Rena Takeda, Nao Yamato, Yōji Iwase join cast of July series
The official website for Minami-kun ga Koibito!?, the new live-action, role-reversal series based on Minami's Lover (Minami-kun no) by Shungiku Uchida Koibito), has revealed three more cast members and the premiere series premieres Wednesday, July 16.
Image via TV Asahi
© tv asahi All rights reserved.
As previously announced, Ai Iinuma plays Chiyomi (top left row in the image above), while Yusei Yagi (top right row) plays Minami. Rena Takeda (bottom row, middle) plays Chiyomi's love rival Misuzu Sagawa, Nao Yamato (bottom row left) plays Chiyomi's best friend and basketball teammate Nami Takamura, and Yōji Iwase (bottom row right) plays Minami's basketball teammate and rival Etō.
Image via TV Asahi
© tv asahi All rights reserved.
Other previously announced cast members include:
The series will premiere on July 16 at 9:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. EDT) on TV Asahi and 23 affiliated channels.
The new series will have the roles reversed, with a miniature boyfriend instead of a girlfriend. Yoshikazu Okada is writing the script and Tadaaki Horai, Takashi Komatsu and others are directing the film.
Fantagraphics is releasing the manga in English and describes the story:
In this raunchy, touching, funny manga for adults, high school student Minami's girlfriend, Chiyomi, shrinks to 6 inches tall — and moves in with him!
Originally appearing in the underground/alternative manga magazine Garo in the 1980s and adapted for television by some Times, the Japanese pop culture sensation Minami's Lover is a story of romantic relationships of two high school students when one of them reduced his height to 6 inches. Everyone assumes Chiyomi has disappeared, and suspicion naturally falls on Minami, who is identified as her boyfriend in the diary. But after somehow falling into such a situation, Chiyomi moved in with him. As depicted in Uchida's clean, loose lines and Zip-a-Tone pattern, the two soon adapt to unusual circumstances, devising ways for Chiyomi to use the restroom, brush her teeth, and do her homework. hair, taking classes, etc. After some silly series of trial and error, they even figure out a sex life. But in addition to learning to navigate logistics, jealousy, and the cat, they're also growing older (if not taller). Uchida uses the conceit of a teenage couple learning to care for each other to examine gender dynamics and intimacy.
Uchida first published the manga in his Shungiku manga collection. It was later serialized in Katsuichi Nagai and Seirindo Co., Ltd's monthly Manga Garo magazine. from 1986 to 1987, with the final chapter appearing in a volume released by Seirindo in July 1987. Bungei Shunju collected and republished the series in 1998, and Seirinkogeisha published a revised version in in 2004. Uchida published a manga sequel titled Minami-kun wa Koibito in Shueisha's Cocohana magazine from November 2012 to April 2013.
The manga was adapted into a live-action television special in 1990, an 11-episode television series in 1994, another 11-episode live-action television series in 2004, and the television film The fourth and most recent live-action film adaptation was in 2015.
Source: TV Asahi, Natalie Comics