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Midnight Occult Civil Servants Manga Gets Stage Play
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Kadokawa announced on Monday that Yōko Tamotsu's Mayonaka no Occult Kōmuin (Midnight Occult Civil Servants) manga is inspiring a stage play adaptation that will run at Tokyo's Shinjuku FACE event hall from October 29 to November 7. Riki Tanimizu stars in the play as protagonist Arata Miyako. Satoshi Ogita is directing the play, with a script by Kaori Moriyama.
The modern fantasy manga centers on Arata Miyako, a new government worker assigned to the Shinjuku Ward Office's "Nighttime Regional Relations" department. Each of Tokyo's 23 wards has one such department, which were established to solve paranormal and occult-related events. Arata can understand non-human speech that no one else understands, and he encounters a yōkai (supernatural entity) at Shinjuku Gyoen park that calls him Abe no Seimei — the name of a historical Japanese occultist and diviner.
Tamotsu launched the manga in Kadokawa's Monthly Asuka magazine in May 2015, and the manga also runs on Kadokawa's Comic Newtype website. Kadokawa published the manga's 12th volume with an original anime DVD last November, and the 13th volume will ship on May 23 with the beginning of the manga's final arc.
The manga inspired a television anime series that premiered in April 2019. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan and Funimation streamed an English dub. Crunchyroll also streamed episodes 13-15 of the show last September. The episodes shipped on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in Japan last October after streaming on Hikari TV in September.
The manga also inspired a novelization by Masumi Suzuki that the Kadokawa Horror Bunko label published in July 2018.
Sources: Midnight Occult Civil Servants stage play's website, Comic Natalie
