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Live-Action Waiting for Spring Film Casts Rika Izumi, Yuki Sasō, Tamaki Ogawa

The official website for the live-action film of Anashin's Waiting for Spring (Harumatsu Bokura) manga revealed the cast for three female characters around Mitsuki on Thursday. Rika Izumi will play Nanase Kashiwagi, Yuki Sasō will play Reina Yamada, and Tamaki Ogawa will play Yūko. (Note: characters' full name readings are not confirmed.)

Rika Izumi as Nanase Kashiwagi, daughter of the owner of the café where Mitsuki works part-time

Yuki Sasō as Reina Yamada, Mitsuki's friend in the same class

Tamaki Ogawa as Yūko, mother of Mitsuki's friend Aya

The film will open in Japan on December 14.

Tao Tsuchiya (top row center in image above) will play the lead role of Mitsuki Haruno. Yūta Koseki (top row left) will play Mitsuki's childhood friend Aya Kamiyama. Takumi Kitamura (top row right), Yū Inaba (bottom row left), Hayato Isomura (bottom row center), and Yōsuke Sugino (bottom row right) will play the basketball team's "four kings" Towa Asakura, Rui Miyamoto, Kyōsuke Wakamiya, and Ryūji Tada.

Yūichirō Hirakawa (live-action Erased, Rookies the Movie: Graduation) is directing the film, and Satoko Okazaki (Tiger & Bunny, Yanyan Machiko) is writing the screenplay. Office Crescendo is producing the film, and Warner Brothers Japan is distributing.

Kodansha Comics is publishing the manga in English, and it describes the story:

Mizuki (sic) is a shy girl who's about to enter high school, and vows to open herself up to new friendships. Of course, the four stars of the boys' basketball team weren't exactly the friends she had in mind! Yet, when they drop by the café where she works, the five quickly hit it off. Soon she's been accidentally thrust into the spotlight, targeted by jealous girls. And will she expand her mission to include…love?

Anashin launched Waiting for Spring in Kodansha's Dessert magazine in 2014. Kodansha published the manga's 10th compiled book volume on August 9. Kodansha Comics published the seventh volume in English on July 10. The manga was nominated in Kodansha's 41st Manga Awards last year, and the American Library Association's (ALA's) Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) listed the manga in its 2018 list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens.

Sources: Waiting for Spring film's website, Comic Natalie