On November 19th, it was announced that TOKIO's Nagase Tomoya is going to star in the upcoming NTV drama 'Nakuna, Hara-chan'.

'Nakuna, Hara-chan' is an original romantic comedy written by Okada Yoshikazu ('Churasan') and features Nagase as a sullen and grumbling manga character who suddenly leaps out to the real world and falls in love with the female mangaka that created him. The actress who is going to play the mangaka will be announced at a later date.

Nagase hasn't starred in a TV drama since 'Unubore Deka' (TBS) two years ago. This time he gets to play a manga character who is going through various struggles in the real world for the woman he loves. He commented excitedly, "Similar to this woman who is relieving all of her stress through her manga, I'm going to let everything I've been saving during those two years out in this drama!"

Producer Kono Hidehiro revealed that the whole screenplay was written with the mindset that Nagase is going to play the protagonist in the first place. Therefore we can look forward to a Nagase being completely in his element with his enthusiastic performances. He stated, "Through a very powerful presentation, we want to convey the reasonable and rather simple idea that it's okay to think about other people (more often)."

NTV is going to air 'Nakuna, Hara-chan' every Saturday at 9:00 p.m. starting in January 2013.

Source: Sanspo