Naniwa Danshi cast in new 'Men's Kou' live-action series

TV Tokyo has announced that it will be adapting popular shoujo manga ‘Men’s Kou’ into a live-action series for the television audience. The live-action version of the story written by one of the best-selling authors Kaneyoshi Izumi will feature boys from a famous Japanese idol group Naniwa Danshi.

What’s more, the release timeline has already been decided for this new series. The live-action series is slotted for a July launch on television channel Tokyo. The screenplay is written by Naomi Hiruta, who has quite a few popular TV titles to his name like One Again, and 5 Million Dollar Life.

As mentioned above, the cast would include members of Japanese idol group Naniwa Danshi from Kansai Johny’s Jr. While the roles have not been confirmed yet, members of the group include:

• Kazuya Ouhashi
• Kyouhei Takahashi
• Ryuusei Ounishi
• Daigo Nishihata
• Kento Nagao
• Shunsuke Michieda
• Jouichirou Fujiwara

Men’s High or Seiho Men’s School by mangaka Kaneyoshi Izumi is a popular series that started publishing in 2007, and was serialized in Betsucomi magazine by Shôgakukan. The manga published its final chapter in 2010.

Men’s Kou is a light-hearted but emotional coming-of-age story of boys in their late teens from the same high school, who live in a dormitory situated in a remote place in an island.

The story follows the ups and downs of a small group of first-year students, who are desperately trying to come up with ways to make their existence in a remote island in Japan more interesting.

And what would be more interesting to young pubescent kids than love and romance? What to do when teenagers of dating age find themselves stuck on an almost deserted island? This is what the students of the prestigious Seiho high school ask themselves every day.

The premise is befitting a live-action adaptation with a lot of potential for ‘Kyaa’ and ‘Kyun’ (typical SFX that feature in shoujo mangas) moments for the young female audiences, given that the cast comes from an idol group.

However, it will be interesting to note if the live-action will keep the narrative light and comedic, or will it touch upon the more mature subjects addressed in the slice-of-life manga.

(Image Credit: Betsucomi)

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