Keiko Takeshita

Keiko Takeshita won the Elan d'or Newcomer Award in 1978, and she is still working now. That is close to half a century, and the arithmetic is the whole point. I judge actors less by how brightly they start than by whether they are still there twenty and forty years later, because staying is the harder discipline. Born in 1953 in Higashi-ku, Nagoya, and standing 155 cm, she was never going to dominate a frame by physical presence; she lasted by taking each role that came to her seriously, decade after decade. She also crossed into voice work, playing the protagonist's mother, Hana Matsuzaki, in Studio Ghibli's From Up on Poppy Hill. Carrying a character on voice alone, with no face to help you, is a separate craft. Doing both well is what a career actor looks like.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Keiko Takeshita

Name (Japanese)

竹下景子

Reading

たけした けいこ

Born

September 15, 1953 (age 73)

Origin

Higashi-ku, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

Height

155 cm

Occupation

actor / seiyū

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Snake

Blood type

A

Agency

アイ・バーグマン

Active years

1972 -

University

Tokyo Woman's Christian University

Awards & achievements

• 1978 Elan d'or Award for Newcomer of the Year

Spouse

関口照生

Works summary

Appearances

430 (1969–2026)

By year

1969: 2, 1972: 4, 1973: 14, 1974: 16, 1975: 16, 1976: 18, 1977: 12, 1978: 13, 1979: 11, 1980: 12, 1981: 8, 1982: 10, 1983: 7, 1984: 8, 1985: 9, 1986: 3, 1987: 7, 1988: 8, 1989: 7, 1990: 10, 1991: 2, 1992: 3, 1993: 6, 1994: 1, 1995: 4, 1996: 1, 1997: 7, 1998: 1, 1999: 4, 2000: 9, 2001: 6, 2002: 6, 2003: 4, 2004: 10, 2005: 3, 2006: 8, 2007: 5, 2008: 4, 2009: 6, 2010: 11, 2011: 11, 2012: 8, 2013: 6, 2014: 2, 2015: 5, 2016: 4, 2017: 6, 2018: 4, 2019: 1, 2020: 3, 2021: 4, 2022: 4, 2023: 7, 2024: 9, 2025: 3, 2026: 3

Debut work

中学生群像

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttps://www.takeshitakeiko.net/en/
• Xhttps://x.com/keiko_t_staff
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiko%20Takeshita
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AB%B9%E4%B8%8B%E6%99%AF%E5%AD%90
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3543913

Tags

• Aichi Prefecture
• actor
• seiyū

Last updated

September 18, 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.