Completion press conference of new WOWOW drama "Bye Bye, Black Bird"

The completion press conference of new WOWOW drama "Bye Bye, Black Bird" was held on 15 February which was attended by the director Mori Yoshitaka and cast members Koura Kengo and Shirota Yu. The drama which begins its run from 17 February in the Saturdays 10pm timeslot and consists of 6 episodes, is based on the same-titled novel by Isaka Kotaro

Koura plays the lead character Hoshino Kazuhiko who dates every woman he manages to attract and is currently dating 5 women at the same time. He is also deep in debt. Wanting to reset his life and get out of debt, he gets attracted to the proposal from a mysterious organisation which will bring him to somewhere on a bus but sets the condition that he has to break up with his 5 girlfriends. While on the journey of doing so, he is accompanied by Mayumi, a 3m-tall and 200kg woman tasked to keep an eye on Hoshino who will be played by Shirota. Hoshino's five girlfriends will be played by Ishibashi Anna, Itaya Yuka, Maeda Atsuko, Usuda Asami and Seki Megumi. Other co-stars include Matsumura Yuuki, Maruyama Tomomi, Okamura Izumi, Saito Yosuke and Agata Morio.


When Shirota got the offer to play Mayumi, he was shocked that he was told to play a woman instead of just wearing women's clothes. However, this was a role that no actor would say no to and the more challenging thing was that he was going to play a real woman. As such, this was probably the first and last time he would get to do something like this. In order to play such an unique character, Shirota had to shed his own character and even say some nasty things to Koura like mocking him for having a face like garbage so even if he dies and floats up in the Tokyo Bay, nobody would even notice it. He even had to go for hair removal and facials as part of his preparation which he called as a valuable experience for him. In response to this, Koura joked that it was good to hear something like this from Shirota.

The director revealed that he is a big fan of Isaka so he tried to make sure that this adaptation is something which Isaka himself and his fans would feel satisfied about. As such, he was glad that Isaka was full of praise for this drama which Shirota described as very interesting because it offered a deep look into the characters as the story progresses. Koura said that the story would pick up speed over time and will head for unexpected directions so he was very confident that viewers would be satisfied with if they watch it.

Sources: Nikkansports / Oricon