Yuri Nakamura

Yuri Nakamura (also billed Nakamura Yuri) was a Japanese-born Korean actress and former singer who built a long career in Japanese film and television while holding South Korean citizenship. Born Yuri Sei in Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture, on 15 March 1982, she came from a Zainichi Korean family: her father was a third-generation resident of Japan and her mother held ties to both Korea and Japan. She entered entertainment through the Asayan singing audition, debuted in 1998 in the pop duo YURIMARI with Mari Izawa, and after the unit ended in 1999 shifted toward acting.

From 2003 she worked steadily on screen. Her breakthrough arrived in 2007 as Keiko Ri (Kyonja) in Pacchigi! Love & Peace, a role that won her the Osaka Cinema Festival Newcomer Award and national newcomer recognition and connected her public image to stories of Zainichi life. The same year she led Love Letter from Heaven. Over the following years she became a trusted supporting and character lead for directors including Hirokazu Kore-eda (I Wish; Like Father, Like Son; After the Storm), and appeared in titles such as Ju-On: Black Ghost, Fukushima 50 and Arc. On television and streaming she moved through dramas including Good Doctor, Kurosagi, Beyond Goodbye and Netflix's Romantics Anonymous, in which she played Irene.

In 2013 she joined Alpha Agency. Colleagues and fans often praised the warmth she brought to supporting parts. She never married and remained close to friends including her YURIMARI partner MARI. Much of her later career unfolded alongside illness she largely kept private. Alpha Agency later disclosed that she had been treated for cancer about 13 years before her death, gone into remission, and continued working with regular check-ups. Cancer returned in January 2025; surgery went well but metastasis followed. She chose to manage the disease and keep working when her doctor encouraged it. In 2026 intestinal obstruction forced her off an upcoming NHK drama, and in August she was told she had little time left.

Nakamura died of rectal cancer on 1 September 2026 in Tokyo, aged 44. A private funeral was held with family and agency colleagues. Alpha Agency announced her death on 14 September, and international outlets including Variety reported the news around 15 September. She is the same person memorialized on People Forever as Yuri Nakamura; this pending slug records the same life and the same corrected death date from the agency statement, not a second biography.

Her legacy joins early idol-pop beginnings, Zainichi storytelling, Kore-eda's quiet cinema and late streaming drama. Tributes stressed both the craft of her supporting performances and the composure with which she worked through years of treatment. She left a filmography that still reaches new viewers through Pacchigi! Love & Peace and Romantics Anonymous.