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Live-Action Way of the Househusband Series Casts Comedian Cookie!
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The official Twitter account for the live-action series of Kousuke Oono's The Way of the Househusband (Gokushufudō) manga revealed on Saturday that comedian Kunihiro "Cookie!" Kawashima will join the series' cast. Cookie! will serve as a narrator for the show, introducing characters and terms, but will also play a role in the story that the staff chose not to reveal yet.
As previously announced, Hiroshi Tamaki (live-action Nodame Cantabile's Shinichi Chiaki, live-action Ōoku: The Inner Chambers movie's Matsushima, MW's Michio Yūki) will play Tatsu.
Haruna Kawaguchi (Haruhi in live-action Ouran High School Host Club, Mei in live-action Say "I love you".) will play Miku, the wife of the protagonist Tatsu.
Jun Shison (Yukiatsu in live-action anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day special) will play Masa, an underling in the protagonist Tatsu's former gang.
Yūta Furukawa will play Tatsuki Sakai, a police officer stationed at a neighborhood police box.
Tina Tamashiro will play the original character Yukari Ōmae, a college student working part-time at a cafe.
Tamaki Shiratori plays Tatsu and Miku's daughter Himawari, another original character for the show. Himawari is an elementary schoolgirl whose maturity belies her young age, and is often more grown-up than her own mother.
Kenichi Takito plays Torajirō Shirakawa, a former yakuza nicknamed "The Steel-Fisted Tiger" who once rivaled Tatsu's strength, but ended up doing time, and now runs a crepe stand.
Naoto Takenaka plays Tenjakukai yakuza boss Kikujirō Eguchi.
Izumi Inamori plays Kikujirō's wife Hibari Eguchi.
Other cast members include: (Top row, left to right in image above)
- Michiko Tanaka as Kayo Ōta, a member of the women's association in Tatsu's Karyō-chō neighborhood
- MEGUMI as Kazuko Tanaka, the head of the women's association in Tatsu's Karyō-chō neighborhood
- Jun Hashimoto as Kunimitsu Daijōsan, the head of a rival organization to the Tenjakukai
- Junpei Yasui as Sakai's senior officer in the police
- Hisamichi Kataoka as Jun Okano, a member of the Daijōsan
- Daisuke Nakagawa as Noboru Ida, a member of the Daijōsan
- Kenji Mizuhashi as Makoto Tōno, the manager of the cafe where Yukari works
- Chikara Honda as Akira Miyake, the manager of the supermarket that Tatsu frequents
- Chise Niitsu as Yuki Tachibana, a classmate of Tatsu's daughter Himawari
The series will premiere on NTV on October 11 and air on Sundays at 10:30 p.m. Tōichirō Rutō (Ossan Love) is among the directors of the series, and Uda Manabu (99.9 -Keiji Senmon Bengōshi-) is one of the show's scriptwriters. Male idol group Da-iCE is performing the series' theme song "CITRUS."
The Way of the Househusband follows a retired yakuza member known as "Immortal Tatsu" who is living out his post-crime career as a househusband. He still manages to find his way into trouble from time to time, except it's in the grocery aisle instead of some back alley.
Oono launched the manga on Shinchosha's Kurage Bunch website in February 2018, and Shinchosha published the fifth volume on June 9. Viz Media is publishing the manga in English, and it released the fourth volume on September 15.
The manga already inspired a live-action commercial directed by and starring Kenjiro Tsuda as Tatsu last December. Maaya Sakamoto voiced the wife Miku.
The manga won the Best Humor Publication category at this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. The series was acknowledged as a runner-up in last year's Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Awards' web manga category and came in at #9 in this year's Web Manga General Election. The Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook for 2019 ranked the manga at #8 for its top manga series for men. The series also ranked on Honya Club's "Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics" lists for 2018 and 2019.
Sources: Way of the Househusband live-action series' Twitter account, Comic Natalie
