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Hikaru no Go Manga Gets Stage Play in July
posted on by Anita Tai
This year's 21st issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine announced on Monday that Takeshi Obata and Yumi Hotta's Hikaru no Go manga will receive a stage play adaptation in Ikebukuro in July titled Uta Emaki "Hikaru no Go" Jyo no Itte (Song Picture Scroll "Hikaru no Go": The First Move).
The cast includes:
- Yōjirō Itokawa as Hikaru Shindō
- Kōji Kominami as Fujiwara-no-Sai
- Tomoru Akazawa as Akira Tōya
- Akio Hirose as Kōyō Tōya
- Teru Ikuta as Akari Fujisaki
Nobuhiro Mōri will direct, script, and write the lyrics for the music in the show. Shinnosuke Motoyama will choreograph and stage the show. Shunsuke Wada will compose the music, and Mitsuhiro Akiyama will be in charge of art.
The show will run at the Sunshine Theater from July 5-14.
Viz Media publishes the manga in North America, and it describes the story:
Hikaru Shindo is like any sixth-grader in Japan: a pretty normal schoolboy with a two-tone head of hair and a penchant for antics. One day, he finds an old bloodstained Go board in his grandfather's attic--and that's when things get really interesting. Trapped inside the Go board is Fujiwara-no-Sai, the ghost of an ancient Go master who taught the strategically complex board game to the emperor of Japan many centuries ago. In one fateful moment, Sai becomes a part of Hikaru's consciousness and together, through thick and thin, they make an unstoppable Go-playing team. Will they be able to defeat Go players who have dedicated their lives to the game? Will Sai achieve the "Divine Move" so he'll finally be able to rest in peace?
Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine serialized the original Hikaru no Go manga with Hotta's story and Obata's art from December 1998 to July 2003. The series won at the Shogakukan Manga Awards in 2000 and received the Shinsei Prize in the 7th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize awards in 2003. Viz Media published all 23 compiled book volumes in North America.
A television anime adaptation first aired in Japan from 2001 to 2003 and had 75 episodes. A Hikaru No Go: New Year Special anime aired in January 2004. Viz Media also released part of the series on DVD in North America.
The manga inspired a Chinese live-action series that debuted in 2020 and is streaming on iQIYI.
Source: Weekly Shonen Jump issue 21
