Asahi Shimbun “ARASHI Meets MANGA 僕らの肖像 (Bokura no Shozou)”

On February 3rd Asahi shimbun published special feature which consisted of eight pages of all of the Arashi members in manga form. Each member was drawn by a manga artist whose character they had portrayed in a drama or film.

Taiyo Matsumoto (鉄コン筋クリート, Tekkon Kinkreet)

Chica Umino (ハチミツとクローバー, Hachimitsu to Clover)

Yoko Kamio (花より男子, Hana yori Dango)

Kenji Nagatomo (Bartender)

and Fujiko Fujio A (怪物くん, Kaibutsu-kun)

“Arashi have been given the task to send out a message to people overseas about what makes Japan unique while these manga writers have already shown they can send powerful messages overseas. Our aim was to show people how amazing Japan is by getting these two groups to collaborate,”

Apparently many train station newspaper stands had sold out of their copies and the Asahi Shimbun office received many calls asking where to get a copy of the paper. Others called to thank the newspaper. The special even became a trending topic on twitter!

A lot of people had said that even though they are not Arashi fans, they still enjoyed this piece in the paper. I think the manga versions of Arashi are very cute!

I especially liked Chica Umnio and Yoko Kamio’s artwork. Which ones do you guys like the best??

Sources: aramatheydidnt, natalie.mu, tokyohive, momoedgewood mediawatch