Shogakukan announced on Monday that Sōichirō Yamamoto’s manga Tease Master Takagi-san (Karakai Jōzu no Takagi-san) is also inspiring a live-action film that will open in Japan on May 31, 2024. The film tells an origin story 10 years after the high school setting of the original manga. Mei Nagano (live-action My Broken Mariko, Ni no Kuni, Peach Girl, Burn the House Down, left in the image below) plays the titular Takagi, currently a trainee teacher at her old school, while Fumiya Takahashi (Kamen Rider Zero-One, right) plays Nishikata, currently a gym instructor at the same school.
Image via Comic Natalie
©2024 映画『からかい上手の高木さん』製作委員会 ©山本崇一朗/小学館
Nagano said she read the manga and watched the anime before being offered the role, so she’s “excited to enter the world of Master Tease Takagi-san.”
Rikiya Imaizumi (live-action Hōzuki-san Chi no Aneki, Chihiro-san, Just Only Love), director of the manga’s upcoming live-action series, is also directing Like the live-action series, Imaizumi is also co-writing script with Tomoki Kanazawa (Sanctuary, Sabakan) and Jun Hagimori (Sabakan). Takashi Ohmama (Dances with the Dragons, Mobile Suit: The Witch From Mercury, The Gene of AI) is composing the music.
Both the film and the live-action series were filmed entirely on location in Kagawa Prefecture Shōdo Island, the setting of the previous anime adaptation.
Image via TBS Website
© TBS
The manga’s live-action series will premiere on Netflix every Tuesday next March, with an international release planned. The series will also air as part of TBS’ Drama Stream programming block in March on Tuesdays at 11:58 p.m. (actually Wednesdays at 12:58 a.m. JST).
Rui Tsukishima (model for Shueisha’s Seventeen magazine, guest actor in Kamen Rider Geats) and teenager Sōya Kurokawa (Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster) play Takagi and Nishikata, respectively.
Yen Press is releasing the manga in English and describes the story:
High school student Nishikata had it out with his classmate sitting nearby, Takagi. Day after day, she chased him with all kinds of tricks and jokes. Even when he tries to tease her, she is always one step ahead but he will not give up easily in this battle of cunning and youth!
Yamamoto launched the manga in Gessan mini, a companion volume in Shogakukan’s Gessan (Monthly Shonen Sunday) magazine, in 2013. After Yamamoto completed serialization of his Fudatsuki no Kyōko-chan manga in Gessan in June 2016 , Tease Master Takagi-san moved to Gessan in July 2016. The manga ended publication on October 12.
The manga has also inspired three television anime seasons and an anime film.
Mifumi Inaba draws a spinoff manga of the series titled Karakai Jōzu no (Moto) Takagi-san, set when Takagi and Nishikata are married and have a daughter named Chi. The manga launched in Shogakukan’s Manga ONE in July 2017, and Shogakukan published the manga’s 18th compiled book volume on March 10. Inaba also launched a related spinoff manga titled Karakai Jōzu(?) no Nishikata- serialized in Shogakukan’s Monthly Shōnen Sunday magazine on November 10. The manga focuses on Chi, Nishikata and Takagi’s middle school daughter as she teases and is teased by the boy sitting next to her in class. The manga will be 10 chapters long.
Source: Comic Natalie