Fumi Nikaido, Gackt Star In Live-action Film Of Tonde Saitama Comedy Manga

Toei announced on Monday that Mineo Maya's Tonde Saitama manga is getting a live-action film adaptation that will open in 2019.

The film will star:

• Fumi Nikaido as Momomi Dannoura
  
• GACKT as Rei Asami

Hideki Takeuchi (live-action Nodame Cantabile, Thermae Romae) is directing the film, and Tomokazu Tokunaga(live-action Densha Otoko) is writing the script.

In the story, those who live in Saitama prefecture are ruthlessly persecuted by those who live in Tokyo, so the citizens of Saitama prefecture hide this fact from others. High school student Momomi Dannoura is the son of the governor of Tokyo, and he is also the student council president at Hokuhodo Academy, the top high school in Tokyo. One day, he meets Rei Asami, a mysterious transfer student who has returned from America. Rei and Momomi are captivated by each other, but Momomi knows Rei is from Saitama prefecture. The manga tells the story of two people split by a prefectural border, a Saitama "Romeo and Juliet." The couple try to elope and start a revolution to liberate Saitama prefecture.


Maya originally launched the one-volume manga in Hakusensha's Hana to Yume magazine in 1982. Takarajimasha published a new compiled version of the manga in 2015 titled Kono Manga ga Sugoi! comics Tonde Saitama. The manga has 620,000 copies in print.


Maya also wrote the classic shōjo comedy manga Patalliro!. The manga inspired a stage play adaptation that ran in Tokyo and Osaka in March and April, and a live-action film adaptation with the same cast and staff will open in Japan this fall. A previous stage play adaptation ran in Tokyo in December 2016.


The manga has inspired various spinoff manga, a television anime adaptation in 1982, and the Patalliro! Stardust Project anime film in 1983. The Patalliro Saiyuki! spinoff manga also inspired a television anime series in 2005.