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Live-Action Ciguatera Series Adds 4 Cast Members
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The live-action series of Minoru Furuya's Ciguatera manga revealed more cast members for the series on Saturday.
The cast includes (from left to right in image above):
- Makoto Hasegawa as Taniwaki
- Rena Yoshihara as Akiko
- Jōtarō as Takao Takai
- Rina Miura as AIKO Tajima
Kotarō Daigo (Weathering With You's Hodaka Morishima, left in image below) stars as protagonist Yusuke Ogino, while Nagisa Sekimizu (Hachigatsu wa Yoru no Batting Center de., Kaiji: Final Game, right) stars as Yumi Nagumo.
Masataka Hayashi, Yū Inose, Takahiro Takasugi, and Yōsuke Nakamura are directing the series, with scripts by Yōsuke Masaike. The series will premiere on TV Tokyo's "Drama 24" block on April 7.
This coming-of-age tale from contemporary master Minoru Furuya centers on seventeen-year-old Yusuke Ogino, a self-described loser whose only refuge from the bullying hell he experiences at school is his dream of freedom on a motorcycle. But the unexpected entrance of a beautiful young woman into his life threatens to upend his whole world, forcing him to re-evaluate his relationships and even his sense of self. Instantly relatable and painfully honest, Furuya's manga blends pitch-black humor with pathos and the awkward realities of everyday life to produce a quintessential tale of youth. The meticulous yet uninhibited art swings from stark realism to laugh-out-loud caricature, while nuanced characters and complex emotions help Ciguatera transcend the bounds of genre to take its rightful place as one of the great masterpieces of graphic storytelling.
Furuya serialized the manga in Kodansha's Young Magazine from 2003 to 2005. Kodansha published six compiled book volumes for the manga, and later re-released it in a four-volume bunkoban format. Kodansha USA Publishing released the third volume in July 2022.
Furuya's Himizu was adapted into an award-winning live-action film directed by Sion Sono in 2011. Furuya's Ping Pong Club manga received an anime adaptation in 1995, which was later released in North America by Central Park Media. His Himeanōru manga inspired a live-action film adaptation that opened in May 2016.
Sources: Cigautera live-action series' Twitter account, Comic Natalie
