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Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä Manga Gets Kabuki Stage Play

Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki announced on Tuesday that Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga is inspiring a kabuki stage play adaptation. The play will adapt the manga's entire story. G2 is directing the play, which will debut in December 2019.

Onoe Kikunosuke V will play the titular protagonist Nausicaa in the play, and is also credited as the one who originally proposed the idea for the play. Nakamura Shichinosuke II will play Princess Kushana, the princess of a kingdom which Nausicaa and her people owe fealty to. Shichinosuke also played the Mikado in Isao Takahata and Studio Ghibli's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya film. Other cast members include Matsuya Onoe, Minosuke Bandō, and Ukon Onoe II.

Miyazaki created the original Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga in Tokuma Shoten's Animage magazine before adapting part of the story for a 1984 anime film. While the film was made before Studio Ghibli was founded, it is often retroactively considered to be part of the studio's body of work, as many of the key staff that would eventually form the studio worked on the film. The story follows a warrior princess who protects her land amid wars in a post-apocalyptic Earth. Miyazaki drew the manga from 1982 to 1994. Viz publishes the manga in North America. Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

Source: Sports Hoshi via Hachima Kikō