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Hiroya Oku's Gantz Manga Gets Stage Play
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Shueisha opened a website on Friday to announce that Hiroya Oku's Gantz manga is inspiring a stage play adaptation titled GANTZ:L Ace & Action Stage. The play will run for 12 performances from January 26 through February 4 at The Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo.
The play stars (Note: name romanizations for original characters aren't confirmed):
(left to right in top row)
- Hiroki Hyakuna as Kei Kurono
- Kensuke Takahashi as Masaru Katō
- Nana Asakawa as Kei Kishimoto
- Hisanori Satō as Jōichirō Nishi
- Fuminori Murase (30-DELUX) as Minoru Sakamoto (original character)
- Tatsuya Kageyama as Osamu Koike (original character)
- Kaiki Ōhara as Kōichi Takahashi (original character)
- Ray Fujita as Makoto Yano (original character)
- Yuki Kubota as Shion Izumi
Katsuhide Suzuki is directing and writing the script for the play. Jūji Shimizu (30-DELUX) is in charge of the action sequences.
Oku launched the original Gantz manga in Shueisha's Young Jump magazine in 2000, and he ended the manga in 2013. Shueisha published the 37th and final volume in Japan in August 2013. The original manga followed a young Tokyo man who is reanimated after a deadly subway accident. Kei and other resurrected people go on violent, seemingly endless missions at the behest of an unseen host.
The manga inspired a television anime series animated by GONZO (and released by ADV Films in North America) and two live-action films (released by NEW PEOPLE Entertainment). More recently, the manga inspired a 3DCG anime film titled GANTZ:O that premiered in Japan in October 2016.
The manga also inspired the GANTZ:G spinoff manga. Dark Horse Comics published the original manga in North America.
Source: Comic Natalie
