Akiko Koyama

Akiko Koyama, born in Chiba in January 1935, has appeared in over eighty films, and many of them were directed by her husband, Nagisa Oshima. It would be easy to file her under the director's wife, but I think the arrangement demanded far more of her than that phrase allows. Oshima's cinema was confrontational and uncompromising, and she worked inside it repeatedly, which means she was going home with the person who had just been directing her. There is no separation of church and state in a marriage like that, no place to leave the argument at the studio gate. Working across stage and screen, she built a body of work that spans decades of Japanese film history, and she is still with us, now in her nineties. What I find admirable is not the loyalty by itself but the stamina underneath it. Standing beside a difficult artist for a lifetime, and remaining a distinct presence rather than an appendage, is its own long performance.

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Name (English)

Akiko Koyama

Name (Japanese)

小山明子

Reading

こやま あきこ

Born

January 27, 1935 (age 91)

Origin

Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Height

160 cm

Occupation

actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Boar

Blood type

AB

Active years

1955 -

Spouse

Nagisa Ōshima

Works summary

Appearances

220 (1955–2013)

By year (titles with a known year)

1955: 5, 1956: 13, 1957: 11, 1958: 9, 1959: 9, 1960: 10, 1961: 17, 1962: 9, 1963: 8, 1964: 9, 1965: 9, 1966: 10, 1967: 13, 1968: 7, 1969: 4, 1970: 5, 1971: 6, 1972: 7, 1973: 2, 1974: 4, 1975: 5, 1976: 5, 1977: 4, 1978: 5, 1979: 1, 1980: 2, 1982: 2, 1983: 6, 1984: 2, 1985: 3, 1987: 1, 1989: 1, 1992: 1, 1994: 1, 2007: 1, 2012: 1, 2013: 1, year unknown: 11

Debut work

ママ横をむいてて

Filmography / notable works

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiko%20Koyama
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E5%B1%B1%E6%98%8E%E5%AD%90
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q26896711

Tags

• Chiba Prefecture
• actor

Last updated

September 29, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.