News
New Live-Action Minami's Lover Series Unveils More Cast, July 16 Debut
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
The official website for the Minami-kun ga Koibito!?, the new, role-reversed live-action series based on Shungiku Uchida's Minami's Lover (Minami-kun no Koibito) manga, revealed three more cast members and the July 16 premiere for the series on Wednesday.
As previously announced, Ai Iinuma plays Chiyomi (top row left in visual above), while Yūsei Yagi (top row right) plays Minami. Rena Takeda (bottom row center) plays Chiyomi's love rival Misuzu Sagawa, Nao Yamato (bottom row left) plays Chiyomi's close friend and basketball teammate Nami Takamura, and Yōji Iwase (bottom row right) plays Minami's basketball teammate and rival Etō.
- Shinji Takeda as Shintarō
- Yoshino Kimura as Kaede
- Mariko Kaga as Yuriko
- Ikki Sawamura as Haruyuki
- Shigeru Moroi as Hisako Kimura
- Ken Mitsuishi as Shinichi Yamataka
The series will premiere on July 16 at 9:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. EDT) on TV Asahi and 23 affiliated channels.
The new series will have the roles reversed, with the boyfriend shrinking instead of the girlfriend. Yoshikazu Okada is writing the script, and Tadaaki Horai, Takashi Komatsu, and others are directing the show.
Fantagraphics is releasing the manga in English and describes the story:
In this raunchy, moving, funny manga for adults, high school student Minami's girlfriend, Chiyomi, shrinks down to six inches tall — and moves in with him!
Originally appearing in the underground/alternative manga magazine Garo in the 1980s and adapted for television several times, the Japanese pop culture sensation Minami's Lover is the story of two high schoolers' romantic relationship when one of them shrinks down to six inches tall. Everyone thinks Chiyomi has disappeared, and suspicion naturally falls on Minami, identified as her boyfriend in her diary. But after inexplicably finding herself in such a state, Chiyomi moves in with him. As depicted in Uchida's clean, loose line and Zip-a-Tone textures, the two soon adapt to the unusual circumstances, devising ways for Chiyomi to use the toilet, brush her teeth and hair, attend classes, and more. After some silly sequences of trial and error, they even figure out a sex life. But in addition to learning how to navigate logistics, jealousy, and the cat, they're also growing up (if not taller). Uchida uses the conceit of a teen couple literally learning how to take care of one another to examine gender dynamics and intimacy.
Uchida first published the manga in her Shungiku manga collection. It was then serialized in Katsuichi Nagai and Seirindo Co., Ltd.'s Monthly Manga Garo magazine from 1986 to 1987, with the final chapter appearing in a volume released by Seirindo in July 1987. Bungei Shunju collected and reprinted the series in 1998, and Seirinkogeisha published a revised edition in 2004. Uchida published a sequel manga titled Minami-kun wa Koibito in Shueisha's Cocohana magazine from November 2012 to April 2013.
The manga has been adapted into a live-action television special in 1990, an 11-episode television series in 1994, another 11-episode live-action television series in 2004, and the fourth and most recent live-action television adaptation in 2015.
Sources: TV Asahi, Comic Natalie
