Koutaro Nishiyama
Koutaro Nishiyama is an actor, born 1991.
Nishiyama is a voice actor and singer from Kanagawa Prefecture, affiliated with 81 Produce, and his filmography has the shape that job usually takes: a long tail of small parts before anything with his name attached. Early on he is a middle school boy in Blue Spring Ride, Suzuha in Noragami, and Kazuhito Narita among the older students in Haikyu!!, a role he has carried from the television series through the films.
The parts that made his name landed across the middle of the 2010s: Atsushi Kinugawa in Cute High Earth Defense Club Love!, Yoshiharu Hisomu in Kiznaiver, Ryuichi Kashima in School Babysitters. In 2018 he won Best New Actor at the twelfth Seiyu Awards, which in that industry is the moment an agency stops pitching you and directors start asking.
Since then the work has spread rather than narrowed, which is the healthier outcome for a voice career. Sports anime keeps hiring him, across Aoashi, Major 2nd, Mix: Meisei Story and RE-MAIN. So does comedy, in My New Boss Is Goofy, Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues and Dragon Goes House-Hunting. So does the serious end: Emperor Takakura in The Heike Story, Yamato Takura in Dance Dance Danseur, Koji Tatsuishi in My Happy Marriage, Jin Kougasaki in Tougen Anki. He sings as well as acts, which in this business is less a bonus than a second job.
Movies (5)
TV (32)
- RE-MAIN (2021)
- Haikyu!! (2014)
- The Ancient Magus' Bride (2017)
- My Happy Marriage (2023)
- Dance Dance Danseur (2022)
- Aoashi (2022)
- SING "YESTERDAY" FOR ME (2020)
- Noragami (2014)
- The Vampire Dies in No Time (2021)
- 91 Days (2016)
- Tougen Anki (2025)
- Tokyo Encounter (2010)
- My New Boss Is Goofy (2023)
- The Heike Story (2022)
- Mix: Meisei Story (2019)
- The Tale of Outcasts (2023)
- Kiznaiver (2016)
- Blue Spring Ride (2014)
- Haruchika – Haruta & Chika (2016)
- Major 2nd (2018)
- A3! (2020)
- BEM (2019)
- School Babysitters (2018)
- Muteking the Dancing Hero (2021)
- With You, Our Love Will Make It Through (2025)
- Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues (2018)
- Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! (2015)
- Dragon Goes House-Hunting (2021)
- Egumi Legacy (2024)
- Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san (2018)
Where to start with Koutaro Nishiyama
For range, Kiznaiver first. It is the showcase role, a Trigger series that hands him one of the odder members of its ensemble and asks for a flat, needling delivery most young voice actors cannot sustain for a full season.
School Babysitters is the warm counterweight and the easiest watch on this list, and The Ancient Magus' Bride is the prettiest thing he appears in even though the part is not large. If you want him inside a genuinely great show, Haikyu!! is it, with the caveat that Narita is one player on a big team; the films, including HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle, keep the same casting.
My Happy Marriage is the mainstream drama option and The Heike Story the art-house one, a Tale of the Heike adaptation told with unusual restraint. Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! is the silliest entry point and, for a certain audience, the reason they know the name at all.