Minosuke Bandō, Hayato Nakamura star in play that will run in Tokyo.
Shueisha announced on Sunday that Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto manga is getting a kabuki play. The play will premiere in August 2018 and will run at the Shinbashi Enbujō theater in Tokyo.
Minosuke Bandō (live-action Tokyo Ghoul’s Uta, pictured right in above image) will play Naruto Uzumaki, and Hayato Nakamura (left) will play Sasuke Uchiha. G2 is writing and directing the play.
Kishimoto launched Naruto in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, and ended the series in November 2014. The manga has 140 million copies printed in Japan, and 80 million copies printed outside of Japan.
The series has spawned multiple anime, anime film, OVA, and game adaptations. The Naruto Shippūden anime series ended in March. The manga is inspiring a live-action Hollywood film at Lionsgate.
Ukyō Kodachi and Mikie Ikemoto launched the Boruto sequel manga in Weekly Shonen Jump in May 2016. The manga is inspiring a television anime series titled Boruto: Naruto Next Generations that premiered in April 5, and is ongoing.
Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece manga has also inspired a kabuki play. The play first ran from October-November 2015 at the Shinbashi Enbujō theater. The play then ran in Osaka in March 2016, and then in Fukuoka in April 2016. Theatrical screenings of the play across Japan premiered in October 2016. The new run of the kabuki play is running from October 6-November 25 at the Shinbashi Enbujō theater, with planned runs in Osaka in April and in Nagoya in May.
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Source: Comic Natalie, Nikkan Sports
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