Masaki Suda

The Transformation of Taisho Sugo

Taisho Sugo arrived in Tokyo at sixteen with a stage name nobody knew. It was in 2009 that Masaki Suda landed the lead role in Kamen Rider W. For most teenagers, that flashy, brightly colored franchise could have been a trap, but he chose to use it as a testing ground.

It was no coincidence.

In those early years of his career, he worked nonstop to shed the teen idol label that the Japanese industry tends to pin on new faces. He worked on four or five projects per season. But the real turning point came in 2014 with The Light Shines Only There. Suda played a working-class young man in a suffocating drama that had nothing to do with the choreographed routines of his early days.

The year of the final breakup

Then 2017 arrived, and Japan's film awards system had to yield to a physical reality. With the release of Wilderness, the actor underwent training as a professional boxer that changed his physique and his standing in the industry. He won the Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Actor at just 25 years old, becoming one of the youngest to achieve it.

And the gamble paid off.

That same period was when he expanded into music with the release of his first single. But it wasn't the typical marketing push to sell records to teenagers. Suda was after a raw sound that matched his image as a method actor, so he began collaborating with musicians from the alternative scene to distance himself from manufactured pop.

Maturity and Creative Control

In 2019 he starred in the series Mr. Hiiragi’s Homeroom, playing a teacher who takes his students hostage. The production drew massive ratings in Japan and established his ability to carry dark stories on commercial television. From there, he began choosing his scripts with almost surgical precision.

In November 2021, he announced his marriage to actress Nana Komatsu after sharing the screen in three feature films.

His voice also became an asset for major animated productions. In 2023 he voiced the heron in The Boy and the Heron under the direction of Hayao Miyazaki. The recording process lasted months, as the studio demanded a creature voice that sounded both human and repulsive at the same time.

For 2024, the actor wrapped his role in Cloud under director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Filming on this thriller was completed in just five weeks on locations on the outskirts of Tokyo. The film had its international premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival with a final runtime of 124 minutes.