Model and "Pikaru no Teiri" regular Nishiuchi Mariya, one of the stars of Fuji TV's original drama "Switch Girl!!", will be appearing at the Japan Expo 2012 convention, which is being held in France from July 5th through 8th.

The drama itself will be broadcasting in France beginning in July. The current plans are to air it on KZTV, a specialty channel dedicated to Japanese anime and comics, followed by availability on the on-demand channel KZPLAY. According to current plans, French fans will even be able to purchase a French-subtitled version of the drama on DVD beginning in September.

"Switch Girl!!" is based on the popular manga of the same name by Aida Natsumi, a serial in the manga magazine "Margarette", which has sold over 5.46 million copies to date. The manga began publication in France and was the top selling shoujo manga for the first half of 2011. Since its release, "Switch Girl!!" has also been made available in places such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Italy, and Germany.

The romantic comedy tells the story of Tamiya Nika(Nishiuchi) and her life as a "switch girl" who oscillates between her perfect, charismatic, popular-with-the-boys public image and her jersey and glasses-wearing true identity. Her secret is leaked to the new student Kamiyama Arata (played by Kiriyama Ren), causing all sorts of funny antics to unfold.

The French broadcast of "Switch Girl!!" will be done by Fuji TV's French distribution company VIZ MEDIA EUROPE, making it their first Japanese drama series to be marketed as a multi-development show overseas. As VME has focused primarily on publishing Japanese anime and comics over the past 20 years, their choice to distribute "Switch Girl!!" is just one part of their long dedication to delivering Japanese popular culture to the youth of France.

Producer Azuma Yasuyuki has thought of expanding overseas since the very beginning because the original manga was extremely popular overseas, and is said to have strategically chosen to turn this manga into a drama for that purpose. "We've been actively using things such as Facebook and YouTube, and have been posting messages mainly in English. From now on, using this work as an opportunity, we'd like to start up new business in the overseas market including Asia as well," he commented.

Source + Image: Mantan Web