on him below. 
• Yuki Yamada (1st nom) - Suzuki=Bakudan
  You might remember him from the supporting cast of Godzilla Minus One. 
• Kyōzō Nagatsuka (2nd nom) - Teki Cometh
  The veteran of the group at 80 years old. This is a black and white drama about a retired professor who receives a message of impending danger out of the blue. 

Will Ryô Yoshizawa go three for three with nominations to wins for his impressive commitment as a would-be onnagata in Kokuho? He previously won Newcomer for River's Edge (2018) and Best Supporting Actor for Kingdom (2019). The thirty-one year old star certainly goes through it in Kokuho a mammoth role that spans decades and rags to riches ups and downs. Will he crossover to Hollywood success?

For whatever reason male Japanese movie stars crossover much more often than their female counterparts to international attention. Consider previous winners of this category. Golden Globe and Emmy winner Hiroyuko Sanada (who won this for 2002's Oscar-nominated The Twilight Samurai) and Ken Watanabe, who won twice (2006's Memories of Tomorrow and 2009's Shizumanu Taiyō) both work in Hollywood regularly. The third Best Actor winner who is most familiar to international cinephiles is Koji Yakusho, who has won the Japanese Academy prize an incredible five times: 1996's Shall We Dance? which was a major arthouse hit in the US, 1997's The Eel, 2016's The Third Murder (in supporting), 2018's The Blood of Wolves, and 2023's Oscar-nominated Perfect Days.

Related News: We've been wondering what became of Hidetoshi Nishijima who won this prize for his soulful performance in Drive My Car (2021) so we're happy to learn that he finally has a new movie on the way called Dear Stranger about a Japanese immigrant and his Taiwanese wife whose child goes missing. It's the first entirely US shot production from Japan's Toei company. It premiered in Japan in September but apparently the Academy there didn't like it as it received no nominations but maybe it will make it's way to US release?

SUPPORTING ACTRESS 

• Mitsuki Takahata  (2nd nom, 1 win) - Kokuho
  She plays Harue, a young woman who is romantically involved with both of the brothers. Eventually she marries the troubled biological son rather than the adopted rising star Kikuo (the leading character).
• Shinobu Terajmia (6th nom, 1 win) - Kokuho
  She plays Ken Watanabe's wife who vehemently disapproves of the adoption of Kikuo
• Nana Mori (1st nom)  - Kokuho
  She plays Akiko a naive young woman who Kikuo uses when his career runs into hard times 
• Misato Morita (1st nom)  - Night Flower
• Yû Aoi (6th nom, 2 wins)  - Tokyo Taxi

My apologies to the women of Kokuho but I was struggling to remember who each of them played. This is because the film is so enormously focused on four male characters (and spans so many decades) and the female characters (I think there were about 6 in total?) seem to get only one key scene each. The most prominent is definitely Shinobu Terajima who plays the wife of Ken Watanabe's actor who disapproves of his decision to adopt the lead character into their kabuki family - a conflict and throughline for the entire film. That the actresses command 60% of this category is a major surprise and only serves as a reminder that Kokuho is extraordinarily popular in Japan. 

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Hokuto Matsumura in FIRST KISS

• Hokuto Matsumura (3 noms, 1 win) - First Kiss
• Ryūsei Yokohama (3rd nom) - Kokuho
• Ken Watanabe (9th nom, 3 wins) - Kokuho
• Min Tanaka (3rd nom, 2 wins) - Kokuho
• Jiro Sato (2nd nom) - Suzuki=Bakudan

Thirty-year old star Hokuto Matsumura is a double-nominee this year (see also Lead Actor) but in both categories he'd have to get around the behemoth popularity of Kokuho. Can he manage it? He won Newcomer of the Year a few years ago for XxxHolic (2022).

Of the Kokuho men, Yokohama has a juicy role as a hard-living nepo baby with an on-again off-again attachment to his profession but he's up against the beloved Ken Watanabe (playing his disapproving father) and a small but crucial turn from 80 year old Min Tanaka --who won this category for the Oscar nominated Twilight Samurai (2003) as a legendary onnagata. I could see any of them winning and it's nice that they're all supporting despite the size of Yokohama's role (which would have been co-lead if he hadn't disappeared from the picture for one entire act). My vote would definitely go to Tanaka with the caveat that I haven't seen the other two films.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures Japan.©Katsuhiro Go/KODANSHA Ltd. All Rights Reserved. ©2025 BAKUDAN Film Partners. All Rights Reserved.NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR

• Noa Shiroyama - 5 Centimeters
  13 year old actress 
• Yamato Kochi - Exit 8
  47 year old actor making his feature film debut as "The Walking Man"  
• Ai Mikami - Kokuho
  25 year old actress. She plays the geisha Fujikoma in early scenes of Kokuho who is angling to be Kikuo's (the lead character's) lover.
• Misato Morita - Night Flower
  29 year old actress. Her career stretches back 10 years or so but the past couple of years have been big for her with several tv series and movies inluding this one and  Rental Family  
• Takaya Matsutani - One Last Throw
• <--- Ryota Bando - Suzuki = Bakudan
  28 year old actor. He was born in the US but immigrated to Japan as a child.
• Runa Nakashima - Tokyo Taxi
  19 year old actress. She was also in the cast of Bullet Train Explosion this past year (streaming on Netflix.)

