While shojo and josei series sometimes struggle to get anime adaptations, they make up for it in getting adorable and absolutely charming live-action dramas instead. One of the latest, set to release on January 7, 2025 in Japan, is an adaptation of the series Sudden Marriage – When I Woke Up, I Was My Handsome Boss’s Wife!? which will be shortened to Sudden Marriage when it begins airing on Nippon Television’s “Drama DEEP” programming block.
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Sudden Marriage – When I Woke Up, I Was My Handsome Boss’s Wife!? was adapted from a web novel to a manga before getting a television series, and follows a “Plain Jane” office worker named Mao, who finds out that her longtime boyfriend has been cheating on her. Heartbroken and desperate, she goes out to drink and forget what happened, only to wake up beside a stranger the very next day. Shockingly, she realizes the mystery man is her boss, Hajime Ando, who declares that the two of them got married the night before. The original web novel is well-known for ranking highly on its original platform, Everystar, and the manga adaptation, which is serialized in Core Mix, has placed first in four consecutive popularity polls across 2024.
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Tobuka Wo
Sudden Marriage’s Production Team Are Doing Everything They Can To Bring the Off-Beat Romance To Life
The live-action version of Sudden Marriage is set to star Saito Kyoko, a former member of Hinatazaka46 as Mao, and Shirota Yu as Ando. The original creator of the novel, Otoi Sakurai, is ecstatic to see the series come to life, stating in a comment given to natalie.mu: “I’m so grateful to all the readers who always support me and the production staff who work so hard. Please stay with me until the end of the original drama.” The artist working on the manga adaptation, Tobuka Wo, added: “Just being able to draw manga makes me happy, but to think that one day an actor will play the character I drew is [amazing].
Saiko, the actress playing Mao, has said that she began reading the series quickly after learning about the role. She’s said that Mao is incredibly lovable and easy to root for, which makes her hope that fans will be able to resonate with her once the show airs. Similarly, Shirota Yu commented that up to this point in his career, he’s always been cast as the villain. To him, being cast as the handsome love interest in a romantic comedy felt like a mistake at first. The producer of the series working at Nippon Television, Hiroto Akashi, discussed his ambitions to adapt the work after he read a bit of the manga and dove head-first into getting caught up with the web novel, saying that in the process of making the characters come to life in the drama, he wants to take extra care to make sure that their very unique love story is cherished and handled with the care that it deserves.
H/T natalie.mu
