WOWOW revealed on Thursday that Airi Matsui (right in image below) has joined the cast of the live-action series of Masami Yuuki's Hakubo no Chronicle manga. Matsui plays Akari Fusegi, a newly hired Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare official.

West idol group member Tomohiro Kamiyama (seen left in image above) stars as Kai Yukimura.

The series will premiere next year.

The supernatural mystery story follows Yukimura, an okinaga who looks 18 but is actually 88 years old. He joins a newly hired Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare official named Akari Fusegi to stop a serial killer — and seek revenge. Yukimura's former lover was murdered by the so-called "Sheep Killer," who only murders on Christmas during the Year of the Goat every 12 years. The long stretches between the killings means that only an okinaga like Yukimura could be the culprit.

Kazuhiro Nakagawa (live-action Double, "Godzilla vs. Hedorah") and Gō Sasaki are directing the series, with scripts by Shōta Koyama (Jashin no Tenbin), Taiki Yamazaki (AIBOU: Tokyo Detective Duo, Ultraman Blazar), and Shiori Tanaka. Harumi Fuuki (Forest of Piano, Miss Hokusai, Lonely Castle in the Mirror, The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes) is composing the music.

Yuuki launched the manga in Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine in August 2013 as his first weekly series in 10 years. Shogakukan published the manga's 11th and final compiled book volume in 2017.
Yuuki launched the Shinkurō, Hashiru! (Shinkurō, Run!) manga in Shogakukan's Monthly! Spirits in January 2018, and it is ongoing.

Yuuki's Tetsuwan Birdy Evolution (Birdy the Mighty Evolution) series ran from 2008 to 2012 in Weekly Big Comic Spirits. The series is a sequel to his Tetsuwan Birdy (Birdy the Mighty) manga remake that ran in Shogakukan's Weekly Young Sunday and Big Comic Spirits magazines. The manga versions of Birdy the Mighty have not been released in North America, but Central Park Media and Funimation released the various anime adaptations, and Viz Media released some of Yuuki's Mobile Police Patlabor manga.