Takeuchi Ryoma & Hamabe Minami to star in new movie "Sensei Kunshu"

Takeuchi Ryoma will be starring in the new movie "Sensei Kunshu" (Teacher Monarch) along with Hamabe Minami which is directed by Tsukikawa Sho. The movie is based on the same-titled manga by Kouda Momoko which was serialised in "Bessatsu Margaret" from 2013 to 2017 and had sold more than 1.43 million copies to date. Takeuchi will be playing a teacher for the first time in this love comedy and this will be the first collaboration between him and Hamabe. The movie will be released in cinemas this year. The story features Takeuchi as the handsome maths teacher Hiromitsu Yoshitaka while Hamabe plays his student Samaru Ayuha who has been rejected 7 times in a row by guys, has a great desire to get a boyfriend and ends up falling for him. Filming began on 15 January.

Although Takeuchi had a fruitful year in 2017 thanks to his performances in movies like "Teiichi no Kuni" and dramas like "Hiyokko" and "Rikuou", he didn't expect to get a leading role so soon and was very thankful for the opportunity. As such, he pledged to do his best to take on this challenge and make a well-loved movie with his co-stars and staff members. As for his character, Takeuchi described him as a maths genius and he had to study how to behave like a teacher as the filming progressed. With regard to his co-star, Takeuchi said that although he had met Hamabe many times to date, he still wasn't able to imagine her as Ayuha so he was looking forward to see how they would interact during the filming.

On the other hand, Hamabe commented that as Ayuha is a straightforward person, she hoped to be able to portray the character in such a way that Ayuha won't be disliked and the audience would want to support her. While reading the original manga and script, Hamabe couldn't help but laugh at many of the scenes which required her to do parodies and impersonations so she would try her best to handle these as well.

Sources: Eiga.com / Natalie