Written by: Nicole Castro
Published on: August 24, 2021 at 11:36 PHT (GMT+8)
The official Twitter account of Japanese actor Tomohisa Yamashita has announced that he will be starring in the second live action of wine manga series Drops of God in 2022.
The series will include eight, one-hour episodes starring Tomohisa and French actress Fleur Geffrier acting as rivals Issei Tomine and Camille Léger respectively.
In the original manga, the protagonist is a male character named Shizuku Kanzaki who discovers he must compete against Tomine for his father's inheritance. The TV drama is reportedly choosing to diverge from the original work by making the lead roles male and female in order to heighten their differences.
Also, unlike the first live action which aired exclusively in Japan, this second live action will be a multilingual drama series co-produced by Legendary Television and Dynamic Television in the U.S., France Télévisions (a French national broadcasting group), and Hulu Japan.
Cast
Tomohisa Yamashita as Issei Tomine
Fleur Geffrier as Camille Léger (the daughter of the late wine critic Alexandre Léger)
Staff
Executive producer: Klaus Zimmermann
Director: Oded Ruskin
Screenplay: Quoc Dang Tran
Production: Dynamic Television
Production cooperation: Adline Entertainment
About Drops of God
"Drops of God" (神の雫, Kami no Shizuku) is a Japanese manga series about wine, published by Kodansha. It was created and written by siblings Yuko and Shin Kibayashi under the pseudonym Tadashi Agi. The artwork was illustrated by Shu Okimoto. The series was first published in November 2004 in Japan's weekly Morning magazine and ended in June 2014. The 44th and final compiled book volume shipped in July 2014.
The first live action version of the series (also titled Kami no Shizuku) was broadcast by Nippon Television in January 2009.
About Tomohisa Yamashita
Tomohisa Yamashita (山下智久) is a Japanese singer, actor, and TV host who started his career as a trainee under talent agency Johnny & Associates. He made his debut on NHK's Shounentachi (1998) and has been active in the entertainment industry since then. His star-making role came in 2006 when he landed the title role in the television drama Kurosagi.
Currently, he is branching off to more international roles, starring in the Hollywood production The Man from Toronto alongside Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson.
Synopsis of the Drops of God manga from MAL:
Shizuku Kanzaki is the only son of world-renowned wine critic Yutaka Kanzaki. From a young age, Shizuku has been subjected to strange education from his father all for the sake of wine. From learning to gracefully decant a drink to intently remembering the smell of leather belts and pencils, the training causes him to grow resentful of everything related to wine. Discontent with his father, he leaves home to become an average sales representative for a beer company, refusing to ever touch wine again.
When his father suddenly passes away, Shizuku finds himself being dragged back into the world he hates so much. As part of his father's will, the one who will inherit his prized wine collection and estate will go to the person who can correctly identify the "12 Apostles" of wines as well as the legendary "Drops of God." In order to inherit the assets, Shizuku has one year to complete the task, but he finds the proposition ridiculous when he is the only living relative of Yutaka.
What Yutaka failed to tell his son before his death was that he had adopted Issei Tomine into the family a week prior to his passing. Issei is a famous veteran wine critic competing against Shizuku to claim the estate for himself. With no formal training in wine tasting, Shizuku stands no chance against "The Prince of Wine" and is at risk of losing everything in this competition. Will he be able to correctly identify the elusive "Drops of God" before he runs out of time?
Source: Drops of God official website, Tomoshisa Yamashita official website, official Twitter, Comic Natalie, Anime News Network
