Shungiku Uchida's Minami's Lover Manga Gets Musical Stage Play in December

A website opened on August 31 to announce the musical stage play adaptation of Shungiku Uchida 's Minami's Lover ( Minami-kun no Koibito ) manga, which will run on December 6-16 at the Nippon Seinenkan Hall in Tokyo. The musical adaptation will have the lead high school couple Minami and Chiyokō (character name romanization not confirmed; Chiyomi in the original manga) as a male couple.

Idol group OCTPATH member Shunsei Ōta (second from left in image above) and Who-ya of Who-ya Extended (left) will both play the role of Sōsuke Minami. ICEx member Sena Takeno (third from left) and actor Ryō Sekoguchi (right) will both play the role of Chiyokō Horikiri.

Additional cast members include (from top left to bottom right in image above, some character name romanizations are not confirmed):

Yuka Arai is writing the script, Tsuneyasu Motoyoshi is directing the musical and is in charge of lyric composition, Oreno Graffiti is composing the music, and Genta Yamaguchi is in charge of choreography.

Fantagraphics is releasing the original manga in English and describes the story:

In this raunchy, moving, funny manga for adults, high school student Minami's girlfriend, Chiyomi, shrinks down to six inches tall — and moves in with him! Originally appearing in the underground/alternative manga magazine Garo in the 1980s and adapted for television several times, the Japanese pop culture sensation Minami's Lover is the story of two high schoolers' romantic relationship when one of them shrinks down to six inches tall. Everyone thinks Chiyomi has disappeared, and suspicion naturally falls on Minami, identified as her boyfriend in her diary. But after inexplicably finding herself in such a state, Chiyomi moves in with him. As depicted in Uchida's clean, loose line and Zip-a-Tone textures, the two soon adapt to the unusual circumstances, devising ways for Chiyomi to use the toilet, brush her teeth and hair, attend classes, and more. After some silly sequences of trial and error, they even figure out a sex life. But in addition to learning how to navigate logistics, jealousy, and the cat, they're also growing up (if not taller). Uchida uses the conceit of a teen couple literally learning how to take care of one another to examine gender dynamics and intimacy.

Uchida first published the manga in her Shungiku manga collection. It was then serialized in Katsuichi Nagai and Seirindo Co., Ltd. 's Monthly Manga Garo magazine from 1986 to 1987, with the final chapter appearing in a volume released by Seirindo in July 1987. Bungei Shunju collected and reprinted the series in 1998, and Seirinkogeisha published a revised edition in 2004.

The manga has been adapted into a live-action television special in 1990, an 11-episode television series in 1994, another 11-episode live-action television series in 2004, another television adaptation in 2015, and the fifth and most recent live-action series adaptation in 2024. The 2024 series had the roles reversed, with the boyfriend shrinking instead of the girlfriend.

Sources: Minami's Lover musical stage play's website and X/Twitter account , Comic Natalie