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Netflix Debuts 1st 2 Live-Action Teasing Master Takagi-san Episodes on March 26
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The staff for the live-action adaptation of Sōichirō Yamamoto's Teasing Master Takagi-san (Karakai Jōzu no Takagi-san) manga confirmed on Tuesday that the series will debut first on Netflix with a "director's cut." The first and second episodes will stream on March 26, with future episodes debuting weekly. The series will then premiere on the TBS channel's Drama Stream programming block on April 2 at 11:56 p.m. (10:56 a.m. EDT).
Rui Tsukishima (model for Shueisha's Seventeen magazine, Kamen Rider Geats episode guest actress) and fellow teenager Sōya Kurokawa (Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster) star as Takagi and Nishikata, respectively. The live-action series filmed entirely on location at Kagawa Prefecture's Shōdo Island, the setting of the earlier anime adaptation.
Rikiya Imaizumi (live-action Hōzuki-san Chi no Aneki, Chihiro-san, Just Only Love) is directing and also co-writing the scripts with Tomoki Kanazawa (Sanctuary, Sabakan) and Jun Hagimori (Sabakan). TBS is producing in collaboration with FINE Entertainment.
Middle schooler Nishikata has had it with his classmate who sits nearby, Takagi. Day in and day out, she comes after him with every sort of trick or prank. Even when he tries to tease her back, she's always one step ahead but he's not about to give up that easily in this battle of cunning and youth!
The manga is also inspiring a live-action film that will open in Japan on May 31. The film tells an original story set 10 years after the original manga's middle school setting. Mei Nagano (live-action My Broken Mariko, Ni no Kuni, Peach Girl, Burn the House Down) plays the titular Takagi, now a trainee teacher in her alma mater, while Fumiya Takahashi (Kamen Rider Zero-One) plays Nishikata, now a gym coach in the same school. Aimer is performing the theme song "Haruka" (Far Away).
Rikiya Imaizumi (live-action Hōzuki-san Chi no Aneki, Chihiro-san, Just Only Love) is directing both the live-action series and film adaptations. As with the live-action series, Imaizumi is also co-writing the scripts with Tomoki Kanazawa (Sanctuary, Sabakan) and Jun Hagimori (Sabakan). Takashi Ohmama (Dances with the Dragons, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, The Gene of AI) is composing the music. Both adaptations filmed entirely on location at Kagawa Prefecture's Shōdo Island, the setting of the earlier anime adaptation.
Yamamoto launched the manga in Gessan mini, the accompanying booklet to Shogakukan's Gessan (Monthly Shonen Sunday) magazine, in 2013. After Yamamoto finished serializing his Fudatsuki no Kyōko-chan manga in Gessan in June 2016, Teasing Master Takagi-san moved to Gessan in July 2016. Yamamoto ended the manga in October 2023.
The first television anime based on the manga premiered within the "Anime no Me" programming block in January 2018, and it also adapted Yamamoto's Ashita wa Doyōbi manga as segments within the show. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired in Japan, and Funimation streamed the series with an English dub. The second television anime season premiered in July 2019. The season debuted on Netflix in December 2019.
The television anime's third season, Karakai Jōzu no Takagi-san 3 (Teasing Master Takagi-san 3), premiered on MBS and TBS' Super Animeism block in January 2022. Teasing Master Takagi-san: The Movie (Gekijōban Karakai Jōzu no Takagi-san), the franchise's anime film, opened in Japan in June 2022.
Sentai Filmworks has licensed the third season and film, and streamed the third season on HIDIVE. HIDIVE also streamed the English dub for the third season, which features a returning cast from Funimation's original dub of the anime's first season. Sentai Filmworks screened the film in the U.S. in August 2022.
