posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The official website for the live-action film of Yama Wayama‘s Let’s Go Karaoke! (Karaoke Iko!) manga unveiled a new trailer and visual for the film on Friday. The trailer reveals the film’s January 12 opening date, and also reveals and previews the film’s theme song “Kurenai” (Crimson), Little Glee Monster‘s cover of X Japan‘s iconic song.
Jun Saitō (left in image above) will play middle school student Satomi Oka, while Gou Ayano will play yakuza member Kyouji Narita.
Other cast members include:
- Kazuki Kitamura as Matsuribayashi-gumi Head
- Kyōko Yoshine as Momo Morimoto
- Jun Hashimoto as Kobayashi
- Kyōsuke Yabe as Karata
- Shūhei Yoshinaga as Ginji
- Chance Oshiro as Ogata
- RED RICE as Mine
- Hiroki Okabe as Matsubara
- Yagi Miki as Nakagawa
- Kiyoto Ushiro as Wada
- Maki Sakai as Yūko Oka, Satomi’s mother
- Tomu Miyazaki as Harumi Oka, Satomi’s father
- hiccorohee as Kazuko, Kyouji’s mother
- Masaya Kato as Akira Tanaka, Kyouji’s grandfather
The film had its world premiere at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan on Wednesday. Director Nobuhiro Yamashita was in attendance.
The film was previously slated to open this year, but was delayed to January 2024.
Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda Linda Linda, live-action Cream Lemon film) is directing the film, with a script by Akiko Nogi (INU-OH, Library Wars, live-action I am a Hero film).
Yen Press licensed the manga and released the manga on May 24. Yen Press describes the manga:
Nothing worries Satomi Oka more than the upcoming final choir competition of his middle school career—right up until he is accosted by a stranger from the shadows who demands, “Let’s go karaoke!” As a yakuza, Kyouji Narita doesn’t scare easily, but a terrifying prospect has driven him to seek Satomi’s help. The boss is holding a karaoke contest, with the loser forced to get a tattoo to be selected and torturously applied by the boss himself! Oka has been to many vocal rehearsals over the years, but never one-on-one karaoke sessions with a gangster!!
Wayama released the manga as a dōjin publication in 2019, and Kadokawa published it in September 2020. The manga came in third place for the 14th Manga Taisho awards in 2021. The manga has 500,000 copies in circulation.
Sources: Let’s Go Karaoke! live-action film’s website, Comic Natalie
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.