“Arakawa Under the Bridge” live-action adaption

Hayashi Kento & Kiritani Mirei to star in “Arakawa Under the Bridge” live-action adaption

Recently it was announced that Nakamura Hikaru’s unique romantic comedy manga “Arakawa Under the Bridge” – serialized in the Young GanGan magazine – will be turned into a live-action adaption starring Hayashi Kento and Kiritani Mirei.

“Arakawa Under the Bridge” is a story about Ichinomiya “Riku” Kou, a young upper-class man who tries to live a life without any debts to anyone, and a strange yet beautiful homeless girl called Nino who claims to be from the Venus. Unfortunately for him, he ends up owing his life to Nino and has no choice but to live with her under the bridge by the Arakawa river in order to follow his debt-free policy.In 2010, the manga was already made into an anime that spawned two seasons.

Hayashi about the movie: “My younger sister is a huge fan of the manga and was really happy when she heard that I might be part of the live-action adaption. The manga has a lot of comedy elements and I was eagerly waiting for a chance to try out filming a live-action version someday myself. In the end the filming really turned out to be a lot of fun. Everyone from the director to the staff was really attached to the project. “

Kiritani about her role as a self-proclaimed Venusian: “Since there are no real Venusians I could study for this role, I had no choice but to come up with my own idea of a Venusian. Before the filming I actually tried to live like Nino by wearing slippers and a jersey every day and became very picky about my hairstyle, since I didn’t want to destroy the image of the original character. I had to go and dye my hair around three times before I was satisfied with the result. By the way, this is a custom-made jersey.”

The live-action movie of “Arakawa Under the Bridge” is scheduled to open in spring of 2012, but TBSalready announced that we are also going to see a drama adaption airing in a midnight slot later this summer.