Gekokujo Kyuji Directors Cut Blu-ray BOX

Starring Ryohei Suzuki, this hopeful human drama depicts many forms of love through high-school baseball. Every episode is presented in its director's cut, adding more than fifteen minutes of previously unseen footage.

In March 2016, Shuji Nagumo, a social-studies teacher trusted by students and parents at Mie Prefectural Etsuzan High School, is asked to become the baseball club's adviser and manager the following school year. Apart from one member, the club consists of unmotivated students who rarely attend. Nagumo also wants to cherish time at home with his wife Mika, played by Haruka Igawa, and their two children, so he firmly refuses.

Home-economics teacher Kanako Yamazumi, played by Haru Kuroki, then arrives at Etsuzan. Eager to strengthen the baseball club with Nagumo, she recruits talented junior-high athletes before their entrance examinations. Sho, played by Motoki Nakazawa, grandson of influential local figure Mikio Inuzuka, played by Fumiyo Kohinata, and formerly an ace on an elite club team, also enters Etsuzan after failing the exam for a baseball powerhouse. As Nagumo gradually finds himself helping the club, his previously peaceful life changes dramatically.

All ten director's-cut episodes are accompanied by eleven bonus programs totaling more than nine hours: the complete Gekokujo Selection documentary about auditions for the drama; an expanded pre-broadcast preview special; individual interviews with Suzuki, Kuroki, Igawa, Katsuhisa Namase, Mizuki Yamashita, Kotaro Koizumi and Kohinata; baseball-player cast interviews titled Audition Memories; a filming wrap-up collection; unreleased Etsuzan baseball scenes and behind-the-scenes footage; a special preserving memorable bloopers and great plays; the cast's off-camera Etsuzan Films; Struck Out Talk; Gekokujo Struck Out; and promotional spots.

The cast includes Rio Asumi and Ken Matsudaira. Contents and specifications may change. The seven-disc set contains three main Blu-rays with 508minutes and four bonus Blu-rays with 550minutes, plus a booklet featuring the directors' episode-by-episode notes. Japanese Linear PCM 2-channel stereo audio and Japanese subtitles for the hearing impaired accompany the main episodes.