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BL Metamorphosis Film's Clip Shows Urara Talking With Childhood Friend

Nikkatsu began streaming a new clip on Thursday for the live-action film adaptation of Kaori Tsurutani's BL Metamorphosis (Metamorphose no Engawa) manga. The clip features Urara talking to her childhood friend Tsumugu (Kyōhei Takahashi), who wants to get close to another girl. The video then ends with a trailer for the film.

The film will open in Japan on June 17. The film's in-story boys' love manga Kimi no Koto dake Miteitai (I Only Want to Keep Looking at You) will also have its own live-action four-episode series adaptation that will debut on Hulu on Friday.

Mana Ashida stars in the film as Urara, while Nobuko Miyamoto stars as Ichinoi. Additional cast members include Naniwa Danshi's Kyōhei Takahashi, Kotone Furukawa, Tomoko Ikuta, Ken Mitsuishi, Yuki Shioya, Taeko Itō, Asumi Kikuchi, and Shūtarō Ōoka.

Shunsuke Kariyama is directing the film, with a script by Yoshikazu Okada. Hidehiro Kawano, Yutaka Tanito, and Hiroko Ōgura are credited as producers. Both Tsurutani and BL manga creator Janome are drawing the BL manga that will appear within the film. Lead actresses Mana Ashida and Nobuko Miyamoto perform the film's theme song, a cover of the Tjiros song "Kore Sae Areba" (As Long as I Have This).

Seven Seas Entertainment has released the manga in English, and it describes the story of the first volume:

Ichinoi, a 75-year-old woman living a peaceful life, unwittingly buys a Boy's Love Manga ONE day…and is fascinated by what she finds inside. When she returns to the bookstore to buy the next volume, the high school girl working there–Urara, a seasoned BL fan–notices a budding fangirl when she sees one. When Urara offers to help Ichinoi explore this whole new world of fiction, the two dive into BL fandom together, and form an unlikely friendship along the way.

Tsurutani launched the manga on Kadokawa's Comic Newtype website in November 2017, and ended it in October 2020. Kadokawa published the manga's fifth and final volume in January 2021 along with Tsurutani's 2007-2015 short story collection.

The manga topped the list of manga for female readers in the 2019 edition of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook. The manga ranked sixth in the 12th Manga Taisho in 2019, and also earned the New Face Award in the 22nd Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2019.

Sources: Nikkatsu's YouTube channel, Comic Natalie