In this category all the nominees are automatically winners which is a sweet way to do "newcomers". The only honoree here whose film has no other nominations is Takaya Matsutani for One Last Throw, a sports drama about a player who is diagnosed with a brain tumor. 

CINEMATOGRAPHY

KOKUHO

• 5 Centimeters
• Hero's Island
• Kokuho 
• Suzuki = Bakudan
• Tokyo Taxi

Thought it was worth noting here that Kokuho's cinematographer is the only non-Japanese DP nominated. Sofian El-Fani is from Tunisia and has quite a filmography which includes France's Palme d'Or winner Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013), Mauritania's Oscar nominated Timbuktu (2014), Palestine's Oscar submission It Must Be Heaven (2019), and four episodes of Apple TV's Pachinko (2024) before his impressive work on Kokuho.

LIGHTING DIRECTION

• 5 Centimeters
• Hero's Island
• Kokuho 
• Suzuki = Bakudan
• Tokyo Taxi

 That the Lighting nominees are the same as Cinematography is, like Oscar's history with the two sound categories, not the best way to show any distinction between aspects of one particular craft!

ART DIRECTION

• Hero's Island
• Kokuho 
• Muromachi Outsiders (aka Samurai Fury) [AVAILABLE TO RENT ON AMAZON]
• Suzuki = Bakudan
• Tokyo Taxi

Muromachi Outsiders, which is also known as Samurai Fury, is the lone wolf here - receiving it's only Japan Academy nomination. It's a 15th century friends to enemies action / war drama.

EDITING

• Exit 8
• First Kiss
• Kokuho 
• Suzuki = Bakudan
• Tokyo Taxi

Exit 8, which was also honored for Newcomer of the Year (Yamato Kochi), is a horror thriller about "The Lost Man" (Kazunari Ninomiya ) who is trapped in a subway station trying to find a way to escape. It's based on a video game of the same name.

SOUND RECORDING

• 366 Days
• Hero's Island
• Kokuho 
• Suzuki = Bakudan
• Tokyo Taxi

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC

• 366 Days
• Hero's Island
• Kokuho 
• Suzuki = Bakudan
• Tokyo Taxi

Same nominees as sound recording.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Conclave (UK)
• F1 (US)
• Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (US)
• One Battle After Another (US)
• Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Hong Kong) 

It's always fun to see what other countries nominate in their "foreign" or "international" categories. Japan tends to favour mainstream blockbusters which here includes Hong Kong's Oscar submission from 2024. All of that plus Conclave!  The M:I nomination made me groan since it's easily the worst entry in that entire franchise.

AWARD FROM DISTINGUISHED SERVICE FROM THE CHAIRMAN 

• Mayumi Ogawa
  An 86 year old actress. She starred in the 1974 Oscar submission The Fossil and was also the Japanese voice of Liz Taylor in Cleopatra (1963). Other key credit include Zatochi's Vengeance (1966), and  Vengeance Is Mine (1979) 
• Yoshiko Sakuma
  Another 86 year old actress who came to fame in the 1960s. She most recently appeared in the US indie Earthquake Bird (2019). She is also the mother of international movie/tv star Takehiro Hira (Girl/Haji, Hara-Kiri, Shogun)
• Gisaburō Sugii
  An 85 year old anime director 
• Yozo Tanaka
• Seiji Mori

SPECIAL AWARD FROM THE ASSOCIATION

• Kumiko Ogawa
• Kazuko Kurosawa - The daughter of Akira Kurosawa. She was born during the filming of Seven Samurai and went on to become an award winning costume designer. Some of her best known projects include: Shoplifters, Monster, Silk, The Third Murder, Tokyo Vice, The Twilight Samurai, and The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
• Jiro Shindo - A producer 
• Tadamitsu Nishida - His most famous cinematic contribution was as set dresser on the classic Makioka Sisters (1983)

SPECIAL AWARD FROM THE CHAIRMAN

• Ayumi Ishida - an actress (1948-2025)
• Tatsuya Nakadai - Movie star of Kagemusha and Ran fame  (1932-2025)
• Masato Harada - writer director (1949-2025)
• Nobuyoshi Otani - producer of Twilight Samurai and also very involved in preserving Kabuki theater.

IN MEMORIAM

• Shoji Ueda (1913-2000) photographer
• Masahiro Shinoda (1931-2025) director
• Kazuko Yoshiyuki (1935-2025) actress
• Kazuo Ikehiro (1929-2025) director

Comments

[Aq. H]

fyi - Kokuho is having an IMAX early screening on Wednesday 1/11 in certain markets in the U.S.

[Aq. H]

Apologies, I meant to say Wednesday 1/21.