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Live-Action Dragon Zakura Sequel Show Casts Kaito Takahashi
posted on by Alex Mateo
The official website for the live-action series of Norifusa Mita's Dragon Zakura Two sequel manga revealed on Thursday that Kaito Takahashi (pictured below) of the King & Prince musical idol group will play Akira Sato, who has lost his parents and now runs a ramen shop alone.
Actor Hiroshi Abe (Still Walking, Thermae Romae) is reprising his role as Kenji Sakuragi from the previous live-action adaptations of the original manga. The story is set 10 years after the previous series.
The cast includes:
Kanata Hosoda as Kenta Hara, a student at Tokyo University who has a fascination of insects. He is suffering from a personal problem that isolates him from his friends.
Sara Shida as Mari Kosugi, who has excellent grades but wants to get a job after graduation
Ōji Suzuka as Ryо̄ Fujii, who has high grades and has a habit of looking down on others
Seishirō Katō as Kо̄ichiro Amano, who has an inferiority complex due to being compared to his great younger brother
Yurina Hirate as Kaede Iwasaki, who is a top-level badminton player in Japan.
The other cast members include:
- Masami Nagasawa as Naomi Mizuno
- Sara Minami as Nao Hayase
- Hayato Sano as Keita Komeyama
- Sagiri Seina as Kaori Kishimoto
- Noriko Eguchi as Kumiko Tatsuno
- Mitsuhiro Oikawa as Hiroyuki Takahara
The series was initially slated to premiere in summer 2020, but was delayed, and will now premiere in April.
Mita (Investor Z) launched the Dragon Zakura Two manga in Kodansha's Morning magazine in January 2018. Kodansha published the 14th volume on January 21, and will publish the 15th volume on March 23. The manga ended on Thursday.
Crunchyroll began publishing the manga in English digitally in January 2018, and it describes the story:
Prior to the 2020 Education Reform, “our man” is coming back!
He's the legendary attorney Sakuragi Kenji, who will waltz back to the fallen Ryuzan High School where the students' academic aptitude is plummeting. In opposition to apathetic students and “The Empress” (Representative of the Chief Director) who wields overwhelming authority, he will start a revolution along with Mizuno, his former pupil.
Part 2 of Dragon Zakura, the legendary “manga that will help you pass the University of Tokyo entrance exams” — which helped change the landscape of Japan's university entrance exams — is here at last! Rest assured, entering the University of Tokyo is going to be a cinch!
The 2003-2007 Kodansha Manga Award-winning Dragon Zakura manga previously inspired a live-action television series in 2005, with a sequel in 2010, and a Korean live-action television series in 2010. Mita's Angel Bank: Dragon Zakura Gaiden manga also inspired a Japanese live-action project in 2010. Nikkei reported in 2015 that China's Alibaba group was producing its own live-action drama.
The original manga centers on Kenji Sakuragi, a lawyer and former motorcycle gang member. Sakuragi becomes a teacher at Ryuzan High School to help a small group of students pass the infamously difficult test to get into Japan's top university, the University of Tokyo.
Anime News Network's Source: Dragon Zakura Two live-action series' website
