Yōko Yamamoto

Yoko Yamamoto was recognized early — the Elan d'or Newcomer Award in 1966, when she was in her mid-twenties — and then simply kept working for the rest of her life. That second part is the harder achievement. Plenty of performers arrive; very few stay recognizable to audiences across six decades of changing television. She was born in Nakano, Tokyo in 1942 and died in February 2024 at 81. The detail I keep returning to is the Kikuta Kazuo Drama Award, which sits alongside her screen work. It tells you she was not only a familiar television face but someone the theater world took seriously, and those two reputations rarely belong to the same person in Japan. She also worked in voice acting. Her filmography shows a career of remarkable steadiness, and steadiness is the thing that actually earns a place in a country's cultural memory.

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)

Yōko Yamamoto

Name (Japanese)

山本陽子

Reading

やまもと ようこ

Born

March 17, 1942 – February 20, 2024

Origin

Nakano, Tokyo, Japan

Height

155 cm

Occupation

actor / seiyū

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Horse

Blood type

A

Active years

1963 - 2024

Awards & achievements

• 1966 Elan d'or Award for Newcomer of the Year
• Kikuta Kazuo engeki shō

Works summary

Appearances

359 (1964–2022)

By year (titles with a known year)

1964: 15, 1965: 15, 1966: 14, 1967: 18, 1968: 10, 1969: 18, 1970: 9, 1971: 10, 1972: 8, 1973: 11, 1974: 5, 1975: 5, 1976: 6, 1977: 5, 1978: 6, 1979: 7, 1980: 6, 1981: 4, 1982: 8, 1983: 6, 1984: 7, 1985: 7, 1986: 7, 1987: 8, 1988: 7, 1989: 7, 1990: 4, 1991: 7, 1992: 4, 1993: 3, 1994: 3, 1995: 4, 1996: 2, 1997: 2, 1998: 2, 1999: 6, 2000: 3, 2001: 4, 2002: 4, 2003: 2, 2004: 6, 2005: 1, 2006: 1, 2007: 2, 2008: 2, 2009: 1, 2010: 7, 2011: 4, 2012: 5, 2013: 5, 2014: 3, 2015: 2, 2016: 4, 2017: 2, 2018: 2, 2019: 1, 2021: 1, 2022: 1, year unknown: 30

Debut work

Red Handkerchief

Filmography / notable works

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko%20Yamamoto
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B1%B1%E6%9C%AC%E9%99%BD%E5%AD%90
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11469398

Tags

• Tokyo
• actor
• seiyū

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.