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Fist of the North Star Musical Returns With New Cast
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The official website for the Musical Fist of the North Star stage musical adaptation of Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's Fist of the North Star manga revealed on Saturday that the musical will have two new runs this year in September and October with a mix of both new and returning cast members.
The musical will run at the Bunkamura Orchard Hall in Tokyo from September 25 to 30, and at the Canal City Theater in Fukuoka from October 7 to 10.
Dancer and actor Yūsuke Ōnuki (The Millionaire Detective - Balance: UNLIMITED's Daisuke Kanbe) returns as Kenshirō. Other returning cast members include:
- Ayaka Hirahara and May'n (double cast) as Yuria
- Takuya Uehara and Kandai Ueda (double cast) as Shin
- Ao Watanabe as Bat
New cast members include:
- Ryōsei Konishi as Toki
- Miisha Shimizu as Mamiya
- Akane Liv as as Tou, Toyo
- Hiroaki Miyakawa as Ryūken, other roles
- Ryōsuke Miura as Rei
- Noboru Nakayama as Rihaku, other roles
- Aiichirō Miyagawa as Dagur, other roles
- Yōhei Isshiki as young Raou
- Hiroki Hyakuna as young Toki
- Sumito as Fudou, other roles
- Kirihito Saitō as Misumi, other roles
- Mitsuyo Iwase
- Kanade Kio
- Anna Sakaguchi
- Lei'oh
- Naomi Koita
- Mina Shibata
- Junpei Shimada
- Riku Noma
- Shōdai Moriuchi
Kanata Irei and Kazuya Kamikawa will play Juuza, with Irei returning to the role from the previous runs, and Kamikawa new to the role. Likewise, Shōichi Fukui and Masaru Nagai will play Raou, with Fukui returning to the role, and Nagai new to the role. As well, Rena Yamazaki and Manaka Kuwabara will play Lin, with Yamazaki returning and Kuwabara new.
The stage musical is a co-production of HoriPro, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, and the Shanghai-based theatre performance company Ranspace, in collaboration with Coamix. Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & HYDE, Whitney Houston's "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," Death Note: The Musical) scored the music, and Sachiko Ishimaru is directing. Ako Takahashi wrote the book and lyrics, while Jasmine Chiu handled the choreography.
The production's first run held its world premiere at Tokyo's Nissay Theatre last December, before playing in other regions of Japan in January. The musical is still slated to go on tour in China this fall.
HoriPro is streaming a six-minute digest video of the first run of the stage play with English subtitles.
The original manga ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1983 to 1988. Viz Media began publishing the manga in a new edition digitally and physically in June 2021. The manga has inspired several television anime, films, and spinoff anime. Hiroshi Kurao launched a new Fist of the North Star spinoff manga titled Hokuto no Ken Seikimatsu Drama Satsuei-hen (Fist of the North Star Apocalypse Drama Filming Arc) on the Comic Zenon manga website in February 2021.
The manga previously inspired the Hokuto no Ken - Seikimatsu Zako Densetsu (Fist of the North Star - End of the Century Legend of a Random Thug) stage production in September 2017.
Sources: Musical Fist of the North Star's website, Comic Natalie
