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Tobaku Haōden Zero Manga by Kaiji's Fukumoto Gets Live-Action TV Show
posted on by Karen Ressler
A live-action television show based on Nobuyuki Fukumoto's Tobaku Haōden Zero gambling manga has been green-lit. The series, titled Zero Ikkakusenkin Game (Zero: Get Rich Quick Game), will premiere in July on NTV and air on Sundays at 10:30 p.m.
Shigeaki Katō of the idol group NEWS will star in the drama. The other members of NEWS — Keiichirō Koyama, Takahisa Masuda, and Yūya Tegoshi — will play unspecified important roles in the series.
In the manga's story, teenager "Zero" Ukai is a gambling genius who enters a trillion-yen (about US$12-billion) survival game. In the television show, Zero is a substitute teacher at a local cram school.
The manga launched in 2007, and took a two-and-a-half-year hiatus after finishing its first story arc. The manga resumed with the second part, Tobaku Haōden Zero Gyanki-hen, in 2011. Kodansha published the first part in eight compiled volumes and the second part in 10 compiled volumes.
Fukumoto is best known for his long-running Kaiji gambling manga, which inspired two television anime series, two live-action films, a reality show, and a VR game. The spinoff manga Chūkan Kanriroku Tonegawa is inspiring its own anime that will premiere in July.
Fukumoto also drew the mahjong manga Akagi, which ended in February after 27 years. Akagi inspired a television anime and a live-action series. A new three-episode mini-series will premiere on May 25.
Source: Comic Natalie
