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Former Kara Member Makes Film Debut in Assassination Classroom
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Former Kara idol Kang Jiyoung (Urakara, Koisuru Maison ~Rainbow Rose~) will play the professional assassin and foreign language teacher Irina Jelavic in the upcoming live-action film adaptation of Yusei Matsui's Assassination Classroom manga. The role will mark the first time Jiyong is acting in a film.
Jiyong retired from Kara in April then went to England to study English and acting. She then signed with the Sweet Power agency in August and is resuming her activities in Japan. She is currently co-starring as the yōkai Yukime in the live-action television series adaptation of Takeshi Okano and Sho Makura's Jigoku Sensei Nube manga.
The film will open in Japan on March 21, 2015.
Hey! Say! JUMP band member Ryōsuke Yamada (Kindaichi Case Files' Kindaichi) will star in the film as Nagisa Shiota (pictured second from left in top row). The main cast also includes:
Top row, from left to right:
- Masaki Suda (Princess Jellyfish's Kuranosuke, Daily Lives of High School Boys' Tadakuni) as Karma Akabane
- Kippei Shiina (SHINOBI - Heart Under Blade's Tenzen, Wild 7's Sekai) as Tadaomi Karasuma
Bottom row, from left to right:
- Maika Yamamoto (Kamen Teacher's Saeko, Ooku: The Inner Chamber's Nono) as Kaede Kayano
- Seika Taketomi (The Princess and the Pilot's Juana del Moral, Hot Road's Eri) as Rio Nakamura
- Mio Yuki (Kami-sama no Iu Toori's Shoko) as Yukiko Kanzaki
- Miku Uehara (Hōkago Groove's Chinatsu) as Manami Okuda
Koro-sensei will be rendered in CG in the film. The voice actor for the character has not yet been announced.
Eiichirō Hasumi (Umizaru films, Wild 7) is directing the film, and Tatsuya Kanazawa (Saru Lock The Movie, Lucky Seven) is writing the script. Filming began on site at an abandoned elementary school in the suburbs in Japan's Kanto district on August 31, and wrapped up in mid-October. The film's Twitter account has been posting on-set photographs since filming started.
Viz Media will publish the first volume of the manga in North America in December. The company describes the story:
A humorous and action-packed story about a class of misfits who are trying to kill their new teacher – an alien octopus with bizarre powers and super strength! The teacher has just destroyed the moon and is threatening to destroy the earth – unless his students can destroy him first. What makes things more complicated is that he's the best teacher they've ever had!
Matsui launched Assassination Classroom in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 2012, and Shueisha published the 11th volume on October 3. The series ranked number seven in Japan's top-selling manga for 2013, and currently has more than 11 million copies in print. The series already inspired an event anime last year, and is also inspiring a television anime series that will premiere in January.
