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Live-Action Saint Young Men Film's Teaser Assembles 'Super Saint Holy Men'
posted on by Anita Tai
The staff for Saint Oniisan The Movie ~Holy Men vs Akuma Gundan~ (Holy Men vs Demon Army), the first live-action film of Hikaru Nakamura's Saint Young Men (Saint Oniisan) manga, began streaming a teaser trailer for the movie on Wednesday. The teaser shows Jesus and Buddha turning into the "Super Saint Holy Men" superheroes to battle the demons.
The comedy manga imagines if Buddha and Jesus shared a low-rent Tokyo apartment with no bathroom.
The returning cast and staff from the manga's previous live-action series adaptations include Ken'ichi Matsuyama (Promare's Galo Thymos) as Jesus and Shōta Sometani (BELLE's Kamishin, Suzume's Minoru Okabe) as Buddha. Yūichi Fukuda (live-action Gintama, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. films) is returning to direct the film and pen the script based on an extended story ("Screen e no Nagai Michi" or The Long Road to the Big Screen) that Nakamura created for the film.
The other cast members include:
The cast for Team Heavenly Realm includes (top row, left to right):
- Ryo Katsuji as Taishakuten, the god of war and thunder
- Jirō Satō plays an original character for the film, a battle hermit
- Mai Shiraishi as Benzaiten, goddess of music and art
(bottom row, left to right)
- Kento Kaku as Brahmā, the personal conception of the universal principle
- Takanori Iwata as Archangel Michael
The Mara family (from left to right):
- Masataka Kubota (live-action Tokyo Ghoul, My Broken Mariko) as Mara, the incarnation of human desires who raised his daughters by himself as a single father
- Seina Nakata (live-action March comes in like a lion, A Girl on the Shore) as Mara's youngest daughter
- Mizuki Yamamoto (live-action Peach Girl, Black Butler) as Mara's oldest daughter
- Hinako Sakurai (live-action Marmalade Boy, Uirabu) as Mara's second oldest daughter
The staff members have deemed the 23rd of every month as "Oniisan no Hi" (Young Men Day) as a wordplay on Japanese pronunciation, and they will announce more information on the movie on that day every month until the film's opening.
The first 10-episode live-action season premiered on Kakao Japan's Piccoma TV streaming service in October 2018. The second season began streaming on Piccoma TV in June 2019, and also screened in theaters. The third season premiered on NHK in January 2020. Each season has 10 episodes.
Nakamura launched the manga in Kodansha's Morning two magazine in 2006. The manga won the Short Story award at the 13th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009, and was also nominated for a Manga Taisho award in the same year.
The manga inspired an anime film that premiered in Japan in May 2013. The manga's eighth and ninth volumes both bundled original anime DVDs when they shipped in December 2012 and July 2013, respectively.
Kodansha USA Publishing is releasing the manga digitally in English.
Sources: TOHO Movies' YouTube channel, Comic Natalie
