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Rina Ikoma Plays Original Character Saki in KochiKame Stage Play
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
This year's 28th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine announced on Monday that Nogizaka46 member and former AKB48 member Rina Ikoma (live-action Corpse Party, Corpse Party: Book of Shadows) will play an original character named Saki in the stage play adaptation of Osamu Akimoto's Kochira Katsushika-ku Kamearikouen-mae Hashutsujo ("Kochikame") police comedy manga. The character will hold the key to the play's story.
In addition, the staff also revealed three new character visuals:
Meiken Itō as Detective Kaipan
Tōta Tawaragi as Daijirō Ōhara
The rest of the main cast includes:
Yūji as Keiichi Nakagawa
Mikie Hara as Reiko Katherine Akimoto
Tetsuhiro Ikeda as Sanshirō Mukōjima, a character original to the stage play who will team up with Ryōtsu
Ruito Aoyagi as Ryo
Ryōsuke Mikata as Wake
Shōhei as Makoto
Ryō Kitazono as Hiroshi
Yū Fukuzawa as Satoshi
Other cast members include:
- Nao Ayaki as Big Mama
- Etsuko Niira as Pinch
- Mayu Musha as Punch
- Akihiro Kawamoto as God, fish dealer, others
- Saori Kōzuki as policewoman, others
- Sumiko Tani as policewoman, others
- Keiko Nakamura as policewoman, others
- Akira Sakamoto as Old Man Okuyama
Ishii also played the role of Kankichi Ryōtsu in earlier stage play adaptations. These plays had four performance seasons, the most recent of which was in 2006. Ishii is also directing and writing the script for the new play.
The play will run from September 9-19 at Tokyo's AiiA 2.5 Theater Tokyo, and from September 23-25 at Osaka's Sankei Hall Breeze.
The play celebrates the 40th anniversary of Akimoto's manga. Akimoto debuted Kochira Katsushika-ku Kamearikouen-mae Hashutsujo in 1976, and it has become Weekly Shonen Jump's longest-running manga series. Shueisha published the 199th compiled book volume on June 3.
In addition to the television anime adaptation, the manga inspired an anime special in 1985, live-action films in 1977 and 2011, and a live-action drama adaptation in 2009.
Source: Comic Natalie
