News

1st Haikara-san ga Tōru Anime Film Reveals Visual, Theme Song

The official website for the anime film adaptations of Waki Yamato's Haikara-san ga Tooru manga revealed a new key visual for the first film on Monday. The website also revealed that Saori Hayami, who is voicing Benio in the anime, will perform the film's theme song "Yume no Hate made" (Until the End of the Dream).

Mariya Takeuchi (Agatha Christie no Meitantei Poirot to Marple, Toki no Tabibito -Time Stranger-) is composing and writing the lyrics for the theme song. The song's CD will ship on November 8.

The first film, titled Gekijōban Haikara-san ga Tōru Zenpen - Benio, Hana no 17-sai, will open in Japan on November 11. The second film is titled Gekijōban Haikara-san ga Tōru Kōhen - Tokyo Dai Roman. While both films were previously slated to open this year, the second film is now slated to open in 2018.

Kazuhiro Furuhashi (Rurouni Kenshin, Hunter x Hunter) is directing and penning the script, but only for the first film. Mitsuko Kase (Ristorante Paradiso, Young Black Jack) is directing the second film. Terumi Nishii (Penguindrum, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable) is designing the characters, and Kentarō Akiyama (ReLIFE, Magic-kyun! Renaissance, Selector Infected Wixoss) is in charge of both background design and art direction. Kunio Tsujita (INTERSTELLA 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, Penguindrum) is the color designer. Takeo Ogiwara (Chain Chronicle: The Light of Haecceitas, Yuri Kuma Arashi) is the director of photography at Graphinica. Kazuhiro Wakabayashi (Eureka Seven, Kuromukuro) is the sound director, and Michiru Ōshima (Sound of the Sky, Little Witch Academia) is composing the music. Nippon Animation is in charge of animation production.

Hayami (Sound! Euphonium's Haruka Ogasawara, A Silent Voice's Shōko Nishimiya) is playing protagonist Benio "Haikara-san" Hanamura, while Mamoru Miyano (Mobile Suit Gundam 00's Setsuna F Seiei, Free!'s Rin Matsuoka) is playing her fiancé, Shinobu Ijūin.

The story is set in Tokyo in the Taishō era (1912-1926). The story follows Benio "Haikara-san" Hanamura, who lost her mother when she was very young and has been raised by her father, a high-ranking official in the Japanese army. As a result, she has grown into a tomboy -- contrary to traditional Japanese notions of femininity, she studies kendo, drinks sake, dresses in often outlandish-looking Western fashions instead of the traditional kimono, and is not as interested in housework as she is in literature. She also rejects the idea of arranged marriages and believes in a woman's right to a career and to marry for love.

Haikara-san's best friends are the beautiful Tamaki, who is much more feminine than Haikara-san but equally interested in women's rights, and Ranmaru, a young man who was raised to play female roles in the kabuki theater and as a result has acquired very effeminate mannerisms. Haikara-san's betrothed is Shinobu Ijūin, a second lieutenant in the army.

Yamato launched the manga in Kodansha's Shoujo Friend magazine in 1975. The series ended in 1977, and it earned the first Kodansha Manga Award for the shōjo category that year. Kodansha published eight compiled volumes of the manga. The all-female Takarazuka Revue theater troupe's Flower Troupe will perform a musical adaptation of the manga in October.

The manga series previously inspired a 42-episode television anime that aired from 1978 to 1979 from Nippon Animation, a live-action film, a live-action television series, and two live-action television specials.

Yamato's Asakiyumemishi - The Tale of Genji historical shōjo manga also inspired an anime adaptation in 2009. This year marks the 50th anniversary since Yamato debuted as a manga creator with her Dorobō Tenshi short manga in 1966. She launched her Ishtar no Musume: Ono no Otsūden (The Daughter of Ishtar) manga in Kodansha's Be Love magazine in 2009, and is currently serializing it. Kodansha published the manga's 15th compiled book volume on May 12.

Source: Comic Natalie