Live-action Kids On The Slope Film's Behind-the-scenes Video Shows School Festival Performance

Film opens Saturday in Japan
Film production and distribution company ASMIK Ace began streaming a behind-the-scenes video for the live-action film of Yūki Kodama's Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope) manga. The video shows the school festival performance scene.


The film is opening in Japan on March 10. Takahiro Miki (live-action Solanin, Aozora Yell) is directing the film, and Izumi Takahashi (live-action Solanin, Museum) is writing the script. Kazumasa Oda is performing the film's theme song "Sakamichi o Nobotte" (Climb the Slope).

The film stars Hey! Say! JUMP!'s Yuri Chinen as protagonist Kaoru Nishimi. Taishi Nakagawa (left in picture below) is playing Sentarō Kawabuchi, and Nana Komatsu (right) is playing Ritsuko Mukae.


The additional cast includes (from left to right in picture above):

• Erina Mano as Yurika Fukahori, the mysterious woman whom Sentarō falls in love with at first sight
• Dean Fujioka as Junichi Katsuragi, whom Sentarō calls "Brother Jun," and looks up to like a real brother
• Baijaku Nakamura as Tsutomu Mukae, Ritsuko's father, and the proprietor of Mukae Records

In addition, the movie also stars Yorie Yamashita, Hokuto Matsumura (Johnny's Jr.), and Tōru Nomaguchi.

The manga follows a naive boy and a scruffy boy in a provincial town in Nagasaki Prefecture in the late 1960s. In the early summer of 1966, Kaoru transfers to the local high school from Yokosuka. Thanks to his family's nearly constant cycle of moving from town to town, Kaoru has only known school as a difficult place for readjusting. However, on his first day at this new school, he meets a boy and begins a new direction in life. The manga won the General Category of the Shogakukan Manga Awards in 2012.

Kodama launched the nine-volume manga in Monthly Flowers in 2007, and ended the series in March 2012. Shogakukan published a one-volume spinoff manga titled Sakamichi no Apollon: Bonus Track in November 2012.

The manga inspired a television anime adaptation on Fuji TV's late-night Noitamina programming block in April 2012. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired under the title Kids on the Slope, and Sentai Filmworks released the series on home video in 2013.