The staff for the live-action film of Kengo Hanazawa‘s Under Ninja manga announced two more cast members on Tuesday.
Shōtarō Mamiya (Blue Giant, Tokyo Revengers) plays Kato (left in the images above), an elite ninja in the NIN organization who gives the protagonist Kurō Kumogakure an important ninja mission . Mai Shiraishi (Saint Young Men, Asahinagu) plays Suzuki (right), a clever kunoichi (female ninja) in NIN — who works as an editor of novels by day.
The film opens in theaters in Japan on January 24, 2025.
Kento Yamazaki (live-action Alice in Borderland, Kingdom, Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., Orange, Hyouka, Your Lie in April) plays the protagonist Kurō Kumogakure, and Minami Hamabe (Godzilla Minus One, Shin Kamen Rider, live-action Kakegurui, Saki, The Promised Neverland) plays the heroine Ayaka Noguchi.
Yūichi Fukuda (live-action Gintama, Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku, Saint Young Men, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. films) is writing and directing the film. This is Yamazaki’s third starring role in Fukuda’s films after Wotakoi and Saiki K., and Hamabe’s first major collaboration with either Yamazaki or Fukuda, although Hamabe guest-starred in the live-action Super Salaryman Mr. Saenai series which Fukuda directed.
Manga publisher Denpa is releasing the manga in English, and it describes the series:
A high school loner is given the part-time job of a lifetime as a modern day ninja tasked to perform international assassinations.
After World War II, Allied Command in Japan developed a new agency to help manage terrorism and violence within the Pacific region. The agency was staffed with ninja and they were initially tasked to handle domestic affairs. Eventually that program grew to its current form, managing 20,000 ninja across a range of domestic and international affairs. One of those ninja happens to be Kurō. The seventeen-year-old high school loser is now poised to be the next line of defense against a potential surge in foreign assassins invading Tokyo.
Hanazawa (I am a Hero) launched the ongoing manga in Kodansha‘s Weekly Young Magazine in July 2018.
The manga inspired a television anime, which premiered on October 5. The anime starred Taito Ban as Kurō Kumogakure and Tarusuke Shingaki as Katō.
Sources: TOHO Movies’ YouTube channel, Comic Natalie
