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One Piece Manga, Anime Inspire Stage Production With Music, Dance
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Shueisha, Toei Animation, and Fuji TV opened a website on Monday to reveal that a stage adaptation of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga and anime franchise has been green-lit. The production, titled One Piece Otoutage - East Blue Arc (One Piece Sound Banquet: East Blue Arc), will run at the Tokyo International Forum Hall C from August 12 to September 2.
The stage performance will portray the manga's East Blue story arc, and will have both musicians performing the music, as well as actors dancing and performing action scenes to portray the story. The performance will feature 35 cast members from both Japan and America.
Kōhei Tanaka, the composer for the anime, will handle the musical direction and arrangement for the stage production. Kahori Kanaya is directing the production, and is also in charge of organization and choreography.
Oda's One Piece manga has previously inspired a kabuki play. The play first ran from October-November 2015 at the Shinbashi Enbujō theater. 100,000 tickets for the Tokyo run all sold out. The play then ran in Osaka in March 2016, and then in Fukuoka in April 2016. Theatrical screenings of the play across Japan premiered in October 2016. A second play, Super Kabuki II One Piece, ran in Tokyo from October to November last year, though Ichikawa Ennosuke IV, who plays Luffy and Hancock in the play, stepped down from the roles after he broke his arm in an on-stage accident. The new kabuki play will run in Osaka from April 1-25.
Other stage performances of One Piece include performances at the One Piece theme park in Tokyo Tower, and the yearly summer performances at Universal Studio Japan using the theme park's Waterworld set. One Piece also has a "holographic" stage event at the DMM VR Theater in Yokohama that premiered on January 20 and runs through February 25.
Source: Comic Natalie
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