Tamayama Tetsuji to take over Koide Keisuke's role as Akashiya Sanma in new Netflix drama "Jimmy ~ Aho mitai na honma no hanashi ~"

Tamayama Tetsuji will be taking over Koide Keisuke's role as Akashiya Sanma in the new Netflix drama "Jimmy ~ Aho mitai na honma no hanashi ~" after the latter had his career suspended due to his sex scandal with an underage girl. As a result, the broadcast date will be further delayed from its original release in July this year due to the re-filming of the drama in early January 2018. This will mean that the cast members will be re-assembled for the filming but there will be no major changes to the drama's content. The release date will be announced once it has been decided.

The drama which consists of 9 episodes and was to be shown in 190 countries via Netflix, is based on the life of comedian Jimmy Onishi. The story describes the "fateful" meeting at Osaka in the 1980s between Sanma and Jimmy when Sanma found the latter tied to the staircase of a theatre without wearing any clothes. At that time, Jimmy was just a newbie comedian who failed at everything he did while Sanma was already a popular star. Subsequently, Sanma helped Jimmy to develop his comedic talent and the latter even became an international artist. Koide had played Sanma while joint lead Nakao Akiyoshi played Jimmy. This was the first time in Sanma's 42-year career that he produced a drama series.

According to the production team, Sanma had asked for someone who comes from the Kansai region, can speak the Kansai dialect and is classy to play his role. When Sanma heard that Tamayama was offered the role, he was reportedly pleased with this and praised the latter for having the courage to take on this role. Tamayama commented that he will try his best to meet Sanma's requests during the filming and pledged to do a good job.

Sources: Sponichi / Nikkansports / Oricon