Narumi Riko (15) will star in the drama version of "Hachimitsu to Clover" which is to be shown via FujiTV from Jan 2008. The manga has accumulated sales of 8.13 million copies and depicts the lives of 5 art university students.
Narumi will play Hanamoto Hagumi, who's a freshman despite her being only a Year 3 junior high student in real life. As for the role of Takemoto Yuuta who is holding a torch for Hagumi, he will be played by Ikuta Toma (23).
"Hachimitsu to Clover" was serialised in the manga magazine, "Chorus" and its 10-volumes boast of a sales figure of 8.13 million copies. The manga was made into an anime and shown in the midnight slot during 2005 and 2006 while a movie starring Aoi Yu was made in July 06.
The manga's author, Umino Chika saw a poster of Narumi acting as a genius pianist in the movie, "Jindou", thus decided to get the latter to star in the drama version. Filming will begin at the end of this month.
As for the remaining three main roles i.e. Morita Shinobu, Yamada Ayumi and Mayama Takumi, FujiTV has mentioned that casting for these characters are still in progress.
After a long absence, I'm back with posting this piece of news about Hachikuro! This is only momentary because I'm very busy with work and studies so I can't post as frequently as I want.
Well, as a fan of the manga and anime, I have high hopes for the drama version. In addition, I like Narumi and Ikuta so I'm looking forward to see how they will perform. My only concern is that Narumi has always been cast in headstrong, stubborn and cool roles so how she shows Hagu's insecure, sensitive and pure character would be a big challenge to her acting skills. Likewise for Ikuta, he's been playing comical or happy-go-lucky roles most of the time so I wonder how he will pull off playing Takemoto.
However, my main concern is the casting for the rest of the roles especially Morita who's my No.1 favourite character. It's definitely not easy to play Morita who's hiding his true self under his eccentric and wild cover. Personally, I feel that Iseya Yuusuke wasn't that competent in showing the sentimental side of Morita although he had that artistic flair. Maybe it was his image in the movie which really got on my nerves. Likewise for Mayama and Yamada or even the important supporting characters like Hanamoto-sensei, Rika-san or even Miwako-san and Nomiya, I'm really worried about who they will choose. This could be crucial to the success of the series.
As for the scope of the drama, it is not mentioned in the article but I guess 11 episodes or so would not be sufficient to cover the 10 volumes. Maybe they will follow what Nodame Cantabile is doing i.e. follow-up with a drama SP at the end of the series? However, since Hachikuro is already done with its manga, they might just produce a full sequel unlike Nodame which is still in progress...
