**Nobuko Otowa** (1924–1994) was a Japanese actress renowned for her prolific film career and intense performances. She rose to fame thanks to her numerous collaborations with director Kaneto Shindo, her husband.

Among their most iconic films are masterpieces such as *The Naked Island* (Hadaka no Shima, 1960), in which she plays a resilient peasant woman; *Onibaba* (1964), in which she is a desperate woman forced to take extreme measures to survive; and *Kuroneko* (Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko, 1968), a horror-fantasy film.

Otowa stood out for her ability to embody complex female characters, often humble, rural, or marginalized, endowed with extraordinary inner strength and dignity in the face of adversity. Her stage presence was magnetic, making her an unforgettable face of Japanese cinema.