News

The Garden of Words Stage Play Heads to Tokyo in November

Stage production company Nelke Planning is collaborating to bring the previously announced stage play of Makoto Shinkai's 2013 film The Garden of Words to Tokyo in November.

Whole Hog Theatre ( Princess Mononoke) is already planning to hold the stage play in London in August and September. Alexandra Rutter of Whole Hog Theatre is directing both the London and Tokyo runs.

Actors Kurumu Okamiya (Touken Ranbu, Banana Fish stage plays) and Mitsuki Tanimura (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars) play the role of Takao and Yukino respectively, for the stage play's run in Japan.

Whole Hog Theatre describes the play:

"愛"よりも昔、"孤悲"のものがたり "...you've been living your whole life alone..."

Takao and Yukari are escaping.

Whilst seeking solace in a Japanese garden, an out-of-step woman and an offbeat teenager meet by chance. Social misfits with a shared sense of loneliness, the unlikely pair bond over classical poetry, shoemaking and bad cooking. But the heartfelt companionship that could save them might also ruin them…

Based on the stereotype-defying Anime and novel from world-renowned filmmaker, Makoto Shinkai (your name., Suzume), Japanese animation continues to make waves on the UK stage with this global premiere.

A refreshingly candid Tokyo tale reminiscent of the adorable melancholy of Lost in Translation. Delve deeper into Shinkai's visually emotive story about the lines between platonic and romantic longing and what it is to feel alone in the biggest metropolis in the world. Seven lost souls, drowning in technology yet unable to connect.

From the UK's Whole Hog Theatre, creators of the world's first stage adaptation of a Hayao Miyazaki film with the kind permission of Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke), and Tokyo's Anime stage production specialists Nelke Planning (Attack on Titan, Naruto, Sailor Moon stage productions) comes a unique, new Anglo-Japanese collaboration.

The play was originally announced in 2019 and was set to run in Summer 2020. However, it was indefinitely postponed by the outbreak of Covid-19. Whole Hog Theatre announced the play's 2023 London run in April.

The Garden of Words premiered in Japan in 2013. The anime won The Satoshi Kon Award for Achievement in Animation at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival in August 2013. The film also won the award for the best animated feature film at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film in Germany in April 2014. Sentai Filmworks licensed the film even before its May 2013 opening in Japan, and released it on home video in August 2013. Vertical published Midori Motohashi's manga adaptation in North America in 2014.

Whole Hog Theatre and Rutter's stage play adaptation of Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke anime film ran at London's New Diorama Theatre in April and June 2012. The play then ran in Tokyo at AiiA Theater from April to May 2013.

Sources: The Garden of Words stage play's website, Comic Natalie