On August 30th, it was announced that Kanjani8’s Nishikido Ryo will star in a new movie called ‘Kenchou Omotenashi Ka‘. Moreover, Horikita Maki was appointed as the heroine right after finishing the filming for her morning drama ‘Umechan Sensei‘ (NHK).
The movie focuses on people who are working inside the ‘Hospitality’ section of Kochi prefectural office’s department for tourism. This section really exists in Kochi and their work was turned into a novel by Kochi-born female writer Arikawa Hiro (‘Toshokan Sensou’).
The story was first got serialized in a local newspaper, but it was soon released as a full novel and even ranked as #1 book for ‘Love/Romance Book of the Year 2011‘ by the ‘Da Vinci‘ magazine. Miyake Yoshishige is the director and Okada Yoshikazu is the scriptwriter. They both have already worked together for the movie ‘Hankyu Densha‘ (also based on a novel by Arikawa) and are planning to fully utilize the beautiful scenery and great people of Kochi to bring this sightseeing/love story to life.
The job of the people at the ‘Hospitality’ section is to promote tourism in the prefecture by focusing on offering the best possible hospitality for the tourists. Nishikido will play a young staff member named ‘Kakemizu Fumitaka’. He’s a nice guy, but a bit clumsy when it comes to reading the atmosphere.
This will be Nishkido’s second starring role in a movie after ‘Chonmage Purin‘ in 2010. He commented, “I’m from Osaka, but I’m playing a staff member of the Kochi prefectural office, who was born and raised in Kochi as well. He’s an ordinary guy doing work for the unconventional yet-actually-existing section that focuses on hospitality, until he meets this young woman played by Horikita. I’d like to try my best at portraying how a typical stubborn Kochi man gradually becomes an adult.” He continued, “It’s my first time working together with Horikita and I’m going to have to put everything I have into this role, so that I won’t lose to her overwhelming charisma.”
Horikita’s character is named ‘Myoujin Taki’. She possesses great expressive power and is working part-time at the same section as ‘Kakemizu’, trying to promote tourism in Kochi.
After reading the novel, she expressed, “I could feel this energy that allows you to climb over every barrier that appears in front of you, while reading it.” She continued, “The dialect will be a challenge, but I’m going to study a lot about Kochi and will try my best to completely transform into a local woman.”
‘Kakemizu’ who works at the ‘Hospitality’ section of Kochi prefectural office’s department, is trying his best to promote tourism in Kochi. One day, he inaugurates Kochi-born novelist ‘Yoshikado Kyosuke’ (Kora Kengo) as the special envoy of the Kochi prefecture. However, ‘Kakemizu’ receives a lot of negative feedback for his ideas from ‘Yoshikado’.
‘Kakemizu’ is then given the advice to ask a legendary former member of the section – ‘Kiyoto Kazumasa’, who was driven out of the prefectural office due to a controversial idea, for help regarding how to promote tourism. He and ‘Myoujin’ visit that person’s house, but as soon as they enter, they get splashed with a bucket of water by his daughter ‘Kiyoto Sawa’ (Seki Megumi), who hates the government for what they did to her father. Will they really be able to find advice here?
Arikawa herself commented, “I already know the team from ‘Hankyu Densha’ and I’m glad that they are the ones who will be working on this adaptation as well. They asked me to participate in the location scouting and that was already a lot of fun. There’s no way I could not be dying to meet Nishikido as ‘Kakemizu’ and Horikita as ‘Myoujin’ soon.”
The filming is expected to come to an end sometime in November.
‘Kenchou Omotenashi Ka’ is scheduled to open in Japan in May, 2013.
