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Wartime Manga Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni Gets TV Special
posted on by Egan Loo
Keiko Kitagawa (Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon's Sailor Mars, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift's Reiko) will headline a live-action television special based on Fumiyo Kōno's wartime drama manga Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni (In a Corner of This World) on August 5. Kitagawa just starred in this past spring's live-action film adaptation of Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss manga.
The award-winning story of Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni follows a bride named Suzu Urano as she moves to her new life in Kure City on the coast of Hiroshima Prefecture. Suzu perseveres through World War II with pluck and determination. Keisuke Koide (Gokusen 2, Nodame Cantabile, Rookies) plays Shūsaku Hōjō, a naval officer who proposed to Suzu after one childhood meeting.
Actress Yūka plays Rin Shiroki, a friend Suzu makes in Kure with a secret past. Mokomichi Hayami (Gokusen, Absolute Boyfriend) plays Tetsu Mizuhara, an old classmate of Suzu and her first boyfriend. The actress Ryō plays Keiko, Shūsaku's sister who moves back into the family after a divorce. Saburō Shinoda and Yoshie Ichige play Suzu's father-in-law Entarō and mother-in-law San, respectively. Finally, Mana Ashida (Usagi Drop/Bunny Drop) plays the war orphan Chizuko.
Kono serialized Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni from 2007 to 2009 in Futabasha's Manga Action magazine. The manga was honored as a Jury Recommended Work in the 12th Japan Media Arts Festival, and it won a Excellence Prize in the 13th festival.
Kono had previously created Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni), a manga about two young women in two different generations who deal with the aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. That manga inspired both a 2007 live-action film and a 2010 planetarium show. After Last Gasp Publishing and jaPRESS released it in North America, the manga won one of New York Magazine's 2007 Culture Awards.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
