Itadaki Muscle!

On 15 April 2006, Chukyo TV launched Itadaki Muscle! (いただきマッスル!) on the Nippon TV network, a programme in which muscular comedians travel across Japan to help people in trouble and are thanked with a regional dish. Tetsuo Hara handled the character design, credited in the programme’s credits (“キャラクターデザイン:原哲夫”), and drew the five members as warriors in the style of Fist of the North Star. The cast featured Tomomitsu Yamaguchi, Ryo Tamura, Wakky, Tomoharu Shoji, Razor Ramon HG and Nakayama Kinnikun, who recruited the members in the first episode. In that episode, the “voice from heaven” was Akira Kamiya, the voice of Kenshiro, and the narration was by Bin Shimada.