Live-Action Tokyo Ghoul Film Opens on July 29

The staff of the live-action film of Sui Ishida's Tokyo Ghoul manga announced on Tuesday that the film will open in Japan on July 29 as planned. The staff unveiled an updated version of a visual revealed in December that shows Masataka Kubota (live-action Death Note, Mars, Photo Braver 7 television series) in costume as Ken Kaneki, wearing the character's ghoul mask.

Fans had previously expressed concerns about the status of the project after the film's star Fumika Shimizu announced in February that she will retire from the entertainment industry to join the Happy Science religious organization. The 22-year-old actress is playing the heroine Tōka Kirishima. The film's staff apologized for the situation and for the delay in responding to fans' concerns. The staff said, "We want to convey the ghoul and human drama and strong themes of the [original] work through the film. Those feelings will never change."

The film's staff posted a new visual in January that features Shimizu as Tōka. For the first time in 12 years, Shimizu cut her normally long hair down to 30 centimeters (one foot) to match Tōka's look.

Masanori Morikawa, a Christian Dada designer and a fan of the original manga, designed the masks and costumes of the ghouls in the film.

The rest of the cast includes:
(From left to right in image below): Yuu Aoi (live-action Rurouni Kenshin's Megumi) as Rize Kamishiro, EXILE's Nobuyuki Suzuki as Kōtarō Amon, and Yo Oizumi (voice of Layton in the Professor Layton series) as Kureo Mado.

Kentarō Hagiwara ("Super Star" short) is directing the film, and the production shot principal photography from last July to September.


Viz publishes the manga in North America.

It describes the story:
Ghouls live among us, the same as normal people in every way - except their craving for human flesh. Shy Ken Kaneki is thrilled to go on a date with the beautiful Rize. But it turns out that she's only interested in his body - eating it, that is. When a morally questionable rescue transforms him into the first half-human half-Ghoul hybrid, Ken is drawn into the dark and violent world of Ghouls, which exists alongside our own.

Ishida serialized Tokyo Ghoul in Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump from 2011 to 2014, and is now serializing Tokyo Ghoul:re. The two manga have a combined 22 million copies in print. Tokyo Ghoul inspired two anime series, several original video anime projects, PlayStation Vita and smartphone games, and a stage play. The first television anime will replace One Piece in Adult Swim's Toonami programming block on March 25.​