News
Ushijima the Loan Shark Manga Gets Live-Action Film
posted on by Egan Loo
A live-action film adaptation of Shohei Manabe's Ushijima the Loan Shark (Yamikin Ushijima-kun) manga has been green-lit for release next year. The story depicts the human drama in the black market world, as seen through the eyes of the titular loan shark.
Takayuki Yamada (Train Man, Crying Out Love in the Center of the World, Crows Zero, Gantz, 13 Assassins) will reprise his lead role from the 2010 live-action television series version of the manga. (The rest of the film cast has not been announced yet.) In the film, Ushijima participates in a celebrity event to collect on a debt and meets an event leader named Jun.
Masatoshi Yamaguchi, the producer of the Ushijima television series and of the live-action Kaiji film, is directing the Ushijima film. Masahiro Fukuma and Yamaguchi are writing the script.
The original Ushijima the Loan Shark manga has been running in Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine since 2004, and 4 millon copies of its compiled volumes are in print. It won in the General category of the 56th Shogakukan Manga Awards this year. It was recommended by the jury at the 2007 (11th) Japan Media Arts Festival Awards. It was also nominated for Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize in 2008 and 2010, as well as for France's Angoulême Comics Awards in 2008. The live-action television series ran from October to December of 2010.
Manabe created the Smuggler manga that Tokyopop published in North America. That manga is also being made into a live-action film.
Source: Comic Natalie, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
Image © 2012 Shohei Manabe, Shogakukan/Ushijima the Loan Shark Production Committee
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