Koki Mitani Exposed! - and Ichiro debuts as TV actor

Koki Mitani loves TV.  He was a devoted TV watcher boy when young, and still is.  And now that he has come to a fame in movies, theaters and TV dramas, he has many occasions to appear on TV - news and variety shows, and sometimes even in a TV drama.  He must be LOVING his life.

In fact, he is the most exposed director/screenwriter these days.  In the movie world, his high-profile comedy "The Ecstacy Hotel" (click "Mikitani's Profile" to see his photo) with all star cast, including Koji Yakusho, Takako Matsu, Koichi Sato and Shingo Katori, is coming up this weekend.  Not only those main cast, but also many celebrities appear as smaller roles, such as Masahiko Tsugawa, Shiro Ito, Joe Odagiri, Toshiyuki Nishida, Keiko Toda, Mieko Harada, and his past collaborator in "Welcome Back Mr. McDonald" Toshiaki Karasawa.  Mitani appears often in movie promotion events to make people laugh, and is widely covered in the Japanese press. 

Another recent screenplay work of his is a cynical comedy "University of Laughs" in 2004, filmization of two-men play between the WWII-era government censor who never has laughed in his life (again, Koji Yakusho) and a comedy script writer (Goro Inagaki).

In his beloved TV world, two of his most prominent works collided in this New Year holidays.  The long-lived popular detective drama "Furuhata Ninzaburo", starring stylish but funny Masakazu Tamura, borrows the framework from "Leutenant Columbo", and a different celeb appears as the criminal in each episode.  It officially concluded in 1999, but due to its cult-like popularity, however, several "Specials" were made after that, and the producer Fuji TV put up the 3-episode mini-series "Furuhata Ninzaburo Final" on January 3, 4 and 5 last week.  Seattle Mariner's baseball star Ichiro, who is a fanatic of this drama and watches its DVD on the bus all the time, debuted as an actor  on the first night and earned 27% rating.  The real final featuring Nanako Matsushima (star actress in the original "Ring") marked the rating of 29.6%. 

On the other hand, there was another "Special sequel" by NHK on January 3, at exactly the same time as the first episode of "Furuhata" with Ichiro.  In 2004, he wrote the script of "Shinsengumi!!"  for NHK's Taiga Drama (historical drama series), about the popular samurai team Shinsengumi who fought for Tokugawa Shogunate at the end of Edo era (mid-19th century), and this "Special" is about one of the team leaders.  To nobody's surprise, the samurai leader got beaten pretty badly by the stylish detective (9.8% vs. 27%).

In his origin live-stage plays, his early work "Ju-ni-nin no Yasashii Nihonjin" (literal translation: Twelve Gentle Japanese) was re-played in November 2005 in Parco Theater in Tokyo.  Among his past works, the original "Welcome Back Mr. McDonald" (1993) and "University of Laughs" (1996)  are the examples, as well as "Okepi!" (2001) starring Hiroyuki Sanada.

And with all these works, he still is not satisfied with normal stage plays.  So he wrote his first modern Kabuki script "Ketto! Takata-no-baba" (literal translation:  Showdown in Takata-no-baba) for Somegoro Ichikawa, and it is scheduled to be played in March in Parco Theater.  You can wach the video trailer here.  (Click the black-and-red square with "Parco" in it.)  He has a close tie with Somgoro - they worked together in the past in live-act theater, and Mitani's "Welcome Back" was Somegoro's screen debut film.

Too bad, I was not in Japan this New Year's holidays, so I missed Ichiro the killer.  I will not have a chance to see his Kabuki either.  Darn--  "Ecstacy" is the only hope for me so far - I hope it will make it to the U.S. eventually.

Source:  Wikipedia, Sometsu site, and many other entertainment news