Fukushi Souta to star in new movie "Tabineko Report"

Fukushi Souta will be starring in the new movie "Tabineko Report" (The travelling cat report) which is based on the same-titled novel by Arikawa Hiro and will be shown in cinemas next year. Filming began at the end of last month and is expected to be wrapped up in April.

Fukushi will play the lead character Satoru who rescues a stray cat which had met with a traffic accident and names it Nana. However, something happens and he is unable to take care of the cat anymore so Satoru embarks on a journey to various places such as Shizuoka, Tochigi, Nagano and Fukuoka so as to find a new owner for Nana. Through his interaction with various people such as his first love during the journey, Satoru's secret is slowly unveiled.

As cats are known to be difficult to train unlike dogs, it has been said that the novel could never be made into a movie. In order to overcome this issue, cat trainer Kitamura Mayumi from major animal actors production house ZOO Doubutsu Pro was engaged to train the cats appearing in the movie. Even so, Arikawa who also takes on the role of scriptwriter for the movie was prepared to rewrite her script for the sake of the cats.

In order to get close to the male cat which will play Nana, Fukushi who is acting with animals for the first time, had to start interacting with the cat three weeks before the filming started and underwent lectures from Kitamura. Fukushi commented that he was a bit excited and worried about the distance between him and the cat but things got better by the time the filming began.

Sources: Sanspo / Sponichi