Check the film listings and you'll find Akira Emoto cast in at least 10 movies playing this autumn. Since winning the Japan Academy Awards prize for supporting actor in 1983 and '97 and for leading actor in '98 — for his role in "Kanzo Sensei (Dr. Liver)" — Emoto has become one of Japan's most well known stars.
Not only is he active in film, the 59-year-old Emoto is also the leader of the Tokyo Kandenchi (Tokyo Battery) theater company that he founded in 1976 with fellow actors Junji Takada and Hidki Ayata. Emoto acts in most of Tokyo Battery's productions, as well as often being director.
The company established its reputation in Japan's contemporary theater through its unique taste in original plays, which often feature absurdity, and also through its stagings of works by Anton Chekhov and Eugene Ionesco.