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Golden Boy's Egawa Debuts If Blessed Manga on iPhone

Tatsuya Egawa, the manga creator of Golden Boy, Magical Taruruuto-kun, and Tokyo University Story, will launch a spinoff manga based on the live-action If Blessed (Masakiku Araba) film on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch mobile devices in Japan on December 1. Kite Okachimachi and Tohokushinsha Film Corporation's movie deals with the forbidden love beween a death row convict (Masashi Kubota) and his victim's fiancée (Machiko Ono). As a 100-page prologue to the film, the Masakiku Araba: Owari to Hajimari no Natsu (If Blessed: The Summer of Endings and Beginnings) manga will depict the adolescent youth of the two main characters.

If Blessed is the directorial debut of poet Kite Okachimachi (Kaito Okachimachi). Okachimachi had previously written the lyrics for the "Inori ~You Raise Me Up~" opening theme song for another forbidden love story, Romeo × Juliet.

Egawa and the film's principals announced the manga during the film's press conference at the 22nd Tokyo International Film Festival on Friday. Castmembers Ono, Kubota, Sō Yamanaka, Mickey Curtis (Cowboy Bebop: The Movie's Rasheed), and others joined Okachimachi, producer Kazuyoshi Okuyama (Black Jack The Movie, Rampo), and screenwriter Yukiko Takayama (Dog of Flanders) at the film's screening that same day.

The film will open in Japan on January 9. A trailer is available on the film's official website. (In the linked page, select the "予告編" button in the bottom menu.)

Source: animeanime.jp