Home Tutor Comedy Manga Katei Kyoshi no Kishi Knight Gets Live Action Drama in January

BS Asahi has announced a live action drama adaptation of Hiromasa Okujima’s comedy manga Katei Kyōshi no Kishi Knight Desu., which translates roughly as I Am the Home Tutor Kishi Knight. The series premieres on January 5 on BS Asahi, CBC, RKB, HBC, and tvk, and will also begin streaming the same day on Lemino.

Rei Sawamura from the idol group ONE N’ ONLY stars as Kishi Knight, while Kōki Tanaka of SUPER★DRAGON plays Tōru Takasugi. Naho Kamimura, Nao Nomura, and Jirō Nagae are directing the series, with scripts by Ayumi Shimo and Naho Kamimura.

The manga centers on Tōru, a high school student with a reputation for fighting who consistently places last in his school grades. When a home tutor named Kishi Knight shows up and commits to turning things around for him, Tōru finds himself unexpectedly drawn to the tutor’s natural charm. Okujima originally serialized the manga in Akita Shoten’s Nicchan Gecchan magazine in 2019, with Akita Shoten publishing one compiled volume.

Okujima is also the creator of Baban Baban Ban Vampire, which has been running in Akita Shoten’s Bessatsu Shōnen Champion magazine since October 2021 and inspired both an anime on Netflix and a live action film that opened in July.

My take: The dynamic between a reluctant delinquent student and a charming tutor is a well-worn setup, but it works when the chemistry between the leads lands. The idol casting suggests this is going for a certain kind of warmth over edge, which could make it a nice easy watch once it starts airing in January.