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A3! AUTUMN Manga Launches on October 28
posted on by Alex Mateo
Ichijinsha's November issue of Monthly Comic Zero-Sum magazine revealed on September 27 that Liber Entertainment's A3! actor-training smartphone game that Yoshimi Muneyama will launch a manga adaptation titled A3! AUTUMN in the magazine's next issue on October 28. A3! AUTUMN is the sequel to Muneyama's A3! SUMMER manga. Ryō Fujiwara is credited as character designer. The first chapter will have color opening pages.
Muneyama launched the A3! SUMMER manga in Comic Zero Sum in July 2018, and the manga ended on July 26. Ichijinsha published the manga's second compiled book volume on August 23. The series was a sequel to Muneyama's A3! SPRING manga.
The manga centers on Izumi Tachibana, who inherits her father's MANKAI Company stage company. She pursues plans to stage four shows every year to keep the company alive.
The A3! game debuted for smartphones in January 2017, reaching two million downloads within a month of its debut. The game has surpassed 5.5 million downloads as of July 2018. The app ranked #2 in iOS game sales in Japan two times on January 9 and January 10, 2018. CYBIRD plans to release 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 is inspiring an anime project. The anime will air on television in two halves — "Season Spring & Summer" will run from January to March 2020, and "Season Autumn & Winter" will run from July to September 2020. Kaori Nazuka will play Izumi Tachibana, the leader and chief director of Mankai Company. The 20 cast members for the in-story actor groups are reprising their roles from the game.
Keisuke Shinohara (Black Fox) is directing the anime at P.A.WORKS and Studio 3Hz. Mariko Komatsu is adapting the original character designs by Fujiwara and serving as chief animation director. Naoki Hayashi (Black Fox) is in charge of the series scripts. Infinite is producing. Masayoshi Ōishi is producing the anime's opening theme song, after doing the same for the game.
The game inspired a stage play that debuted at The Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo in summer 2018, and also ran in Kyoto before ending its run at The Galaxy Theatre in November 2018. Another stage play titled Mankai Stage A3! ~Autumn & Winter 2019~ ran at the Nippon Seinenkan Hall in Tokyo from January 31 to February 11, at the Shimonoseki Community Hall in Yamaguchi on February 23 and 24, at the Umeda Arts Theater in Osaka from February 27 to March 3, and at The Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo from March 15 to March 24.
Sources: Monthly Comic Zero-Sum November issue, website, and Twitter account
