Transgender News: Actress Wins Japanese Film Award
This time of year, many cinephiles minds are focused on the Academy Awards, and speculating on the winners for best film, best actor, best score, and best animated feature (actually, no one is speculating on that this year: it’s gonna be K-Pop Demon Hunters). However, this is not the only film awards that are making headlines. This year, the Osaka Cinema Festival honored Miyu Nakagawa, a transgender woman and performer, as 2025’s best new actress!
Who Is Transgender Actress, Miyu Nakagawa?
Born in Hyogo in 1995, Nakagawa suffered gender dysphoria for most of her youth, and transitioned at the age of 21. Since that time, she has begun her career in acting, and has recently become an unofficial ambassador for the transgender community in Japan.
She was nominated for — and won! — the award for Best New Actress this year by the Osaka Cinema Festival, for her role as Sachi the protagonist in Blue Boy Trial. Accepting the award at the Hotel Elsereine Osaka, Nakagawa said, “I found many similarities between Sachi and myself in terms of the struggles I’ve had with gender identity. I played the role hoping to convey my own feelings.”
What is Blue Boy Trial?
So, what is the film about, and what is Nakagawa’s role in it? We’ve covered the actual historical events that the movie concerns in more detail here, but here is a quick summary. As Tokyo internationalized in the 1960s, thanks to the beginning of the so-called “economic miracle,” and the success of the 1964 Olympics, the authorities began to crack down on sex work and other “undesirable” behaviour.
However, as the new ordinances and rules were aimed as women sex workers, trans women — who were still officially “male” according to their Family Register entry — presented something of a legal loophole, and became known as “blue boys.” Unable to legally punish the “blue boys,” the authorities instead decided to prosecute the doctor who had given them gender reassignment treatment.
In the film adaptation, Nakagawa’s Sachi is a waitress, who is engaged to her long-term partner, having moved on from her life as a “blue boy.” However, after Taku Kano, the lawyer of the doctor (given the name Dr. Masao Akagi for the purposes of the screen) visits to seek her help as a witness, she is suddenly thrust into the heart of complex legal procedures.
What is the Osaka Cinema Festival?
The 2026 Awards were actually a major milestone for the Osaka Cinema Festival, which celebrated its 50th anniversary. Held on 8 March this year, it was began in 1976 as a fan-focused festival, with the best Japanese and international works of the year being awarded prizes based on the votes of cinephiles who live in the Kansai region.
What is Miyu Nakagawa Acting in Next?
So, what next for Nakagawa? Well, she is set to star in another leading role for an upcoming film this year, Tonari no Trans Shojo-chan, or My Neighbor the Trans Girl. In this adaptation of an acclaimed manga, Nakagawa will star as Yuka, the future incarnation of her co-star, who has come back in time ten years to help encourage them to transition and live their best life earlier than they did. In addition, she has been selected as one of the MCs for this June’s Tokyo Pride Festival.
Transgender people in Japan still face innumerable difficulties and obstacles, but both the film Blue Boy Trial and the recognition that Nakagawa is receiving are evidence that, little by little, things are getting better.
