Shingo Murakami cast in TV Asahi's My Girl

The most recent drama news for today involves the casting of Shingo Murakami (27) in TV Asahi’s Friday night drama My Girl based on the manga by Sahara Mizu. He will be portraying the role of Tomoya Shibata, a caregiver at the daycare the protagonist’s daughter attends. Murakami will be portraying an original character not in Mizu’s work but he expresses his excitement for the role. He will be supporting Masaki Aiba who was cast as the lead Masamune Kazuma.

This will be the second drama collaboration of Johnny and Associate’s groups Arashi and Kanjani8 this year. Last January, Arashi leader Satoshi Ohno starred in Uta no Oniisan, also a TV Asahi production, with Ryuhei Maruyama, a Kanjani8 member. According to TV Asahi’s webpage, this is a dream collaboration between two popular idol groups. My Girl is a story about a young man who discovers he has a daughter from a former lover who left him five years earlier. After the passing of his ex-girlfriend, he takes custody of their child, and discovers the true meaning of love through their day to day interactions.

Murakami describes his anticipation for his upcoming role.

“Despite the character [Tomoya] is only created for the drama version, I think that it is natural to delve in the pure world outlook of [My Girl]. Because of the small population of male caregivers so to speak, the background of why I became one [a male caregiver] could be at times the main story. I think that caregivers who look after children and other similar jobs are hard work.”

He is looking forward to working with Aiba who he knew since they were juniors. Joining Murakami and Aiba in My Girl are actresses Yuka and Momoka Ishii. They will play the mother and daughter respectively.

My Girl will start airing in October on Fridays at 11:15 PM in TV Asahi.