Completion screening event of new movie "Itou-kun A to E"

The completion screening event of new movie "Itou-kun A to E" was held at Starrise Tower on 21 November which was attended by the director Hiroki Ryuuichi and cast members Okada Masaki, Kimura Fumino, Sasaki Nozomi, Shida Mirai, Ikeda Elaiza, Kaho, Tanaka Kei and Nakamura Tomoya. The movie will be shown in cinemas from 12 January 2018.

The film is based on the same-titled romance novel by Yuzuki Asako which was published in 2013. Okada plays Itou Seijirou, a self-centred man who thinks very highly of his appearance and is insensitive to others' feelings. As a result, he always causes the women he meets to suffer due to his character flaws. On the other hand, Kimura plays Yazaki Rio who is a scriptwriter and keeps her true thoughts about other people hidden within. While trying to create a drama script about people's romance woes, she begins interviewing four women who she nicknames as A, B, C and D. Coincidentally, the four of them are all in love with Itou who is a student at the scenario writing school where Rio works as a lecturer. As Rio continues to observe what happens between the four women and Itou, she finds herself embroiled in this romance whirlpool and becomes the 5th women E.

Okada described his character as someone who most people would dislike at first sight despite his good looks and said that he was lucky to get this role which was very different from what he had taken on so far at this timing. However, it turned out that Itou was even more of a scumbag than he had imagined but he had enjoyed his summer acting as Itou who had "helped" the five women in the movie grow up and become better people as a result of meeting him. This led the actresses to laugh at his comment.

When asked about their thoughts about Itou-kun during the filming process, Sasaki said that it felt bad to be fooled around by Itou while Shida said that she felt oppressed and Ikeda remarked that Itou was someone she didn't want to get involved with. Kaho then commented that it was hurting for her character while Kimura delivered the final blow by describing Itou as an asshole. Okada laughed at all these "insults" and revealed that the actresses would always murmur about how disgusting Itou was when the scenes were finished which led Okada to keep reminding himself that the insults were directed at Itou, not him.

Okada revealed that he and Kimura became closer thanks to their common interest in manga and they had a lot of fun talking about this during the meal gathering before the filming started. Kimura also said that they were talking about the topic when they met up before the event where they exchanged information on the latest interesting manga they had read.

Sources: Nikkansports / Sanspo / Natalie / Eiga.com