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Tsuri Baka Nisshi Gets New Year's Live-Action Special in January

The official website for the live-action Tsuri Baka Nisshi (Diary of a Fishing Fool) television series announced on Wednesday that it will continue in a television special titled "Shinshun Drama Special Tsuri Baka Nisshi Shinmai Shain Hamasaki Densuke Seto Naikai de Tairyō! Kekkon-shiki Dai Panic-hen!" (New Year Drama Special Diary of a Fishing Fool: Newbie Employee Densuke Hamasaki's Big Catch in the Seto Inland Sea! Big Panic at the Wedding Edition). The special will premiere on TV Tokyo in January.

The new special will tell an original story, not seen in the films or the original manga, centering on the wedding of Hama-chan and Michiko. It will be set in Kagawa prefecture in Shikoku. The returning cast includes Gaku Hamada as Densuke Hamasaki, Toshiyuki Nishida as Ichinosuke Suzuki, Alice Hirose as Michiko Hamasaki, and Mitsuru Fukikoshi as Kazuo Sasaki. Other cast members from past seasons are also returning.

Yūzō Asahara (Tsuri Baka Nisshi films 14-20) and Nobuhisa Kodama are returning to direct the special. Kumiko Satō (Sanbiki no Ossan, Kagi no nai Yume wo Miru) is again writing the scripts. Kazuo Nobuta (New Getter Robo, Comic Party) is composing the music.

The Tsuri Baka Nisshi show and manga both follow Densuke "Hama-chan" Hamasaki, an unavaricious white-collar worker who does not have any interest in success and self-protection. Even though he incurs the wrath of his superior and stirs ill feelings from his wife, Hama-chan prefers to take things at his own stride and goes fishing. He feels that there are more important things in life than work and enjoys the simple things in life such as fishing. The show's second season premiered in April 2017, following a New Year's special in January 2017.

The first television season aired from October to December 2015. Toshiyuki Nishida played Hama-chan's boss Ichinosuke Suzuki. In the 22 previous live-action film adaptations of the manga, Nishida played the protagonist Hama-chan. Rentarō Mikuni, who passed away in 2013, played Suzuki.

The manga inspired a 36-episode television anime in 2002. The manga also spawned 22 live action films, the last of which opened in Japan in 2009. Nishida played the subordinate "Hama-chan" in these films, before playing the president Ichinosuke "Su-san" Suzuki in the recent television series.

Juzo Yamasaki and Kenichi Kitami launched the manga series in Shogakukan's Big Comic Original magazine in 1979. Shogakukan released the 99th compiled book volume on March 30, and will ship the 100th volume on October 30.

Sources: Tsuri Baka Nisshi live-action drama's website, Comic Natalie