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Sia Performs Himitsu - The Top Secret Film's Theme Song

posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Australian Grammy nominee contributes 1st theme for Japanese film

The official website for the live-action film of Reiko Shimizu's Himitsu - The Top Secret psychological science-fiction manga announced on Thursday that Australian singer and songwriter Sia will perform the theme song "Alive." This will be the first time Sia has contributed a theme song for a Japanese film.

This singer originally released "Alive" in September 2015. The song is the lead single from Sia's seventh album This is Acting, which was released this past January. Sia received four nominations at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards for her song "Chandelier" in 2015. She has co-written songs for artists including Beyoncé and Rihanna.

In the film, Toma Ikuta (Hana-Kimi, We Were There, Akihabara @ DEEP, Honey and Clover, Mogura no Uta) plays Tsuyoshi Maki (pictured left in image below), the brilliant laboratory head haunted by trauma. Masaki Okada (Hana-Kimi, Boku no Hatsukoi o Kimi ni Sasagu, Otomen, Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto, Space Brothers) plays Ikkō Aoki (right), the laboratory's new recruit. Chiaki Kuriyama (Battle Royale, Kill Bill, The Sky Crawlers) plays the forensic medical examiner Yukiko Miyoshi, and Nao Ōmori (Ichi the Killer, Helter Skelter, Parasyte) plays Shunsuke Manabe, a passionate detective (Manabe is a character created specifically for the movie, and he did not appear in the manga). Other cast members include Tori Matsuzaka (Gatchaman, .hack//The Movie), Kippei Shiina (Assassination Classroom, SHINOBI - Heart Under Blade), Lily Franky (Bakuman., The Boy and The Beast), and Risa Oda.

The film will open in Japan on August 6. Director Keishi Ōtomo (live-action Rurouni Kenshin, Ryōmaden) began planning this film four years ago, and he began shooting last April. Izumi Takahashi wrote the movie's script.

The mystery manga takes place in Japan five decades from now. Brain scanners have been perfected to the point that the government can retrieve up to five years' worth of memories from people's minds — even if they are dead. As they delve into people's minds to solve crimes, the investigators of the National Research Institute of Police Science's 9th Forensics Laboratory must weigh the ethical choices in the ultimate invasion of privacy.

Shimizu launched the manga in Hakusensha's Melody magazine in 2001, although she drew an earlier one-shot manga version in Melody in 1999. Hakusensha published the 12th and final compiled volume of the manga in 2012. The spinoff series Himitsu Season 0 is now running in Melody.

The manga already inspired a television anime in 2008. The Japanese government's Ministry of Cultural Affairs honored the manga with an Excellence Prize in the Japan Media Arts Festival Awards, after it was recommended twice by the awards' jury.

Source: animeanime.jp; Shigeyoshi Okimoto

Images © 2016 Himitsu - The Top Secret Production Committee


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