31-year-old actress Kyōko Hasegawa will star in a live-action drama adaptation of Norifusa Mita's Angel Bank: Dragon Zakura Gaiden workplace manga next year. As a loose sequel to the 2005 Dragon Zakura drama, Angel Bank Tenshoku Dairinin (Angel Bank, Occupational Change Agent) will premiere in January.
Hasegawa will reprise her role of Mamako Ino, an English teacher at one of Japan's roughest schools, Ryūzan High School. After nine years of teaching, Ino decides to "reset" her life and meets with Yasuo Ebisawa (Gokusen and Trick's Katsuhisa Namase), a charismatic "occupational change agent" who advises people on switching jobs. However, Ebisawa ends up hiring Ino as an occupational change agent herself. Together with her work partner Ryōta Taguchi (Gegege no Kitaro, Brave Story's Eiji Wentz), Ino helps others switch gears in their livelihoods and transform the rest of their lives.
Mita launched his Angel Bank: Dragon Zakura Gaiden manga in Kodansha's Weekly Morning magazine in 2007, and the ninth compiled book volume will ship next month. The original Kodansha Manga Award-winning Dragon Zakura manga ran in the same magazine from 2003 to 2007, and 21 book volumes were published. The Dragon Zakura manga also inspired the 2005 live-action television drama in which Hasegawa first played the Ino character. This will be Hasegawa's first drama role after she gave birth to a boy in May.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun
Update: Title corrected. Thanks, holybell.
