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miwa Joins Live-Action Maestro! Film Cast
posted on by Emma Hanashiro
At the "miwa Spring Concert 2014" held on Sunday at the Yoyogi National Stadium in Shibuya, singer-songwriter miwa announced she will play Amane in Maestro!, next year's live action film adaptation of Akira Saso's Maestro Manga. The role will be miwa's first time acting in a film.
Amane is the heroine of the series and a flautist. miwa joins Tori Matsuzaka, who will play Kōsaka, a brilliant concert master, and Toshiyuki Nishida, who will play the mysterious conductor Tendō.
The story begins when a group of musicians looking for new work gather at a practice room. There, they find the mysterious conductor Tendō. Although these prospective members are put off at first by this man's unknown origins and background, his unorthodox leadership guides them past their individual emotional issues and setbacks and gradually restores their confidence.
Shōtarō Kobayashi is directing the film, and filming begins this month.
Saso launched the manga in Futabasha's Manga Action magazine in 2003, but later moved it to the Futabasha Web Magazine site. He finished the manga in 2007, and Futabasha published the third and final compiled book olume in 2008. Saso won an Excellence Prize at the 12th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2008 for Maestro, and the same manga earned him a nomination in the 13th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize a year later.
Saso was directly and indirectly involved in two headline-making movies during that time: the manga adaptation of the Oscar-winning Departures (Okuribito) film, and the live-action adaptation of his Kodomo no Kodomo (Child of a Child) manga about a pregnant 11-year-old girl.
Source:Natalie
