Warner Bros. Japan announced on April 2, 2024, that Tsubasa Yamaguchi’s Blue Period manga will be getting a live-action film adaptation, with Gordon Maeda taking on the lead role. The film is scheduled to release on Aug 9, 2024.

A teaser trailer and visual were revealed to commemorate the announcement.

Cast includes:

• Gordon Maeda as Yatora Yaguchi
• Fumiya Takahashi as Ryuji Ayukawa
• Rihito Itagaki as Yotasuke Takahashi
• Hiyori Sakurada as Maru Mori

Blue Period live-action film will be directed by Kentaro Hagiwara, who is known for his work on the Tokyo Ghoul film. Reiko Yoshida, who penned the screenplay for the Blue Period anime, will handle the screenplay for the film.

Mangaka Tsubasa Yamaguchi expressed her excitement on the film, stating, “After watching the film, I was deeply impressed by the things that couldn’t be expressed in the manga, such as the scenery I couldn’t see when I was drawing, the expressions of the characters portrayed by the actors, and the sense of ‘space’ before they speak. I felt a genuine sense of reality in each scene of the movie ‘Blue Period.’ The cast members spent a lot of time practicing painting, and when I saw them on set for the first time, I was simply amazed by how their gestures became like those of artists. Especially when I met Mr. Maeda, I felt a sense of awkwardness as if I had met ‘Yaguchi-kun,’ a classmate. It was truly wonderful to entrust this work to Director Hagiwara, who had a clear vision of how to turn this work into a movie from the planning stage and always aimed to deliver the movie to the audience. I hope everyone can feel the passion of starting something new.“

Blue Period is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tsubasa Yamaguchi. The series has been serialized in Kodansha’s seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon since June 2017 and has been collected in fifteen tankōbon volumes as of November 2023.

By November 2021, the manga had over 4.5 million copies in circulation. In 2020, Blue Period was awarded the 44th Kodansha Manga Award in the General category and the Grand Prize of the 13th Manga Taisho award.

An anime television series adaptation produced by Seven Arcs aired from October to December 2021.

Source: Comic Natalie