Interest

NEWS' Shigeaki Kato Added to Live-Action Hana no Zubora-Meshi Cast

NEWS' all-male idol group member Shigeaki Kato (Hanawake no Yon Shimai, Sugata Sanshiro) will join the cast for the live-action television drama adaptation of Masayuki Kusumi and Etsuko Mizusawa's Hana no Zubora-Meshi (Hana's Sloppy Meals) cooking manga. Kato will play an original character named Osoi, the head of the "Zubora Seitai Kenkyūsho" (Sloppy Way of Life Research Institute) who provides explanatory commentary on the main character's way of life.

Kato will also host a "Zubora Meshi Menu" segment in character at the end of each episode that will feature a sloppy meal contributed by viewers.

The drama stars Kana Kurashina (Bartender, Minasan, Sayonara) as Hana.

The manga shorts follow the everyday life of a "cute" yet sometimes lonely wife named Hana, and the meals she cooks for herself while her husband is away on a distant assignment.

The MBS/TBS late-night series will have 10 half-hour episodes that Noriko Yuasa and Yasuyuki Fukasako will direct. Ōkura (Salaryman Neo) and Ayako Kitakawa (Kaitō Royale) are scripting the series, which will premiere on TBS on October 23.

A "Cook Pad" website will also be set up to provide "sloppy recipes" featured in the show.

Kusumi and Mizusawa started the manga in Akita Shoten's Elegance Eve magazine in 2009, and Akita Shoten published two volumes which have sold 500,000 copies so far. The manga was nominated for last year's Manga Taisho Awards and this year's Booklog Award. It ranked as the #1 manga for female readers in the survey from the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! 2012 guidebook.

Kusumi is also known for another manga about a character's solitary meals that inspired a live-action television series, Kodoku no Gourmet. A second season of the Kodoku no Gourmet television drama will premiere in October.

Source: Comic Natalie

Image © Johnny & Associates