# Yuya Yagira

Yuya Yagira (柳楽 優弥, Yagira Yūya, born March 26, 1990) is a Japanese actor. In 2004, he became the youngest winner of the Best Actor award in the history of the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of 12-year-old Akira in the highly acclaimed Nobody Knows.

## Career

Yagira was 12 years old and not a professional actor, when filming began for Nobody Knows in 2002. He then immediately went on to television projects and other films. He co-starred with Eriko Sato in Akane Yamada's All to the Sea which was released in 2010 and co-starred with Kie Kitano in Taro Hyugaji's Under the Nagasaki Sky, released in 2013.
In 2021, Yagira played young Takeshi Kitano in the biopic Asakusa Kid.

## Personal life

Yagira was hospitalized on August 29, 2008 for a drug overdose, with early reports calling it a suicide attempt. Yagira later denied that he had been trying to kill himself, noting that he was the one who called an ambulance after he began feeling ill from taking the pills. According to his blog:
   "The incident followed an argument with my family. In a fit of anger I took a larger than usual dosage of my prescription tranquilizers. As a result I felt ill and asked for an ambulance to be called."

### Marriage

In December 2, 2009, Yagira announced on his blog that he was engaged to television personality Ellie Toyota [ja]. On January 15, 2010, Yagira and Toyota held their wedding ceremony at Tokyo's Meiji Shrine. They had registered their marriage on January 14. They have one daughter together, born October 13, 2010.
The two met when Toyota was a senior at Horikoshi High School, and Yagira, who was instantly smitten after meeting her, asked a classmate for her contact information, which is how the two began dating. Yagira also revealed that he had proposed to her when he was seventeen, as he was unaware that people could not legally marry until they were eighteen, so he was told, "You can't marry until you're 18". Yagira later proposed again two years later when he was nineteen, to which this time Toyota accepted.

## Brand endorsements

In 2018, Yagira became the brand ambassador for Japanese men's grooming brand GATSBY. He starred in the TV Commercial "GATSBY Cop", together with popular Japanese actor Mackenyu Arata.

## Filmography
### Television

* Kunimitsu no Matsuri (KTV, 2003), Shinsaku Sakagami
* Denchi ga Kireru Made (TV Asahi, 2004), Daichi Takano
* Tokyo23: Survival City (Wowow, 2010), Noboru Arai
* Lady: Saigo no Hanzai Profile, episodes 4, 5 (TBS, 2011), Satoshi Tatsumi
* Galileo XX (Fuji TV, 2013), Kento Tōma
* Aoi Honō (TV Tokyo, 2014), Moyuru Honoo
* Nobunaga Concerto, episode 1 (Fuji TV, 2014), Oda Nobuyuki
* Nurses of the Palace (TBS, 2015), Kōtarō Nakano
* Mare (NHK, Asadora, 2015), Daisuke Ikehata
* We're Millennials. Got a Problem? (NTV, 2016), Maribu Michigami
* Naotora: The Lady Warlord (NHK, Taiga Drama, 2017), Ryūun-maru
* Mom, May I Quit Being Your Daughter? (NHK, 2017), Taichi Matsushima
* Frankenstein's Love (NTV, 2017), Seiya Inaniwa
* Gintama: Mitsuba hen (dTV, 2017), Toshiro Hijikata
* Gintama of the Unusual (dTV, 2018), Toshiro Hijikata
* From Today, It's My Turn, episode 3 (NTV, 2018), Moyuru Honoo
* A Day-Off of Kasumi Arimura, episode 4 (Wowow, 2020), Kevin Takeda
* Gift of Fire (NHK, 2020), Osamu Ishimura
* Pay to Ace (NTV, 2021), Kurodo Kuroki
* Gannibal (Disney+, 2022–present), Daigo Agawa
* Light of My Lion (TBS, 2024), Hiroto Komori

### Film

* Nobody Knows (2004), Akira Fukushima
* Shining Boy and Little Randy (2005)
* Sugar and Spice (2006), Shiro Yamashita
* The Bandage Club (2007)
* The Shock Labyrinth 3D (2009)
* All to the Sea (2010)
* Under the Nagasaki Sky (2013), Goro Sawada
* Unforgiven (2013), Yuichi Hirose
* Again (2013), Ryutaro
* Crows Explode (2014), Toru Gora
* Ushijima the Loan Shark 2 (2014), Ebinuma
* Saiga no Inochi (2014), Keito Myose
* Gassoh (2015), Kiwamu Akitsu
* Destruction Babies (2016), Taira Ashihara
* Hentai Kamen: Abnormal Crisis (2016), Tadashi Makoto
* Pink and Gray (2016), Shingo Suzuki
* Ninkyo Yaro (2016)
* Grab the Sun (2016)
* Gintama (2017), Toshiro Hijikata
* Samurai's Promise (2018), Chiri Tsubaki
* Hibiki (2018), Kohei Tanaka
* Gintama 2 (2018), Toshiro Hijikata
* His Lost Name (2019), Shichi
* The Fable (2019), Kojima
* Don't Cry, Mr. Ogre (2019), Tomoyuki Saito
* Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicle of the Moon Exploration (2019)
* From Today, It's My Turn the Movie (2020), Eiji Yanagi
* Hokusai (2021), Hokusai Katsushika (young)
* Gift of Fire (2021), Osamu Ishimura
* Under the Turquoise Sky (2021), Takeshi
* Asakusa Kid (2021), Takeshi Kitano
* The Fish Tale (2022), Hiyo
* We're Millennials. Got a Problem?: The Movie (2023), Maribu Michigami
* A Conviction of Marriage (2024), Arata Natsume

## Awards

* 2004: 57th Cannes Film Festival - Best Actor for Nobody Knows
* 2004: 90th Kinema Junpo Award - Best New Actor for Nobody Knows
* 2005: 26th Yokohama Film Festival - Best New Actor for Nobody Knows
* 2016: Drama Academy Awards - Best Supporting Actor for We're Millennials. Got a problem?
* 2017: 90th Kinema Junpo Award - Best Actor for Destruction Babies
* 2017: 38th Yokohama Film Festival - Best Actor for Destruction Babies
* 2022: 46th Elan d'or Awards - Newcomer of the Year