Nijiro Murakami

The Teenager Who Didn't Want to Act

Nijiro Murakami was living in Montreal, far from the spotlight of Tokyo, when he got the call that changed his plans. His father is actor Jun Murakami and his mother is singer UA, but the boy preferred the anonymity of Canada.

Director Naomi Kawase was looking for a fresh face for Still the Water in 2014, and she found it in this young newcomer with no prior experience. The debut went straight into the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival.

And the gamble paid off.

That first shoot on Amami Oshima Island forced him to learn how to swim and to sacrifice a goat on camera. He had no acting school or classical training methods. His training was purely instinctive and physical.

Rejecting the Idol Commercial Circuit

Many actors of his generation in Japan accept massive advertising contracts and roles in empty romantic comedies. Murakami chose to explore the fringes instead. In 2016, he took part in Destruction Babies, playing a young man swept up in a spiral of senseless violence on the streets of Matsuyama.

That film earned him the Best Newcomer award at the Kinema Junpo Awards. His performance relied almost entirely on silence and on a stare that made viewers uneasy.

But international audiences took a few more years to put a name to the face.

The Tactical Coolness of Chishiya

In 2020, the adaptation of Alice in Borderland premiered and his face went global. He played Shuntaro Chishiya with bleached hair and a white hoodie that hid his hands at all times.

He built a character who didn't need to run or shout to dominate the scene. In the second season of the series, filmed in 2022, his role in the plot grew considerably.

In 2021, he took on the challenge of playing Okita Sōji in Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning. For this samurai role, he trained in Japanese swordsmanship with such intensity that he was able to shoot his own action scenes without stunt doubles.

The Breakdown and the Technical Comeback

In March 2023, his agency announced that the actor was leaving the stage play Evangelion Beyond due to physical and mental health issues. The pace of work in the Japanese industry is suffocating, and Murakami decided to hit the brakes hard and take several months off.

It was a necessary break.

His comeback came in late 2023 to promote Kyrie, the film directed by Shunji Iwai. In 2024, he appeared in the second season of the international series Tokyo Vice, playing Kaito, the younger brother of a yakuza.

The contract for the third season of Alice in Borderland was signed in 2024 with a production budget that exceeds the usual standards of Japanese television.