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Yuu Aoi Photographed as Live-Action Rurouni Kenshin's Megumi
posted on by Egan Loo
The Cinema Today and Eiga.com websites posted a photograph on Wednesday of actress Yū Aoi as the popular character Megumi Takani in the live-action Rurouni Kenshin film.
Aoi plays against type in the role of Megumi — an enigmatic, assertive female doctor who is not above getting her hands dirty to survive. Aoi played younger characters in earlier films such as Hana and Alice and Honey and Clover. Although Megumi is in her 20s in the original manga and film, she is also the oldest of all the female characters in the film's main cast.
Aoi explained some of the choices made in the look of her character. For example, instead of trimming her eyebrows to match the manga version of Megumi, she only partially trimmed her eyebrows. "I make some effort to try to look like the character of the original," Aoi said, "since doing so would honor and respect the original work, but I don't think that I have to be absolute about it."
Keishi Ōtomo is directing this samurai film with actor Takeru Satoh (Kamen Rider Den-O, Rookies, Beck, Ryōmaden) playing the title character Kenshin Himura and actress Emi Takei playing the heroine Kaoru Kamiya. Munetaka Aoki (The Last Message Umizaru, live-action The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) plays Sanosuke Sagara, and Taketo Tanaka plays Yahiko Myōjin. Yōsuke Eguchi (Shōnan Bakusōzoku, Tokyo Love Story) as Hajime Saitō, musician/actor Kouji Kikkawa (Let's Dance With Papa) as Jin'e Udō, and Teruyuki Kagawa (From Up On Poppy Hill, 20th Century Boys) as Kanryū Takeda round out the cast.
The film will open in Japan on August 25, 2012. Earlier photographs from the film were posted online in December and January.
Image © Nobuhiro Watsuki/Shueisha
© 2012 Rurouni Kenshin Production Committee
