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The Summer Hikaru Died Manga Gets Stage Play
posted on by Alex Mateo
A new official website opened on Friday to confirm that Mokumokuren's The Summer Hikaru Died (Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu) manga is getting a stage play adaptation from January 9-18 at Kinokuniya Hall in Tokyo.
The play stars:
- Junsei Motojima as Yoshiki Tsujinaka
- Hikaru Imamaki as Hikaru
- May Tachibana as Asako Yamagishi
- Miki Matsuo as Yūta Maki
- Rio Sawada as Yūki Tadokoro
- Umi Yamano as Rie Kurebayashi
- Shо̄ichirо̄ Akaboshi as Tanaka
Sо̄tarо̄ Fujii is directing the play and writing the script. Mikihito Sano is composing the music.
Yen Press licensed the manga for English publication, and describes the manga:
Two boys lived in a village: Yoshiki and Hikaru. The two did everything together...until the day Hikaru was encompassed by a mysterious light. That was when everything changed—Hikaru most of all. Yoshiki still wishes from the bottom of his heart to always stay by his side...but is there even a Hikaru left to be with?
An anime adaptation premiered on July 5 on the NTV channel. The series streams on Netflix exclusively worldwide and on ABEMA in Japan.
The manga was nominated for the 16th Manga Taisho Awards. (The official English name of the awards is the "Cartoon Grand Prize.") The New York Public Library listed the manga as part of its Best Books list for teens in 2023. The manga also made The American Library Association's (ALA's) Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) 2024 list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens.
Both the manga and its author Mokumokuren were nominated for this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. The manga was nominated for the Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia category, while Mokumokuren was nominated for the Best Writer/Artist category. The Harvey Awards nominated the manga for Best Manga this year.
Sources: The Summer Hikaru Died stage play's website, Comic Natalie
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
