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Solitary Gourmet Live-Action Series Gets New Year's Eve Special
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
TV Tokyo revealed on Thursday that the live-action series adaptation of Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi's Kodoku no Gourmet (Solitary Gourmet) manga will have a New Year's Eve special for a fourth consecutive year, which will air from 10:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Yutaka Matsushige (live-action Death Note, Sukiyaki Western Django, Crows Zero) will once again reprise his role as protagonist Gorō Inagashira. The theme of the new special will highlight the changes restaurants have had to make in 2020 due to the ongoing new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, and will give thanks and support to the restaurant industry in Japan.
Both the Kodoku no Gourmet live-action series and original manga follow a solitary salesman named Gorō Inagashira as he travels all over Japan and samples the local cuisine found on street corners. The live-action show's eighth season premiered in October 2019.
Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi first serialized the Kodoku no Gourmet manga from 1994 to 1996 in Fusosha's Monthly Panja magazine (now defunct). Kusumi handled the story, and Taniguchi drew the art. Fusosha published the first collected volume in 1997. Kusumi and Fusosha published the manga's second volume in September 2015. Taniguchi passed away in February 2017.
Fanfare and Ponent Mon will release the manga in English, and will "most likely" debut in spring 2021.
The manga also inspired a net anime that debuted on Production I.G's "Tate Anime" (Vertical Anime) smartphone app in November 2017.
Sources: Kodoku no Gourmet live-action series' website, Dengeki Online
