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Sazae-san Sequel Stage Play Reveals Visual, Additional Cast
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The official Twitter account for the new stage play adaptation of the Sazae-san anime revealed the main visual and additional cast on Friday. Nogizaka46 idol group member Manatsu Akimoto and Hinatazaka46 member Kyōko Saitō are double cast as Wakame.
Previously revealed cast members include:
- Norika Fujiwara as Sazae
- Ryūji Harada as Masuo
- Yoshihiko Aramaki as Katsuo
- Shunya Ōhira as Tarao
- Keiko Takahashi as Fune
- Ken Matsudaira as Namihei
The play will first run at Tokyo's Meiji-za theater from September 3 to September 17, and then it will move to Fukuoka's Hakata-za theater from September 28 to October 13.
The stage play is part of the 50th anniversary celebration for the anime adaptation of Machiko Hasegawa's Sazae-san manga. Takahiro Tamura is directing and writing the play set a decade after the anime's story.
In 2017, Cup Noodle's animated "Hungry Days" advertising campaign imagined how Sazae and her future husband Masuo Fuguta met in high school.
Special anime and collaborations with popular television programs are also slated for this fall. In addition, the website announced that the tentatively titled "Sazae-san-ten" exhibition will mark the anime's 50th anniversary. The exhibition developed in cooperation with Fuji TV will debut in Tokyo this summer and run in various locations throughout Japan.
Fuji TV will air a one-hour New Year's special for the Sazae-san anime series on January 6 at 6:00 p.m. The 50th anniversary special will air four mini episodes titled "Isono-ke no Kaiun Ryokō: Chichibu wo Iku" (A Trip of Better Fortune for the Isono Family: Going to Chichibu), "Otoshidama wa Tsurai yo" (New Years Gifts are Painful), "Mikan Kobanashi" (A Short Story about Mikan Oranges), and "Eiga no Okazu-tachi" (The Movie of Okazu and Friends).
The anime adaptation of Machiko Hasegawa's family life manga Sazae-san began airing in October 1969. The anime is usually the highest ranked animated series in Japan each week. In 2013, the show was awarded the Guinness World Record for longest-running animated television series.
Sources: Sazae-san stage play's Twitter account, Comic Natalie
