Tokusatsu Actors Win Big At Japanese Academy Awards

At Japan’s 2020 Academy Awards, well-known actors from tokusatsu won the awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.

This year marks the 43rd annual Japanese Academy Awards, and two of the top acting awards have been given to tokusatsu actors. Samurai Sentai Shinkenger‘s Tori Matsuzaka (Takeru Shiba/Shinken Red) won the Best Actor award, and Ryo Yoshizawa (Ryusei Sakuta/Kamen Rider Meteor) won the Best Supporting Actor award.

Matsuzaka was awarded for his performance in The Journalist, a film about a young female reporter who gets caught up in reporting a government cover-up involving a bureaucrat. Here is what Matsuzaka said when accepting the award:

“Thank you for this award. It took several tries before we could deliver this work with such high expectations, but looking back, I was able to work through it thanks to Shim Eun-gyeong.”

Last year, Matsuzaka won the Best Supporting Actor award for his work in The Blood of Wolves. This year, however, that award has gone to a fellow tokusatsu alumnus. Yoshizawa won Best Supporting Actor for his performance in two roles for the film, Kingdom. The following comes from his acceptance speech:

“When I got nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Award, the first person to contact me was Kento Yamazaki, who starred in the film, and he said ‘Let’s work together in the next sequel.’ The story of Kingdom was great and I think working closely with him resulted in me winning this award.”

Kingdom, based on a manga of the same name, is about a military general from the Warring States period of China. Yoshizawa plays the roles of both Piao and Ying Zheng. In the film, Piao is accepted into the military to act as a body double for the king he resembles, Ying Zheng.

Source: Mantan Web (1), (2)