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Gempak Starz Licenses I Want to Eat Your Pancreas Novel

Gempak Starz announced last Friday that it has licensed Yoru Sumino's Kimi no Suizō o Tabetai (Let Me Eat Your Pancreas, or literally, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas) novel, and it will release the novel with the title Izinkan Kumakan Pankreasmu.

The novel's story is told from the point of view of an unnamed protagonist who happens to find a diary in a hospital one day. The diary belongs to his classmate, a girl named Sakura Yamauchi, who is revealed to be suffering from a terminal illness in her pancreas, and who only has a few months left to live. Sakura explains that the protagonist is the only person apart from her family who knows about her condition. The protagonist promises to keep Sakura's secret. Despite their completely opposite personalities, the protagonist decides to be together with Sakura during her last few months.

Sumino began serializing the story on the Shōsetsu-ka ni Narō ("Let's Become Novelists") website in 2014. Futabasha published the novel in print in June 2015, with cover art by loundraw (Tsuki ga Kirei character designer). The novel and various related books have since garnered over 2 million copies in print.

The novel already inspired a live-action film starring Takumi Kitamura (DISH//) and Minami Hamabe, and the film premiered in Japan last July. The live-action film played at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea and in Malaysia under the title Let Me Eat Your Pancreas. The book will get an anime film adaptation that will open on September 1 in Japan.

The novel also inspired Idumi Kirihara's manga adaptation, which launched in Futabasha's Monthly Action magazine in August 2016, and ended last May. Futabasha published the manga's second and final compiled book volume last June.

Gempak Starz previously released Sumino's Mata, Onaji Yume o Miteita novel under the title Dan... Mimpi Sama Berulang Kembali earlier this year.