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Live-Action Solitary Gourmet Series Gets Film Co-Written, Helmed by Lead Actor
posted on by Anita Tai
The staff for the live-action series adaptation of Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi's Kodoku no Gourmet (Solitary Gourmet) manga announced on Wednesday the series is getting a film directed and co-written by the lead actor Yutaka Matsushige on January 10. Yoshihiro Taguchi co-wrote the screenplay.
The film is part of the Kodoku no Gourmet Project, which celebrates the series' 12 years of broadcast and TV Tokyo's 60th anniversary. The staff also announced Sorezore no Kodoku no Gourmet (To Each Their Own Solitary Gourmet), a program that will air beginning on October 4. The omnibus series will follow various main characters (besides Yutaka Matsushige's Gorō, who was the main character in all the previous projects) on their own culinary journeys.
Both the Kodoku no Gourmet live-action series and original manga follow a solitary salesman named Gorō Inagashira as he travels all over Japan and samples the local cuisine found on street corners. The live-action show's 10th season premiered in October 2022.
The franchise also had a six-episode live-action mini-series project titled Kodoku no Gourmet ~Oishii kedo Horo Nigai... Inagashira Gorō no Sainan~ (Solitary Gourmet ~It's Tasty But Slightly Bitter... Gorō Inagashira's Misfortune~) that debuted on the Paravi and Hikari TV streaming services in March to April 2022.
Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi first serialized the Kodoku no Gourmet manga from 1994 to 1996 in Fusosha's Monthly Panja magazine (now defunct). Kusumi handled the story, and Taniguchi drew the art. Fusosha published the first collected volume in 1997. Kusumi and Fusosha published the manga's second volume in September 2015. Taniguchi died in February 2017.
Fanfare and Ponent Mon will release the manga in English. The company had said the manga will "most likely" debut in spring 2021, but the series is now listed as debuting on Dec 17, 2024.
The manga also inspired a net anime that debuted on Production I.G's "Tate Anime" (Vertical Anime) smartphone app in November 2017.
Sources: Solitary Gourmet's X/Twitter account via Hachima Kikō, TOHO Movie's YouTube channel
