'Fruits Basket' manga transformed on stage
Kumi Matsumaru / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Fruits Basket, the best-selling shojo (girls) manga by Natsuki Takaya, will be brought to the stage by all-male theatrical company Studio Life starting next week. Fruits Basket, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume (Hakusensha Inc.) from 1998 to 2006, has sold more than 18 million copies in 23 volumes. In addition to its adaptation into an animation TV program in 2001, the manga also has been published in English since 2004 by Los Angeles-based Tokyopop Inc.
Studio Life's producers describe Fruits Basket as a manga with lots of comedy, but also a deep theme with which everybody can identify, making it one that is suitable to mark the first in what the company hopes will be a long line of stage productions based on manga.
Actor Shun Mikami, who will play protagonist Toru Honda, said he is looking forward to playing the female role, carefully protecting the character's honest, pure mind-set. He says he does not find any difficulties in portraying a woman.
"Toru is a female character, but I don't find any difference between male and female roles when acting, since the important thing is how much you can prepare for the role," Mikami told The Daily Yomiuri during a recent interview. "I read the manga several times, and it gave me a lot of inspiration for my role," said Mikami, who has already played a number of female roles in Studio Life productions, including a fairy in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Margarete in Shi-no Izumi (Fountain of Death), a play based on a fantasy novel by 1986 Naoki literature award-winning writer Hiroko Minagawa.
"Fruits Basket" will play at the Galaxy Theater in Tennozu, Tokyo, on Feb. 26-27, March 2 and 6 at 7 p.m.; Feb. 28, March 1 and 7 at 1 and 6 p.m.; March 3-5 at 2 and 7 p.m. and March 8 at noon and 5 p.m.
