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New Azumi Stage Play Casts AKB48 Member Rina Kawaei

posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Promo video showing characters in costume also streamed

Theater production company RUP announced the full cast of the new stage play adaptation Yo Koyama's AZUMI manga, revealing that AKB48 idol group member Rina Kawaei is playing the titular role of the assassin Azumi. The AZUMI Bakumatsu-Hen play's official website also began streaming two promotional videos for the play on Sunday showing Kawaei, Kōdai Asaka, Shu Watanabe, Hidetoshi Kubota, Yūki Saotome, Shingo Machida, Yuki Satō, Azusa Sakamoto, and Kei Hosogai in costume.

The official website also revealed a new visual for the play's information flyer showing photographs of the above-mentioned actors in costume. RUP had also previously revealed a picture of Asaka in costume.

The play's full cast includes:

  • Rina Kawaei as Azumi
  • Kōdai Asaka as Sakamoto Ryōma
  • Shu Watanabe as Shunsuke
  • Hidetoshi Kubota as Keijirō
  • Yūki Saotome as Sōta
  • Shingo Machida
  • Yuki Satō
  • Naoki Kunishima
  • Kazuki Ono
  • Kyōsuke Kurokawa
  • Kōichi Sudō
  • Yukiyoshi Matsumoto
  • Keiichi Sugiyama
  • Tomoki Tsukada
  • Yasuaki Ishii
  • Mikako Yoshida
  • Kaede Fujimoto
  • Kazuma Hamada
  • Kō Maehara
  • Naomi Yamamoto
  • Ryō Shigezumi
  • Azusa Sakamoto
  • Kei Hosogai

The official website also revealed two posters for the stage play, with the first poster featuring art by Koyama.

The play will run in the New National Theatre's Playhouse theatre in Shinjuku, Tokyo from September 11 to September 24. Tickets will go on sale on Saturday.

Shunichi Okamura, who directed the 2005 stage play adaptation of Azumi, returns to direct the play, and is also credited for composition. Team Watanabe (consisting of scriptwriter Kazunori Watanabe and others) wrote the script.

Koyama began the first Azumi manga in 1994 in Shogakukan's Big Comic Superior magazine, and it won the Excellence Prize at the first ACA Media Arts Festival, Manga Division in 1997. He ended the series in 2008. In 2009, Koyama launched a continuation of the series also titled Azumi (title written in English instead of Japanese) in the same magazine, and ended it in February last year, and it is this series that the upcoming stage play is adapting. Shogakukan published the 18th and final compiled book volume of the series in April last year. The first series has been adapted into two live-action movies, both of which were released in North America by Urban Vision, and a stage play.

Source: Comic Natalie, Sports Hochi


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