Amazon Japan Reboots ‘Takeshi’s Castle,’ Sets ‘Modern Love Tokyo,’ ‘Bake Off,’ Live Boxing

Amazon Prime Video has doubled down on its investment in Japan with six local originals greenlit and an additional foray into live boxing.

At an event in Tokyo on Wednesday, Amazon revealed a reboot of “Takeshi’s Castle,” the iconic game show starring Kitano Takeshi that aired on terrestrial network TBS from 1986-1989. The reboot, with the working title “Takeshi’s Castle ProjectModern Love Tokyo," the Japanese adaptation of Prime Video’s original romantic anthology series "Modern Love." The series stars Asami Mizukawa, Hiromi Nagasaku, Yûsuke Santamaria, Sôsuke Ikematsu, and Naomi Scott, with episodes directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa ("Wife of a Spy"), Naoko Ogigami ("Close-Knit"), Ryuichi Hiroki ("Ride or Die"), Nobuhiro Yamashita ("Matsugane ransha jiken"), and Atsuko Hirayanagi ("Oh Lucy!"), who also serves as showrunner. Set for 2023 is "My Lovely Yokai Girlfriend" a half-hour, young adult romantic horror adventure-comedy series about two outcasts directed by Takahiro Miki ("Love Me, Love Me Not") and created by Yalun Tu ("NCIS: Hawaii, Grace") and Zach Hines ("Grace"). A movie adaptation of Ryota Kosawa’s bestseller "Angel Flight" is also in the works and due in 2023. The first season of "Bake Off Japan" is due on Apr. 22 and the second seasons of the Japanese edition of "The Masked Singer" and "The Bachelorette Japan" are due in the summer. In addition, Prime Video will livestream the WBA, IBF, and WBC World Bantamweight title fight between WBA World Bantamweight Super Champion and IBF Bantamweight World Champion Naoya Inoue, and WBC World Bantamweight Champion Nonito Donaire on June 7 from the Saitama Super Arena. This follows the deal Amazon signed with boxing promotion companies Top Rank and Teiken Promotions to livestream multiple events. At the Tokyo event, Takashi Kodama, country director Prime Video Japan, and Takayuki Hayakawa, head of Japanese originals at Prime Video, gave insights into the business and content strategy of the streamer and welcomed several guests on stage, including Kitano Takeshi, Asami Mizukawa, Sôsuke Ikematsu, Naoya Inoue, and Shinya Ueda.

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