News
Osamu Tezuka's Rainbow Parakeet Manga Gets Musical
posted on by Alex Mateo
Osamu Tezuka's Rainbow Parakeet (Nanairo Inko) manga is inspiring a musical at Cool Japan Park Osaka WW Hall in Osaka from September 14-16 and at Shinagawa Prince Hotel Stellar Ball in Tokyo from September 20-29.
The musical stars:
- Hiroki Nanami as Rainbow Parakeet
- Hitomi Arisa as Mariko Senri
- Ray Fujita as Tommy
- Naotake Tsuchiya as Yо̄suke
- Yamato Furuya as Asaka
- Masatoshi Shin as Gariya
- Kanata Omori as Detective Odawara
- Sayaka Okamura as Inako Kogawa
- Karin Takahashi as Momoko
- Yui Fujimoto as Ryо̄ Kotake
- Sena Kuramachi as Yо̄ko
- Chinatsu Saitо̄ as Chiru Chiru
- Tomoyuki Takagi as Inspector
- Naoya Gomoto as Ryо̄suke Kuwagata
Masafumi Hata (Attack on Titan: The Musical) is writing the play. Kaori Miura is the director and lyricist. Sayaka Asai (One on One) is composing the music.
There will be a press conference for the production on June 20 at 7:00 p.m. JST on YouTube.
Rainbow Parakeet ran in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine from 1981 to 1983. Digital Manga previously ran a Kickstarter campaign in 2014 to fund Rainbow Parakeet and five other Tezuka titles for release, but the campaign failed to meet its goal.
The official Osamu Tezuka website describes the story:
Rainbow Parakeet is a criminal action manga featuring a genius actor whose specialty is mimicry — but he is also a thief. He accepts any role as a mimic, and performs it very well on the condition that the theater and the company overlook his stealing from the audience.A woman detective Mariko Senri follows him around in an attempt to arrest him, although she loves him. Then, Tamasaburo, a dog capable of performing as Rainbow Parakeet himself, joins the company.
The manga inspired a stage play that ran at the AiiA 2.5 Theater Tokyo in October 2018.
Chika Nakatani launched the Gekidan Nijū-Mensō VS Nanairo Inko (The Troupe of Twenty Faces vs. Rainbow Parakeet), a remake manga in Monthly Shōnen Champion in September 2019, and ended its first part in July 2020.
Sources: Rainbow Parakeet musical's website, Comic Natalie
