News

Live-Action Chiruran: Shinsengumi Requiem Series Casts Kento Nakajima

The official website for the live-action series of Eiji Hashimoto and Shinya Umemura's Chiruran: Shinsengumi Requiem (Chiruran: Shinsengumi Chinkon-ka) manga revealed in a short character video on Thursday that Kento Nakajima will join the series' cast as Okada Izō, also known as "Izō the Assassin," a threat to the capital of Kyoto, and who comes into conflict with the Shinsengumi. 

Kento Nakajima as Okada Izō

The adaptation will air on the TBS channel in spring 2026 as a special, and also stream on the U-NEXT service as a series.

The previously announced cast members include (historical Japanese names listed here in traditional family-name-first order):

• Yūki Yamada as Hijikata Toshizō
• Aoi Nakamura as Yamanami Keisuke
• Kanata Hosoda as Okita Sōji
• Shūhei Uesugi as Nagakura Shinpachi
• Kisetsu Fujiwara as Saito Hajime
• Yōsuke Sugino as Abiru Eisaburō
• Shūntaro Yanagi as Tōdō Heisuke
• Hihio Iwanaga as Inoue Genzaburō
• Gō Ayano as Serizawa Kamo
• Eita Okuno as Niimi Nishiki
• Mitsuomi Takahashi as Hirayama Gorō
• Nobuaki Kaneko as Sasaki Tadasaburō
• Masanobu Andō as Tanaka Shinbei
• Yuki Sakurai as Oume

Filming began this past April throughout Japan, particularly in Kyoto, Shiga, Shizuoka, and Chiba Prefectures. Akira Morii (Yū Yū Hakusho, Alice in Borderland) of THE SEVEN company is producing the project. Kazutaka Watanabe (live-action Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe, Only Yesterday) is directing off scripts by Masaaki Sakai (live-action Rasen no Meikyū, Informa).

Kensuke Sonomura (The Boy and The Beast, GANTZ:O)  is directing the action sequences, and THE SEVEN's Tomofumi Akahane is producing the visual effects. Yūya Maeda (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable, Yo-kai Watch: Sora Tobu Kujira to Double Sekai no Daibōken da Nyan!) is credited for character designs. THE SEVEN's Kiri Ishida is supervising post-production. Yoshiaki Dewa (Kino's Journey - The Beautiful World, Hell's Paradise) is composing the music.  

Mangamo is releasing the manga in English digitally under the title The Shinsen-gumi, and it describes the manga:

The Shinsengumi were a special police force in Japan in the 19th century. Tasked originally with protecting the Shogunate, they eventually dedicated themselves to restoring order in Kyoto. Hijikata Toshizo is responsible for the death of the Shinsengumi, but he was once one of them. This is his story.

Umemura provided the story, and Hashimoto illustrated the manga. The duo launched the series in the inaugural issue of Tokuma Shoten's Monthly Comic Zenon magazine in 2010. The manga began its final arc with the 32nd volume on January 20, 2022, and ended in April 2023.

The manga inspired a stage play adaptation that ran in April 2017.

Umemura and Hashimoto launched a comedy spinoff manga titled Chiruran Nibun no Ichi in Monthly Comic Zenon in May 2016. The spinoff manga received an anime series of shorts that premiered in January 2017. Crunchyroll streamed the series under the title Chiruran 1/2 as it aired.

Sources: Chiruran: Shinsegumi Requiem live-action series' website, Comic Natalie