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Yoshiharu Tsuge's 'Ame no Naka no Yokujō' Manga Gets Live-Action Film

Yoshiharu Tsuge's "Ame no Naka no Yokujō" (Desire in the Rain) manga short story is inspiring a live-action film which will open on November 29.

The film stars Ryō Narita as Yoshio, Eriko Nakamura as Fukuko, Gō Morita as Imori, and Naoto Takenaka as Oyaji. Other cast members include Tomomitsu Adachi, Yuki Nakanishi, Yūya Matsuura, Makoto Tsuchi, Kaori Momo, and Kū Ijima, and Li Xing. Shinzo Katayama is directing the film, and is also penning the script alongside Takamase Ōe.

The film's story centers on Yoshio, a poor and struggling manga artist who lives in Kitamachi. He is sent by Oyaji, the landlord of his apartment who is also engaged in other shady businesses, to help a novelist called Imori move in, and meets a recently-divorced woman named Fukuko. Yoshio is immediately bewitched by her beauty, even though she is already seeing someone else. In the meantime, Imori establishes an advertising agency, borrowing the name of a larger agency from the wealthier Minamicho, in order to sell his novel. Yoshio ends up helping with Imori's efforts, and somehow Imori and Fukuko come to live together with Yoshio.

Tsuge published the short manga in Hokutoh Shoboh's Yagyō magazine in 1981.

Tsuge was a pioneer of gekiga ("dramatic pictures") comics, a genre named by Yoshihiro Tatsumi in 1957 to describe an alternative style of manga that stresses realism and is aimed at adults. He is perhaps best known for his 1968 manga Neji-Shiki ("Screw-Style"), a surreal story about a man wandering a desolate, post-war Japan.

Teruo Ishii directed a live-action film adaptation of Neji-Shiki in 1998. Panik House released the film in North America under the title Screwed.

Drawn & Quarterly is releasing the complete works of Yoshiharu Tsuge in a seven-volume set. Ryan Holmberg is translating the works.

Source: Comic Natalie