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'KochiKame' Stage Play Reveals 3 More Cast Members
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
This year's 27th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine revealed three more cast members on Monday for the stage play adaptation of Osamu Akimoto's Kochira Katsushika-ku Kamearikouen-mae Hashutsujo ("Kochikame") police comedy manga.
The new cats members are:
- Yūji as Keiichi Nakagawa
- Mikie Hara as Reiko Katherine Akimoto
- Tetsuhiro Ikeda as Sanshirō Mukōjima
Sanshirō Mukōjima is a character original to the stage play who will team up with Ryōtsu.
Lasar Ishii will reprise his role as protagonist Kankichi Ryōtsu from the 1996-2004 television anime series and two anime films. Ishii also played the role in earlier stage play adaptations. These plays had four performance seasons, the most recent of which was in 2006. Ishii is also directing and writing the script for the new play.
The play will run from September 9-19 at Tokyo's AiiA 2.5 Theater Tokyo, and from September 23-25 at Osaka's Sankei Hall Breeze.
The play celebrates the 40th anniversary of Akimoto's manga. Akimoto debuted Kochira Katsushika-ku Kamearikouen-mae Hashutsujo in 1976, and it has become Weekly Shonen Jump's longest-running manga series. Shueisha published the 199th compiled book volume on Friday.
In addition to the television anime adaptation, the manga inspired an anime special in 1985, live-action films in 1977 and 2011, and a live-action drama adaptation in 2009.