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Studio Ghibli fans, hold on to your seats because your favourite anime movie is about to take on the big stage!
That’s right! Spirited Away is set to become a stage play!
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Japanese film, theater production and distribution company Toho recently announced that a theatrical production of Spirited Away will be making its debut in 2022.
This will mark the first-ever stage adaption of one of Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved animated movies and longtime admirer and Tony Award-winning director John Caird is set to write and direct the adaptation.
“We, Hayao and I, both liked John’s vision,” Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki said in a statement. “He is a person we can trust. I am looking forward to seeing Chihiro grown on stage under his direction.”
“I could tell how much he adores this story from his delighted face when I gace him a No-Face (Kaonashi) piggy-bank,” he shared.
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For those unfamiliar, Spirited Away is a coming-of-age story that’s centred around a young girl named Chihiro who begins the story by moving to a new town with her parents.
When the family stumbles on what looks like an abandoned village, her parents eat the food that’s meant for spirits and find themselves transformed into animals and imprisoned by Yubaba the witch.
Chihiro then changes her name to “Sen” and gets a job in Yubaba’s bathhouse where she will need all her wits in order to save her parents, return to the human world, and reclaim her true name.
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The stage production will cast two different actresses in the lead role – Kanna Hashimoto and Mone Kamishiraishi, to honour the duality of the original Japanese title of Spirited Away – Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi.
“I have for many years now regarded Miyazaki Hayao as one of the pre-eminent geniuses of world cinema and the greatest ever proponent of the anime form,” John shared in a statement.
“I share a belief in all the most dominant themes of Miyazaki’s work, themes that are at the core of the Sen to Chihiro world – care for the environment, reverence for nature, a belief in the force of the good spirits within us and the empowerment of young women and men to change the world for the better,” he said.
“The double casting in the part of Chihiro will give me the chance to work again with the brilliant and charming Kamishiraishi Mone, with whom I had such an exciting collaboration on Knights’ Tale, and now affords me the same opportunity with the greatly talented, vivacious, and moving young actress Hashimoto Kanna,” he added.
Image via Japan Times
Spirited Away’s theatrical production will make its debut next year at Toho’s Imperial Theatre in Tokyo from February through March. The stage play will then tour to Osaka in April, Fukuoka in May, Sapporo in June, and Nagoya in June and July.
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Brb, going to save the dates and start saving money!
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Here’s hoping that will be able to travel safely by 2022 so we can see Spirited Away on stage, in person!
Are you a Spirited Away fan? Would you want to see the anime film on stage? Let us know!
Info via Entertainment Weekly