All Esper Dayo! 
Japanese Title: みんな！ エスパーだよ！
Romaji: Minna! Esupa-Dayo!
Release Date: April 12th, 2013 (TV Tokyo Japan)
Running Time: N/A
Director: Sion Sono
Writer: Kiminori Wakasugi (Screenplay),
Starring: Shota Sometani, Kaho, Erina Mano, Ken Yasuda, Megumi Kagurazaka, Motoki Fukami, Mariko Tsutsui, Yoshiki Saito, Ayaka Morita, Mikita Sports
This is the year of the dorama for this blog considering the amount I am committing myself to watching. Here’s another one that caught my eye! All Esper Dayo! is based on a manga created by Kiminori Wakasugi who is becoming one of those creators who has all of his works adapted into films and anime. His manga Detroit Metal City was turned into an anime and live-action film starring mega-star Kenichi Matsuyama and now All Esper Dayo! has gotten a live-action TV comedy adaptation courtesy of TV Tokyo.
Yoshirō “Yocchan” Kamogawa (Sometani) is an ordinary (virgin) high school boy who finds his life literally changes overnight when he wakes up with the ability to read other people’s minds. Sounds awesome! But he uses it for trivial things. He’s not alone in gaining powers as a café worker named Teru-oichan (Sports) gains telekinetic powers. Sounds really awesome! But he uses for sex toys. Yōsuke Enomoto (Fukami), a fellow school-pupil of Kamogawa and a basketball player, also gains a power, the ability to teleport. Sounds super-awesome! But it only works while he is naked. Get ready to see how they use their powers!
The synopsis, when reduced, is a story about a bunch of psychics who use their powers for trivial matters but there are three reasons to love this comedy before we have even seen it:
It’s directed by Sion Sono (Suicide Circle, Strange Circus, Noriko’s Dinner Table) one of the world’s great contemporary directors,
It is written by Kiminori Wakasugi, creator of the hilarious Detroit Metal City,
It stars Shota Sometani, one of Japan’s great new talents as demonstrated by an award-winning performance in Himizu, and a noticeable performance amongst many great ones in Isn’t Anyone Alive? He is also in the TV dorama XXXHOLiC, an adaptation of a manga.
Sometani is joined by two new young actresses.
Kaho who plays Miyuki Hirano, a yankee girl who has a habit of kicking Kamogawa’s character around and looking good.
Kaho has appeared in Funky Forest: The first Contact and last year’s Ninkyo Helper movie.
Erino Mano who plays Sae Asami, Kamogawa’s dream girl and the subject of this clip…
Erina Mano is a member of Hello! Project and her biggest title to date has been Chronicle of My Mother where she co-starred with Koji Yakusho and Kiki Kirin.
Thanks to Tired Paul we spotted another interesting actor. Between the two of us we managed to find Adam Torel, founder of Third Window Films, in the dorama in a clip. Watch this video.
The video is all about pantsu but look to the left… at a suspiciously foreign looking student… A little bit of a rummage on the TV Tokyo website reveals his name is Sergei and he has a speaking role – with great Japanese – and he roughs up Shota Sometani – what an honour – which explains how he managed to get on TV Tokyo’s cast page!
The clips assure me that the TV comedy is funny in a low-brow way and seeing Sometani get physically beaten by a girl is kind of amusing but the focus on sex may make me get tired of it very quickly.
Anime News Network reported this 12-minute behind-the-scenes TV special which contains clips of the manga, the filming process, interviews with Shota Sometani, Kaho and Erina Mano who talk about working with Sion Sono and filming.
Here’s another clip where we see the dorama being filmed!
