General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Inuyashiki (いぬやしき) (2018 film)

Inuyashiki (いぬやしき) is a 2018 Japanese live-action science fiction action film directed by Shinsuke Sato, adapted from the manga Inuyashiki by Hiroya Oku, the creator of GANTZ. It stars comedian Noritake Kinashi as Ichiro Inuyashiki, a middle-aged salaryman whose body is transformed into a machine after a crash involving an object from space, and Takeru Satoh as Hiro Shishigami, a high school student transformed in the same incident who uses his new powers to kill. The two cyborgs, one choosing to save lives and the other to destroy them, eventually clash in a battle set in Shinjuku.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	April 20, 2018 (Japan), distributed by Toho¹
Runtime / format	127 minutes, color feature film¹
Director / screenplay	Shinsuke Sato; screenplay by Hiroshi Hashimoto, from Oku's original story¹
Lead cast	Noritake Kinashi (Ichiro Inuyashiki), Takeru Satoh (Hiro Shishigami), Kanata Hongo (Naoyuki Ando)¹
Production	Fuji Television Network, Kodansha, and Toho; produced by the studio Cine Bazar¹
Source material	Manga by Hiroya Oku, first published in 2014 in the seinen manga magazine Evening; over 2 million copies in print³^•²
Recognition	Golden Raven at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival 2018⁴

Spoilers

Plot

Ichiro Inuyashiki, an office worker close to retirement who is neglected by his family, is diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a few months to live. That night he is caught in a crash involving an object that fell from space, and his body is rebuilt as a machine that retains his mind. The transformation gives him superhuman powers, including the ability to attack and to heal people by will alone.²^•⁵

Hiro Shishigami, a high school student caught in the same event, receives the same powers. Deciding that he is no longer human and therefore not bound by human laws or morality, he kills indiscriminately for excitement and terrorizes the nation, while Inuyashiki uses his powers to save the people Shishigami attacks. The film builds to a full confrontation between the two in Shinjuku, with aerial fighting among the district's skyscrapers as the city is destroyed around them.²^•⁶

Production and cast

The film followed a television anime adaptation of the manga.¹ Director Shinsuke Sato, born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1970, had previously adapted Oku's GANTZ as a two-part live-action film that recorded box office sales of 6.3 billion yen, and his other manga adaptations include I Am a Hero (2016) and Death Note: Light Up the New World (2016).⁶^•⁷

Casting placed a comedian and a drama actor in the two leads. Noritake Kinashi, a well-known Japanese comedian, played the protagonist in his first lead film role in 16 years, taking on wire-action stunts and intense battle scenes in an uncharacteristically dramatic part. Takeru Satoh, known for the Rurouni Kenshin films, took his first villain role as the mass murderer Shishigami.⁶ Kanata Hongo, Fumi Nikaido, Ayaka Miyoshi, and Yusuke Iseya rounded out the cast; Hongo plays Naoyuki Ando, a classmate of Shishigami.⁶^•⁸ A viewer comment on AsianWiki notes that Hongo had also voiced Ando in the anime adaptation before playing the role in live action.³

The crew included Hiroshi Hashimoto as screenwriter, Taro Kawazu as director of photography, and Yutaka Yamada as composer.¹^•⁹ The film combines live footage with computer graphics as the two protagonists' bodies become weapons and Shinjuku is destroyed.⁶

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film held a 100% Tomatometer from five professional reviews and a 78% audience score from more than 50 ratings.¹⁰ Critics singled out the film's emphasis on character over spectacle: Maggie Lee of Variety wrote that Sato "foregrounds interpersonal relationships and human emotion over action and effects," and Mark Schilling of The Japan Times gave it 3 out of 5, noting that the director stages clashes that test the two antagonists beyond their flesh-and-blood humanity.¹⁰ On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.6.⁸

The film received the Golden Raven at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival in 2018, and festival catalogs positioned it as a Japanese take on the superhero genre in which superpowers arrive not to a young dreamer but to a retirement-age office worker.⁴

Availability

The film runs 127 minutes and is rated G in Japan. As of the most recent streaming data, it is available in Japan on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, U-NEXT, and FOD, with digital rental and purchase on Amazon Video and the Apple TV Store; it is not available for streaming in the United States.⁵^•⁸ Pony Canyon handles international licensing.⁶

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026