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One Piece Kabuki Play Previewed in TV Ad
posted on by Egan Loo
Shueisha Manga Net posted a television commercial for the Kabuki stage play based on Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga on Wednesday. The commercial features footage from the play's sold-out run in Tokyo last fall, and it promotes the April 2-26 run in Fukuoka's famed Hakata-za theater.
Before its run in Fukuoka, the play will run at Osaka's Shochiku-za theater from March 1-25. Shueisha began streaming a commercial in January for the Osaka shows.
The staff of the One Piece kabuki stage play project revealed a photograph of Ichikawa Ennosuke IV in costume as Luffy in July.
The kabuki stage play's full cast is as follows:
- Ichikawa Ennosuke IV as Luffy, Hancock, Shanks
- Ichikawa Ukon as Whitebeard
- Bandō Minosuke II as Zoro, Bentham, Squard
- Nakamura Hayato as Sanji, Inazuma
- Ichikawa Shunen II as Nami, Sandersonia
- Ichikawa Kōtarō as Hatchan, Sentomaru
- Ichikawa Juen as Avalo Pizarro
- Ichikawa Emisaburō as Nyon
- Ichikawa Enya II as Jinbei, Blackbeard (Teach)
- Ichikawa Emiya II as Nico Robin, Marigold
- Ichikawa Omezō VI as Magellan
- Ichikawa Monnosuke VIII as Tsuru
- Seiji Fukushi as Ace
- Noritoshi Kashima as Brook, "Akainu" Sakazuki
- Kazuyuki Asano as Rayleigh, Ivankov, Sengoku
The play adapts volumes 51-60 of the manga, a portion of the story known as the "Paramount War Saga." In the story, Luffy attempts to find his brother Ace and save him from execution, while a war erupts between the World Government and the Whitebeard Pirates.
Ichikawa IV said that the creators would "like to approach the script from the eyes of someone who is not familiar with the story, while also not discounting the audience who have already read it. It would best if we could make a story that was fun even for people who haven't read it." He added that "kabuki has never shied away from not showing the beginning and ending of a story and only portraying one side of it. So I think a long story like One Piece is a perfect fit for adaptation to the stage."
The play ran from October 7 to November 25 at the Shinbashi Enbujō in Ginza, Tokyo. 100,000 tickets for the Tokyo run all sold out. Yujin Kitagawa, member of musical group YUZU, performed the Kabuki play's theme song.
The play is one play in the Super Kabuki-gi II set of plays featuring Ichikawa IV as the lead.
