Shigeru Kōyama

Shigeru Koyama is the kind of actor whose name may not ring a bell abroad, but whose face and voice carried decades of Japanese screen and stage work. Born in Hiroshima in 1929, he worked as both an actor and an impresario, and died on 3 January 2017, just short of his eighty-eighth birthday. He trained at the Naval Accounting School, joined the Bungakuza troupe in 1952, and later worked with Gekidan Kumo and Engeki Shudan En. Careers like his were built in the supporting frame, where the leading actor only shines because someone beside them is holding the scene steady. That work rarely generates headlines. If you know his films, you already know what the data cannot show you: a presence that made rooms on screen feel real.

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Name (English)

Shigeru Kōyama

Name (Japanese)

神山繁

Reading

こうやま しげる

Born

January 16, 1929 – January 3, 2017

Origin

Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

actor / impresario

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Snake

Blood type

A

Agency

Office Sasaki

Active years

1952 - 2017

Works summary

Appearances

414 (1953–2015)

By year (titles with a known year)

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

Debut work

にごりえ

Filmography / notable works

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru%20K%C5%8Dyama
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A5%9E%E5%B1%B1%E7%B9%81
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3959459

Tags

• Hiroshima Prefecture
• actor
• impresario

Last updated

September 25, 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.