He received the Best Actor prize at the Blue Ribbon Awards for his work in Onmyoji.
Since then he has also been cast in the dramas: in Aguri in 1997, for which he played dadaist poet Eisuke Yoshiyuki and had won many awards, and in Hana no Ran in 1994.
[1] He also had a supporting role in Akira Kurosawa's last epic motion picture Ran, as the blind flute playing hermit boy, Tsurumaru.
[4] In March 2013, he appeared at the Japan Society and the Guggenheim Museum Rotunda in two productions: Shakespeare's Macbeth adapted to the noh and kyogen traditions with five actors, performed in Japanese with English subtitles and Sanbaso, Divine Dance.
[5] On July 30, 2018, Mansai was appointed chief executive creative director of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.