Docomo's dTV streaming service announced on Friday that the live-action film of Hideaki Sorachi's Gintama manga is inspiring a live-action net show that will premiere on the service on July 15, one day after the film's opening in Japan. The show will feature the same cast and staff as the film, and will adapt a "popular" storyline from the original manga.
dTV will also premiere a "movie comic" on July 1. The movie comic will show the manga with the same panel layout, but with added voices and animation. The series will start with the manga's first chapter, and will adapt one chapter per episode for 12 episodes, taking chapters from the entire manga's run.
The service also has the anime's episode 1-236 available, and will make episode 237-265 available on June 1.
The film will open in Japan on July 14.
UVERworld (Blue Exorcist, The Heroic Legend of Arslan) is performing the film's theme song "DECIDED."
Sorachi began the manga in 2004 and it continues to be ranked among the top-selling manga in Japan. The manga has more than 50 million copies in print in Japan. Viz Media published the first 23 volumes in English. Shueisha published the manga's 68th volume in Japan on April 4. The manga entered its final arc last July.
The manga inspired a television anime that premiered in 2006 and continued (with several extended hiatuses) until 2013. The fifth and latest Gintama television anime series premiered on January 8, and the show began airing reruns in April. Crunchyroll streamed the most recent series as it aired in Japan, and is also streaming English-dubbed episodes. The manga also inspired two anime films, including the "final" Gekijōban Gintama Kanketsu-hen: Yorozuya yo Eien Nare film that opened in 2013, and various OVAs and event anime.