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A3! Stage Plays Get 2 Live-Action Films

The official website for the stage plays of Liber Entertainment's A3! male actor-training smartphone game announced on Wednesday that the franchise's first two stage play productions are inspiring two live-action films. Mankai Movie A3! ~Spring & Summer~, based on the Spring & Summer stage play, will open this December, while Mankai Movie A3! ~Autumn & Winter~, based on Autumn & Winter, will open in 2022.

Kenji Kurata is directing both films, and also penning the script for the first film. He is co-writing the script for the second film with Hideyuki Kobashi. Fumiya Matsuzaki and Shinjirō Kameda, the director and scriptwriter of the original stage plays, are credited for stage and script supervision. Yu (vague), the composer for the stage plays' music, is returning for the films.

The cast members for Mankai Movie A3! ~Spring & Summer~ include Ryugi Yokota, Ryōya Takahashi, Yūki Maekawa, Toshiki Tateishi, Yamato Furuya, Shō Jinnai, Yū Miyazaki, Jun Noguchi, Reo Honda, Tomoru Akazawa, Ryo Taguchi, Kōsuke Kujirai, Ray Fujita, Tomohiro Tauchi, Ryo Kitazono, Ryūjirō Izaki, and Ryunosuke Kawai.

The cast members for Mankai Movie A3! ~Autumn & Winter~ include all the above, but adding Kenta Mizue, Tarō Nakamura, Ryotaro Akazawa, Seiya Inagaki, Yoshihiko Aramaki, Keisuke Ueda, Ryosei Tanaka, and Kandai Ueda.

The franchise's first two stage plays ran in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The franchise then ran two new stage plays in 2019, and two new stage plays in 2020. A new Four Seasons Live 2020 stage play is slated to run this September.

The A3! game debuted for smartphones in January 2017, reaching two million downloads within a month of its debut. CYBIRD released the game worldwide in English.

The game features four male actor groups, each themed after a particular season. Players take the role of the producer, and are responsible for training the performance skills of their group.

The franchise also has a television anime. A3! Season Spring & Summer, the first two arcs animated, began with the "Season Spring" arc in January 2020, but delayed episode 4 and beyond due to issues related to the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) exacerbating scheduling problems in the production. It restarted its airing from the first episode again in April 2020. The "Season Summer" arc launched in May 2020 with seven episodes. The A3! Season Autumn & Winter anime premiered in October 2020. Funimation is streaming the anime.

Sources: A3! stage plays' website, The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web