Seto Koji to appear in FujiTV Winter 2018 drama "Kuragehime" as a cross-dressing man

Seto Koji will be appearing in the upcoming FujiTV Winter 2018 drama "Kuragehime" starring Yoshine Kyoko which will begin its run from January in the Mondays 9pm timeslot. The drama is based on the same-titled manga by Higashimura Akiko which was made into an anime in 2010 and a real-life movie starring Nounen Rena, Suda Masaki and Hasegawa Hiroki in 2014. The manga had just ended its run recently on 13 November.

The story features Yoshine as the 20-year-old lead character Kurashita Tsukimi who is an otaku and hardcore lover of jellyfish after she was brought to the aquarium by her late mother when she was a child. Although she doesn't think that she will ever have any luck in romance due to her thick spectacles and nerdy appearance, she suddenly finds herself caught in a love triangle with two brothers after moving from Kagoshima to Tokyo to pursue her dream of being an illustrator. This leads her to discover a new way of living and a new side to herself. Her love interests will be the younger brother who looks gorgeous when he dresses as a woman and is actually a playboy and the elder brother who is the secretary of his politician father and a virgin with limited experience in dealing with women.

Seto will be playing Koibuchi Kuranosuke who dresses as a woman and has such a sharp fashion sense. As the child of his politician father and his lover who is a stage actress, Kuranosuke has a rather complicated family background. However, through his meeting with Tsukimi, he sees a different world from his usual elite and fashionable circle of friends and becomes interested in her. He then tries to bring out Tsukimi's charm by changing her image but when his half elder brother meets Tsukimi and falls for her, the three of them are caught in a love triangle.

Seto commented this is a challenging drama for him as he wondered if he could pull off the look of a woman so he had to brush up on his "womanly" abilities. His preparation all this while had paid off because he no longer feels uncomfortable or resistant to dress as a woman. As such, he will do his best for the filming. As for Kuranosuke's mentality about dressing as a woman, Seto commented that this could be partly due to Kuranosuke's interest in fashion but he also felt that this was due to his desire to feel close to his birth mother. That was probably helpful in helping Kuranosuke forget about the unhappy things in life and allow himself be liberated and live true to himself. Seto hoped that he would be happy to convey this complicated inner world of Kuranosuke through his acting.

Sources: Oricon / Natalie