Yes, there is a live action version of the beloved Manga/Anime Series Inuyasha. Sadly the only location that the stage play will perform is in Japan. Running Between April 6 to April 15 at The Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo, Isamu Kayano will be directing at Nelke Planning and actor/voice actor Takeshi Matsumura wrote the script which shows much promise in the stage play’s potential.
For those who are not familiar with the series, Inuyasha is a fantasy based story taking place in ancient Japan where demons and religion ruled across the land. The story begins when a school girl named Kagome discovers an ancient well which she accidentally falls into and discovers that she has been sent into a land that is completely foreign to her. She then discovers a young man named Inuyasha, pinned to a tree then helps free him of his bindings. She discovers that he is a half demon, half human that had a love affair with a priestess named Kikyo, who was responsible for binding him to the tree. With a sharp resemblance between Kagome and the priestess, there was much confusion between the two. As it turns out, Inuyasha was trying to steal a sacred jewel which gives any demon immense power but was thwarted by the one who swore her life to protect the jewel with her life. That jewel was later shattered and scattered across the land, which leads our two protagonists to journey out and collect all the shards to restore peace to humanity that has been ravaged by the demons who have obtained a piece of the jewel.
The series has had 2 adaptation stage plays previously with Masashi Todayama directing and Hidenori Inoue had produced. One ran from April-May of 2000 in theaters across Japan and the second run of the play ran from January-February of 2001 at the Akasaka ACT Theater in Tokyo.
Kaoru Noguchi and Kenichi Kobayashi have been added to the roster of the stage play and so far things are beginning to look promising. The actors for Kagome and Kikyo have been revealed for Rumiko Takahashi’s manga Inuyasha. Nogizaka46 members Yumi Wakatsuki and JUNNA Itō has been announced to play as Kagome Higurashi and Kikyo. Yumi is going to play as the female protagonist Kagome while JUNNA is playing as the legendary Kikyo.
The staff of the play also revealed two other cast members with Kaoru Noguchi playing as Kaede and Kenichi Kobayashi playing as Oshō. Golden Bomber member Yutaka Kyan (Fushigi Yugi stage play) has been previously revealed to play as titular Inuyasha.
The world renowned series was created by Rumiko Takahashi and released the popular manga on the Weekly Shōnen on a Sunday in 1996. The series ended it in 2008 with many fans missing the long running series after a 12 year run. Once the series became a success, Viz Media licensed and published all 56 volumes of the manga in North America.
With the huge success of the manga, an animated series was released which ran 167 episodes which ran between 2000-2004 and then inspired 26 episode sequel anime titled InuYasha: The Final Act that ran from 2009-2010 due to the high demand and attention the series received. Takahashi released a small manga segment in March of 2011 to raise money to aid the damaged regions of Japan when the earthquake and tsunami hit back in 2011.
A very diverse story for those interested in trying something new and for those who wish to explore the world of Inuyasha, anyone who is familiar with the series will highly recommend those who are not to read or watch the series.
Written by Hugh Huynh