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Manga Sutra - Futari H to Get Both Film & Net Projects
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The 10th issue of Hakusensha's Young Animal magazine revealed on Friday that the previously announced live-action adaptation of Aki Katsu's Futari Ecchi (Futari H) romantic comedy manga will be both a film and an online project. The manga follows an inexperienced couple and their comic adventures as they explore intimacy with each other. Each project will have separate casts, and both projects will be released this summer.
Director Kazuhiro Yokoyama's film version will star Yūri Morishita and Riki Miura (Here is Greenwood) as the couple Yura and Makoto Onoda. Other cast members include Miyuki Yokoyama as Rika Kawada, Atsushi Ninomiya as Yūsuke Nagatsuka, Aimi Nakamura (GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka) as Makie Sugiyama, Hideki Nakamatsu as Manabu Okahama, Hidehiko Emi as Kōichirō Matsuzaki, Takahiro Ochi as Yosaku Inagaki and Mika Kubota as Mai Nagao. Juri Sanemura is writing the screenplay.
The net version will star Nana Nanaumi and Shinnosuke Fukushima as the main couple Yura and Makoto. Other cast members include Takaso Kase as Akira Onoda, Sasa Handa (Tokyo University Story) as Sanae Onoda, Marumi Shiraishi as Akiko Onoda, Ayaka Tomoda as Rika Kawada, YUKIO as Taku Yamada, Natsumi Kamata (Phone Braver 7) as Jun Onoda, Rakuto Tochihara (Kamen Rider Hibiki) as Yōsuke Inoue, Saki Seto (Hana Yori Dango 2 [Returns]) as Miyuki Kikuchi, Yukiko Suō as Makie Sugiyama, and Tarō Suwa as Makoto's boss Katori.
More information will be made available in future issues of Young Animal and Young Animal Arashi.
Aki Katsu (Psychic Academy, The Vision of Escaflowne) has been drawing the manga, which describes itself as a "love bible" or a "user's manual" for people in love, in Young Animal and Young Animal Arashi since 1997. Hakusensha published the manga's 49th compiled book volume in Japan in February, and the manga has sold 23 million copies so far. Tokyopop published the manga in North America under the name Manga Sutra - Futari H before announcing that it would close its North American publishing operations.
Media Blasters released the 2002-2004 original video anime adaptation of the same manga under the name Step Up Love Story. There was a previous live-action television mini-series adaptation of the manga in 2003.
Source: Comic Natalie
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