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6th Live-Action Midnight Diner Series Reveals Returning Cast, Staff, October 20 Debut

The staff for the sixth live-action series adaptation of Yarō Abe's Shinya Shokudō (The Midnight Diner or La Cantine de Minuit) manga announced on Wednesday the new series' returning cast members, returning and new directors, writers, and October 20 premiere on MBS, TBS and other channels in Japan.

The returning cast members are:

From top rows in image above

• Mansaku Fuwa as Chū-san
• Toshiki Ayata as Kosuzu
• Tamae Ando as Maririn (Marilyn)
• Shōhei Uno as Komichi
• Risa Sudō as Miki
• Asako Kobayashi as Rumi
• Naoko Yoshimoto as Kana
• Kiyofumi Kaneko as Kanemoto

Bottom rows:

• Takashi Yamanaka as Gen
• Yūichirō Nakayama as Hachiro
• Aki Maeda as Noriko
• Yoshimi Nozaki as Tsutae Suzaki
• Ken Mitsuishi as Noguchi
• Kimiko Yo as Chieko
• Yutaka Matsushige as Ryū
• Joe Odagiri as Kogure

Additional returning cast members include:

• Mitsuki Tanimura as Kasumi
• Yukiko Shinohara as Izumi Natsuki
• Kaoru Hirata as Saya Adachi
• Yukihiro Yoshimi as Kō-chan
• Shūhei Takahashi as Kimitoshi

Returning director Jōji Matsuoka will direct the new series' episodes 2, 5, and 8. Nobuhiro Yamashita will direct episodes 7 and 9, and Shōtarō Kobayashi will direct episode 6. New series directors Satoko Yokohama will direct episode 4, and Ryō Yoshida will direct episodes 1, 3, and 10. Katsuhiko Manabe, Kōsuke Mukai, Kensaku Kojima, and Marina Ōshima are writing the scripts.

Kaoru Kobayashi reprise his role as Master.

Netflix began streaming the fifth live-action series in October 2019. Jōji Matsuoka, Nobuhiro Yamashita, and Shōtarō Kobayashi returned from previous series to direct the fifth one. The fourth series began streaming on Netflix under the title Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories in 2016.

Abe's manga centers on the proprietor of a small, mysterious cafeteria in Shinjuku and his customers. The cafeteria opens at midnight to fix customers any dish they request. The manga was nominated for the bookseller-selected Manga Taishō ("Cartoon Grand Prize") in 2009. The manga was also nominated for Angoulême's Best Comic Award and Audience Award in 2018.

The manga also inspired two live-action films starring Kaoru Kobayashi as Master. A Chinese live-action film adaptation of the manga opened in China in 2019. Well Go USA released the Chinese live-action film on Blu-ray Disc in 2021.

Sources: Midnight Diner live-action series' website and X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie