Netflix Sets December 17 Worldwide Launch for Quiztopia, Reveals Additional Cast
The eight-episode live-action adaptation draws on Reiichi Sugimoto and Shinichi Katō's Kokumin Quiz manga.
Netflix released a teaser and announced more cast for Quiztopia, premiering globally December 17. Takayuki Yamada stars as KK, the host of a quiz show that governs an alternate Japan.
Netflix announced Monday that Quiztopia will premiere worldwide on December 17. It also released a teaser trailer and revealed additional cast for the eight-episode live-action adaptation of Reiichi Sugimoto and Shinichi Katō's National Quiz (Kokumin Quiz) manga.
The announced cast includes:
- Masahiro Takashima as Commander Murakoshi, leader of the Reward and Punishment Squad, which enforces penalties determined by quiz results
- Eiko Koike as Shoko Kamijo, Quiztopia's producer
- Riko Ishida as Marii, a mysterious girl determined to kill KK
- Kana Kurashina as Ayako, Mari's mother and a key figure in the story
- Kōji Seto as Seiji Nanbara, an activist scheming to bring down Quiztopia
- Renji Ishibashi as Takeshi Gokumazawa, Japan's prime minister
- Rin Kataoka
- Yuzu Aoki
- Naruki Matsukawa
- Yūki Imai
- Shunsuke Daitō
- Akira Maehara
- Hoshi no Disco
- First Summer Uika
- Keiko Horiuchi
- Toshinori Omi
Takayuki Yamada plays KK. His previous live-action roles include “Train Man” in Densha Otoko, Akira Hattori in Bakuman., and Elizabeth in Gintama.
Teruyuki Yoshida, whose live-action credits include An Older Guy's VR First Love and My Brother’s Husband, directs and co-writes the scripts with Maggy. Yasunori Nishiki composes the music.
Netflix's synopsis places the story in an alternate Japan where the national quiz show Quiztopia holds supreme governing power. The National Quiz Law allows contestants who survive the quiz to have the government fulfill almost any wish.
Those wishes can include wealth, fame, an enemy's death, clearing a criminal record, or owning a national landmark. Huge audiences watch the broadcast, while this cheerfully dystopian society treats even the brutal forced labor imposed on eliminated contestants as entertainment.
KK, the show's signature host and the public's leading provocateur, encounters a group planning to dismantle Quiztopia. Their contact sparks an incident that could awaken people caught in this alluring nightmare.
Sugimoto and Katō serialized the manga in Kodansha's Morning magazine from 1993 to 1995. Kodansha collected it in four volumes, and Ohta Publishing reissued it in two volumes in 2001.
