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Osamu Tezuka's Wansa-kun Manga Gets Stage Musical
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Nelke Planning announced on Wednesday that a stage musical adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Wansa-kun (Little Wansa) manga has been green-lit. The play will run at Tokyo's Theater Tram in August.
Kensaku Kobayashi of the Condors dance company will direct the play. Kōhei Kiyasu will pen the play's script. The production began auditions for roles on Friday. The auditions are primarily seeking boys and girls of elementary school age to first-year middle school age.
The original manga centers on Wansa, a dog searching for his mother who meets new friends along the way.
Tezuka developed the Wansa-kun character as a mascot for Sanwa Bank, and later used the character in a manga he launched in Mushi Production's Tezuka Magazine Leo in 1971. The original Mushi Production studio adapted the manga into a 24-episode anime series in 1973, with little involvement from Tezuka himself. The anime was the last series that the original Mushi Production produced before declaring bankruptcy.
Source: Comic Natalie
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