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Live-Action Kids on the Slope Film Reveals New Visual

The official website for the live-action film of Yuki Kodama's Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope) manga revealed a new visual on Saturday that features Nana Komatsu as Ritsuko Mukae and Taishi Nakagawa as Sentarō Kawabuchi.

The film also stars:

• Hey! Say! JUMP!'s Yuri Chinen as protagonist Kaoru Nishimi
• Erina Mano as Yurika Fukahori, the mysterious woman whom Sentarō falls in love with at first sight
• Dean Fujioka as Junichi Katsuragi, whom Sentarō calls "Brother Jun," and looks up to like a real brother
• Baijaku Nakamura as Tsutomu Mukae, Ritsuko's father, and the proprietor of Mukae Records
• Yorie Yamashita
• Hokuto Matsumura (Johnny's Jr.)
• Tōru Nomaguchi

The film will open in Japan on March 10. Takahiro Miki (live-action Solanin, Aozora Yell) is directing the film, and Izumi Takahashi (live-action Solanin, Museum) is writing the script.

The manga follows a naive boy and a scruffy boy in a provincial town in Nagasaki Prefecture in the late 1960s. In the early summer of 1966, Kaoru transfers to the local high school from Yokosuka. Thanks to his family's nearly constant cycle of moving from town to town, Kaoru has only known school as a difficult place for readjusting. However, on his first day at this new school, he meets a boy and begins a new direction in life. The manga won the General Category of the Shogakukan Manga Awards in 2012.

Kodama launched the nine-volume manga in Monthly Flowers in 2007, and ended the series in March 2012. Shogakukan published a one-volume spinoff manga titled Sakamichi no Apollon: Bonus Track in November 2012.

The manga inspired a television anime adaptation on Fuji TV's late-night Noitamina programming block in April 2012. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired under the title Kids on the Slope, and Sentai Filmworks released the series on home video in 2013.

Source: Comic Natalie