Kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke V (right in image below) suffered an injury during the daytime performance of the kabuki stage play adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga on Sunday, and the production canceled the day’s evening performance. The performances are continuing as scheduled on Monday. (The performances on Monday are scheduled for 11:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. JST.) The stage play began its run at Tokyo’s Shinbashi Enbujo last Friday, and will continue until December 25.
Kikunosuke plays titular protagonist Nausicaa, and Nakamura Shichinosuke II (left in image above) plays Princess Kushana, the princess of a kingdom which Nausicaa and her people owe fealty to.
G2 is directing the play, which will debut in December. Kikunosuke V is also credited as the one who originally proposed the idea for the play. Shichinosuke also played the Mikado in Isao Takahata and Studio Ghibli‘s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya film. Other cast members include Matsuya Onoe, Minosuke Bandō, and Ukon Onoe II.
Miyazaki created the original Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga in Tokuma Shoten‘s Animage magazine before adapting part of the story for a 1984 anime film. While the film was made before Studio Ghibli was founded, it is often retroactively considered to be part of the studio’s body of work, as many of the film’s key staff that would eventually form the studio. The story follows a warrior princess who protects her land amid wars in a post-apocalyptic Earth. Miyazaki drew the manga from 1982 to 1994. Viz publishes the manga in North America. Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.
Sources: Kabuki Bito, Comic Natalie