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Live-Action Peach Girl Film Adds 4 Cast Members
posted on by Anita Tai
The March issue of Kodansha's Bessatsu Friend magazine announced four more cast members on Monday for the live-action film adaptation of Miwa Ueda's Peach Girl shōjo manga.
The new cast includes:
- Momoko Kikuchi as the Momo's mother, Sakurako Adachi. An original character for the film.
- Yuika Motokariya as the school doctor, Misao Aki.
- Kensei Mikami as Kairi's older brother, Ryō Okayasu.
- Takeshi Masu as Kairi's father, Takashi Okayasu. An original character for the film.
The film is slated to open in Japan on May 20.
The previously revealed film's cast includes:
Mei Nagano (live-action Rurouni Kenshin) as Sae Kashiwagi
Mackenyu (live-action Chihayafuru) as Kazuya "Tōji" Tōjigamori
In addition, idol group Hey! Say! JUMP's Kei Inoo is playing Kairi in his first film role.
Kōji Shintoku (live-action Mars ~Tada, Kimi wo Aishiteru!) is directing the film, and Junpei Yamaoka (live-action Gin to Kin drama) is writing the scripts. Kōichi Tsutaya (Konchū Monogatari Mitsubachi Hutch - Yūki no Melody) is composing the film's music.
Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" song will serve as the film's theme song. This will be the first time that a Japanese film features one of Jepsen's songs.
Ueda's manga centers on an average high school girl named Momo whom everyone thinks sleeps around because of her tanned skin. The actual reason she is so tanned is because she was on the swim team and tans very easily. She has a crush on Toji, a boy whom she's heard only likes non-tanned girls. Momo has low self-esteem and tries to remake herself into someone she thinks Toji would like, but she has a "friend" named Sae who enjoys going behind Momo's back and making her life miserable.
The original shojo manga ran in Kodansha's Bessatsu Friend magazine from its October 1997 issue through its January 2004 issue. Ueda also published a spinoff manga, Peach Girl: Sae's Story, in 2005. Tokyopop published both the original manga and the spinoff in North America, but split the original manga into two separate series: Peach Girl and Peach Girl: Change of Heart. Ueda launched a sequel manga series titled Peach Girl NEXT in Kodansha's Be Love magazine on August 12. Kodansha shipped the first compiled book volume of the sequel series on January 13.
The series inspired a live-action drama in Taiwan in 2001 and a Japanese television anime in 2005. Funimation released the anime adaptation.
