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Asahinagu Live-Action Film Casts Mai Shiraishi
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The staff of the live-action film adaptation of Ai Kozaki's Asahinagu sports manga revealed on Monday that it has cast Mai Shiraishi (seen below) as Maharu Miyaji, the naginata team's ace whom everybody looks up to.
She will join lead actress Nanase Nishino (seen below), who plays protagonist Asahi Tōjima.
The film will open this fall. Tsutomu Hanabusa is directing the film.
The manga is also getting a stage play adaptation. Both the play and the film will star members of idol group Nogizaka46, although the cast will be different for each version. The stage play will run from May 20-31 in Tokyo's EX Theater Roppongi, in Osaka from June 2-5, and in Nagoya from June 9-11. Kyōichi Itagaki is directing and writing the script.
The manga centers on Asahi Tōjima, a first-year high school student at Futatsuzaka High School. She had been in the art club throughout middle school, but begins training with the naginata (Japanese halberd), saying that even people without talent in sports one day can shine in the nationals the next. Along with her beloved upperclassman Maharu Miyaji, her classmate with experience in kendo Shōko Yasomura, and a girl who has worries about her height named Sakura Konno, Asahi forms a new group of "Naginata Girls."
The manga won the Best General Manga award at the 60th Shogakukan Awards in 2015.
Kozaki, the younger sister of Fire Emblem: Awakening and No More Heroes character designer Yūsuke Kozaki, launched the manga in Big Comic Spirits in 2011. Shogakukan published the manga's 22nd compiled book volume on February 28.
Source: Comic Natalie
