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Fist of the North Star Manga Gets Stage Musical in December
posted on by Egan Loo
Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's classic post-apocalyptic manga Fist of the North Star is inspiring the stage production Musical Fist of the North Star in Tokyo in December. Dancer and actor Yūsuke Ōnuki (The Millionaire Detective - Balance: UNLIMITED's Daisuke Kanbe) stars as Kenshirō.
The stage musical is a co-production of HoriPro, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, and the Shanghai-based theatre performance company Ranspace, in collaboration with Coamix. Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, Whitney Houston's "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," Death Note: The Musical) scored the music, and Sachiko Ishimaru is directing. Ako Takahashi wrote the book and lyrics, while Jasmine Chiu handled the choreography.
The rest of the cast includes Kazuki Katō and Ryūnosuke Onoda as Kenshirō's older brother Toki, Tatsuya Kawaguchi as the brothers' mentor Ryūken, Takuya Uehara and Kandai Ueda as Kenshirō's nemesis Shin, and Kanata Irei and Rio Uehara alternating as Rei and Juuza. The staff will announce the cast members for Raoh, Julia, Lin, and Bat later.
The production will hold its world premiere at Tokyo's Nissay Theatre in December, before playing in other regions of Japan next January and going on tour in China next year. Tickets will go on sale this fall.
The original manga's story is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The story centers on a man named Kenshiro, a master and successor to a deadly martial art, as he wanders the nuclear wasteland protecting the weak and innocent from violent thugs. In his travels, he must contend with other master martial artists and figures from his past, including his "brother" Raoh, who has crowned himself the king of the new world.
The original manga ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1983 to 1988. Viz Media began publishing the manga in a new edition digitally and physically this summer. The manga has inspired several television anime, films, and spinoff anime. Hiroshi Kurao launched a new Fist of the North Star spinoff manga titled Hokuto no Ken Seikimatsu Drama Satsuei-hen (Fist of the North Star Apocalypse Drama Filming Arc) on the Comic Zenon manga website on February 26.
The manga previously inspired the Hokuto no Ken - Seikimatsu Zako Densetsu (Fist of the North Star - End of the Century Legend of a Random Thug) stage production in September 2017.
Sources: Millenium Parade's YouTube channel, Comic Natalie
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