Nobuko Otowa

Nobuko Otowa was born in Yonago, Tottori, in 1924 and died in December 1994, and between 1950 and that final year she appeared in more than a hundred films. The arithmetic alone is startling: she was working on screen for forty-four years, right up to the end of her life. She appeared in nearly all of Kaneto Shindo's films, including The Naked Island and Onibaba, and married him in 1977. The awards trace an unusual shape. Best Actress at the Blue Ribbon Awards in 1954, then Best Supporting Actress at the same awards in 1967. Actors who can carry a picture and then willingly stand at its edge are rarer than the industry admits, and the ones who do it well tend to age into their best work rather than out of it. She also took the Kikuta Kazuo Drama Award for stage work and the Mainichi Film Award for Best Actress, and in 1989 received the Medal with Purple Ribbon. What moves me is not the honors but the not stopping. A career that ends because the person's life ended, not because the offers did, is its own kind of statement.

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Name (English)

Nobuko Otowa

Name (Japanese)

乙羽信子

Reading

おとわ のぶこ

Born

October 1, 1924 – December 22, 1994

Origin

Yonago, Tottori Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

actor / film actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Rat

Blood type

B

Active years

1937 - 1994

Awards & achievements

• 1989 Medal with Purple Ribbon
• 1954 Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Actress
• 1967 Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Supporting Actress
• Kikuta Kazuo engeki shō
• Mainichi Film Award for Best Actress

Spouse

Kaneto Shindō

Works summary

Appearances

171 (1950–2000)

By year (titles with a known year)

1950: 4, 1951: 6, 1952: 3, 1953: 5, 1954: 3, 1955: 1, 1956: 2, 1957: 1, 1958: 5, 1959: 6, 1960: 4, 1961: 4, 1962: 2, 1963: 6, 1964: 4, 1965: 2, 1966: 1, 1967: 3, 1968: 2, 1969: 2, 1970: 4, 1971: 1, 1972: 2, 1973: 2, 1974: 2, 1975: 4, 1976: 2, 1977: 4, 1978: 4, 1979: 3, 1980: 2, 1981: 8, 1982: 3, 1983: 5, 1984: 4, 1985: 4, 1986: 3, 1987: 3, 1988: 2, 1989: 3, 1990: 3, 1991: 4, 1992: 4, 1993: 1, 1995: 1, 2000: 1, year unknown: 26

Debut work

妖炎／ホフマン物語

Filmography / notable works

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuko%20Otowa
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%99%E7%BE%BD%E4%BF%A1%E5%AD%90
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2483977

Tags

• Tottori Prefecture
• actor
• film 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.