I recently watched Gundam 00 and am looking forward to the upcoming Anime Ltd release of Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer. In my research of Gundam 00, I came across the info that a stage play covering the first season was performed last year with a new production this year covering the second season. This is not the first time that I have come across stage play adaptations of anime/manga and decided that I should tackle this topic.
The earliest example I could find of an anime/manga stage adaptation was the 1974 theatrical adaptation of The Rose of Versailles. This production was done by the Takarazuka Revue, an all female theatre troupe who have since done more than 25 different productions of Rose of Versailles. According to the book “A Guide to the Japanese Stage: From Traditional to Cutting Edge”, the 1974-1976 performances drew a total audience of 1.6 million people!
Justin Sevakis of Anime News Network argues that the recent boom of anime/manga stage productions began in 2003 with the release of a stage play musical version of the manga The Prince of Tennis. When The Prince of Tennis production premiered, there was a lack of interest in the production with around two-thirds of the seats in the theatre empty.
However, excitement spread through word of mouth and social media and, in 2015, they announced that they had sold their two millionth ticket. Since then, we have seen a wide variety of anime and manga adapted for the stage such as Sailor Moon, Death Note, Boys Over Flowers and even revisiting older classics such as Haikara-San: Here Comes Miss Modern.
It is worth noting that the primary audience for these productions appear to be women with shojo series or franchises featuring fan service aimed at women most likely to be adapted. Returning to the musical version of The Prince of Tennis, it is notable that there are locker scenes scattered throughout the production where characters remove their shirts while they are talking.
The special effects used in these productions are also quite unusual. I was curious what a stage play adaptation of Gundam 00 would look like so I took a look at a highlights trailer promoting the (at the time) upcoming release of the DVD and Blu-Ray. I was quite surprised to see the actors sitting in elevated chairs with joysticks, pushed around by stagehands and fighting each other hand to hand. Clearly, we are meant to imagine the chair as a mobile suit with the characters fighting each other hand to hand representing the suits fighting but I was still quite amused at how basic it was.
I confess that I was unaware how popular many of these productions are and it continues to shed light on how different anime and manga fandoms can be between East and West. Let me know your thoughts on stage productions of anime and manga and if you have seen any.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!