Masahiko Tsugawa

I have a soft spot for actors who basically grew up on set, and Masahiko Tsugawa is the platonic ideal: a Kyoto kid who started as a child actor and just never left, racking up decades until he was the wise old face anchoring a whole film. What gets me is the range. He could play the polished leading-man type and then turn around and be the smug, faintly hateable villain you love to boo, and somehow both felt completely lived-in. He went on to direct, too, and he was famously happy to mouth off as a commentator, which tells you he had opinions and zero interest in hiding them. The state handing him medals like the Medal with Purple Ribbon feels less like a trophy and more like an admission that he'd quietly been doing the work the entire time. We lost him in 2018, and that specific brand of spine-straight grown-up actor feels rarer every year.

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.

Masahiko Tsugawa (January 2, 1940 – August 4, 2018) was a Japanese actor, film director, and critic born in Kyoto. Beginning his career as a child actor, he became one of Japan's most versatile screen presences, equally convincing in refined leading-man roles and as a villain. He also appeared regularly as a commentator and critic in media. His contributions to Japanese cinema and the arts were recognized with the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2006 and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, in 2014.

Name (English)

Masahiko Tsugawa

Name (Japanese)

津川雅彦

Reading

つがわ まさひこ

Born

January 2, 1940 – August 4, 2018

Origin

Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan

Height

171 cm

Occupation

Actor / Film Director / Critic

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Dragon

Blood type

O

Active years

1945 - 2018

High school

Meiji University Affiliated Nakano High School

Awards & achievements

• 2006 — Medal with Purple Ribbon
• 1982 — Blue Ribbon Award, Best Supporting Actor
• Year Unknown — Golden Arrow Award
• 2014 — Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette

Spouse

Yukiji Asaoka

Works summary

Appearances

495 (1952–2022)

By year (titles with a known year)

1952: 3, 1953: 1, 1954: 1, 1956: 3, 1957: 8, 1958: 2, 1959: 8, 1960: 14, 1961: 8, 1962: 9, 1963: 9, 1964: 5, 1965: 4, 1966: 4, 1967: 5, 1968: 3, 1969: 6, 1970: 5, 1971: 8, 1972: 4, 1973: 6, 1974: 6, 1975: 2, 1976: 3, 1977: 4, 1978: 1, 1979: 3, 1980: 1, 1981: 4, 1982: 8, 1983: 8, 1984: 8, 1985: 4, 1986: 1, 1987: 8, 1988: 5, 1989: 6, 1990: 6, 1991: 3, 1992: 6, 1993: 7, 1994: 9, 1995: 5, 1996: 6, 1997: 12, 1998: 8, 1999: 8, 2000: 2, 2001: 6, 2002: 7, 2003: 11, 2004: 14, 2005: 6, 2006: 13, 2007: 16, 2008: 5, 2009: 15, 2010: 15, 2011: 12, 2012: 9, 2013: 10, 2014: 11, 2015: 13, 2016: 10, 2017: 12, 2018: 4, 2022: 1, year unknown: 45

Filmography / notable works

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B4%A5%E5%B7%9D%E9%9B%85%E5%BD%A6
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3098359

Tags

• From Kyoto Prefecture
• Film Director
• Actor
• Critic

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. 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.