A new Ouran High School Host Club play will be streamed worldwide.
Distributor Avex Pictures announced that it will provide a global broadcast of the live-action manga adaptation. The new take on Bisco Hatori's beloved reverse-harem comedy will livestream two performances of the stage play. The first performance will be held in Tokyo on Jan. 23 and the second will occur in Osaka on Jan. 30. Fans can purchase virtual tickets for each event for $30 USD. In addition to being able to watch the play live as it is performed, ticket-buyers will also be given one week access to an on-demand recording of each performance. The stage adaptation of the manga is being directed by Natsuki Chobi and stars actor Junya Komatsu, who previously appeared in Kamen Rider Revice, the latest TV series in the long-running tokusatsu (costumed hero) franchise.
Avex Pictures proudly hosts the world-wide live stream of the first stage musical adaptation of Ouran High School Host Club?
— avex pictures (@AVEXpictures_) January 17, 2022
Tokyo performance (Jan 23) ?: https://t.co/cdhQmzMU78
Osaka performance (Jan 30)?: https://t.co/n1MmmPTMfc
The archive will be available for a week. pic.twitter.com/zA6eUPGp75
Ouran High School Host Club tells the story of Haruhi Fujioka, an androgynous young student who is given a scholarship to the prestigious Ouran High School, an elite private academy for Japan's richest and most powerful families. A series of misunderstandings forces Haruhi to work for the school's Host Club, a group of the school's six most attractive and popular boys, who have made a business out of entertaining their female classmates over tea and conversation. Things get complicated when the boys realize that Haruhi is a girl and that they'll need to hide her gender from the club's clientele. The situation becomes even more complex when several members of the club begin to develop feelings for their newest coworker.
The original manga was created by Bisco Hatori and serialized in LaLa magazine from 2002 - 2010. An anime adaptation premiered in 2006. The show was produced by studio Bones, which would later go on to work on the My Hero Academia and Mob Psycho 100 anime, and was directed by Bungo Stray Dogs' Takuya Igarashi. The anime starred veteran voice actress Maaya Sakamoto (Code Geass, Re:ZERO) as Haruhi and Mamoru Miyano (Death Note, Chihayafuru) as the eccentric leader of the club, Tamaki Suoh. Both the manga and the anime have received widespread acclaim for their lovable cast of characters and satirization of common romance manga tropes, and have maintained a dedicated following to this day.
The new play won't be the first live-action adaptation of Bisco's work. A live-action TV series based on the manga was broadcast in Japan in 2011, and was popular enough to warrant a feature film continuation.
The Ouran High School Host Club anime series is now available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Tubi, Funimation and Crunchyroll. The original manga is available in English from VIZ Media.
Source: Avex Pictures, Twitter
