Haruhi, Lucky Star Casts Reunite for Live Stage Readings of Unanimated Stories

In honor of the 20th anniversary of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star franchises, the casts of both anime are reuniting for special live stage readings of stories that were never animated on March 10. The readings will be part of the “SOS☆Appreciation Festival” at the Tokorozawa Sakura Town in Saitama from March 9 to March 24.

Image via Comic Natalie’s Twitter© Nagaru Tanigawa, Noizi Ito/KADOKAWA (c)美水かがみ

The stage readings will be split into a daytime session and an evening session. Aya Hirano, Kaori Fukuhara, Emiri Katō, and Aya Endo will reprise their roles from Lucky Star for the daytime session to read a story written by the anime’s series script supervisor Touko Machida. Hirano, Minori Chihara, and Yuko Goto will then reprise their roles from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya to read a script based on the “Wandering Shadow” story from The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya novel volume in the evening session.

The appreciation festival will also feature screenings of selected episodes and discussion panels with cast members on March 9, 16, and 23.

Fans can try their luck in the advance drawing for tickets that started on January 20. Fasn can also purchase a separate ticket to stream the event on the Niconico and Streaming+ services until March 17.

The first season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya anime premiered in 2006 in a non-linear order, and was rebroadcast in 2009 with new episodes and a new chronological order. The story adapts Nagaru Tanigawa and Noizi Ito’s The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya light novels. Bandai Entertainment previously held the license both series. Kyoto Animation animated the show’s first and second seasons.

The light novels were first published in 2003.

Kadokawa’s Comptiq magazine had been running the Lucky Star manga since its January 2004 issue, and Kadokawa published the 10th compiled volume in Japan in November 2014. Yoshimizu had put the original manga on hiatus in 2014, due to a new project he was planning.

Yoshimizu’s story of four school girls already inspired a number of spinoff manga as well as the 2007 Lucky Star television anime, an original video anime (OVA) project, and 2013’s Miyakawa-ke no Kūfuku spinoff anime. Bandai Entertainment released part of the original Lucky Star manga, the television series, and the OVA in North America. Funimation streamed the anime, and Crunchyroll also previously streamed it.

Source: Comic Natalie

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