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Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. and Japan began streaming the live-action film of Tsubasa Yamaguchi‘s Blue Period manga on Friday.
The film opened in Japan on August 9, after screening at the Japan Cuts film festival in New York on July 13.
The film stars:
Kentarō Hagiwara (live-action Tokyo Ghoul) directed the film, Reiko Yoshida (Blue Period anime) wrote the script, and Yūki “Yaffle” Kojima composed the music.
Yamaguchi launched the manga in Kodansha‘s Afternoon magazine in June 2017. Kodansha published the manga’s 16th compiled book volume on November 21.
Kodansha USA Publishing is publishing the manga in English, and released the 15th volume on August 20. The company describes the story:
Yatora is the perfect high school student, with good grades and lots of friends. It’s an effortless performance, and, ultimately … a dull one. But he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst—and he’s about to learn how savage and unforgiving art can be!
The manga won the 13th Manga Taisho awards in 2020, and was nominated for the awards the previous year. The series was also nominated for the 24th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in February 2020, and also ranked at #14 on the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! male readers list in December 2019, and ranked #15 on the same list in December 2020. The manga also won the Best General Manga award in the 44th annual Kodansha Manga Awards in 2020.
The series inspired a television anime adaptation in 2021. The anime debuted on Netflix in Japan in September of that year, and then later on Japanese television in October. Netflix began streaming the anime outside of Japan in October 2021, with weekly new episodes.
The series received a stage play adaptation in March 2022.
Sources: Amazon Prime Video, Anime Hack via @WTK
