The special aired on TV Tokyo on December 31 at 10 p.m. JST
TV Tokyo announced on Wednesday that the live-action series adaptation of Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi’s Kodoku no Gourmet (Solitary Gourmet) manga will have its seventh consecutive New Year’s special episode titled”Kodoku no Gourmet 2023 Ōmisoka Special Inagashira Gorō, Minami e Tōhikō’Sagasanaide Kudasai.’”(Gourmet 2023 New Year’s Eve Special: Gorō Inagashira flees to the south’Please don’t look for me’) on December 31 at 10:00 dark. JST.
Image via Comic Natalie
© TV Tokyo
Yutaka Matsushige (live-action Death Note, Sukiyaki Western Django, Crows Zero) will once again take on the role of main character Gorō Inagashira. This year’s New Year’s Eve special program will tell about Gorō’s forced trip to Okinawa.
The special episode’s guest cast includes Akinaga Toyomoto as producer Shōta Nagano, Ryōko Kuninaka as Okinawan folk music group Tēgēs Reina Tamaki, and Jiei Kabira as Tēgēs member and driver Saburō Shimabukuro.
Both the live-action Kodoku no Gourmet series and the original manga follow a lone vendor named Gorō Inagashira as he travels across Japan and samples local dishes found on street corners. The 10th season of this live-action series premieres in October 2022.
The franchise also has a six-episode live-action mini-series project titled Kodoku no Gourmet ~Oishii kedo Horo Nigai… Inagashira Gorō no Sainan ~ (Solitary Gourmet ~It’s delicious but a bit bitter… Gorō’s misfortune Inagashira~) premieres on streaming services Paravi and Hikari TV in March-April 2022.
Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi first published the Kodoku no Gourmet manga from 1994 to 1996 in Fusosha’s Monthly Panja magazine (now defunct). Kusumi handled the story and Taniguchi drew the artwork. Fusosha published the first volume in 1997. Kusumi and Fusosha published the manga’s second volume in September 2015. Taniguchi died in February 2017.
Fanfare and Ponent Mon will release the manga in English. The company said the manga will “most likely” launch in spring 2021, but the series is currently listed as launching in July 2023.
The manga also inspired an online anime that debuted on Production IG’s “Tate Anime” (Vertical Anime) smartphone app in November 2017.
Source: Comic Natalie