Thanks to YNN Correspondent Mercedes for bring this to my attention early today. Nakamura Ching’s GUNJO is being made into a movie by Netflix. This true-crime style story follows the aftermath of a murder. A desperate woman has the woman who has loved her for years kill her abusive husband. The story happens as they run from the police. The Netflix movie will star Kiku Mizukara and Honami Sato.
Komatsu-san at Crunchyroll News has the details.
Volume 1 of GUNJO is available in English at Nakamura-sensei’s site, on a per-chapter basis. I was able to edit is, with Erin Subramanian doing a fantastic job on translation. I hope you’ll read it! With luck, we’ll get a collected e-book volume soon.
So this will be the official live-action adaptation of the manga? Or just a movie based on?
Considering that Netflix recently also announced an adaptation of one more or less yuri-ish manga from Ajin’s author, it looks like the guys have decided to pay attention to the current popularity of yuri.
You have exactly the same information I do about the movie.
By the way, I forgot to say that the non-yuri shoujo manga about Takarazuka that you mentioned earlier will receive the anime too. However, if I understood correctly, we are already talking about her sequel. https://mobile.twitter.com/kageki_anime/status/1321104372147826689
That’s a great manga. I hope it finds success.
Personally torn about watching this. Obviously I am strongly in favor of a wider variety yuri/lesbian manga adaptations that aren’t fluffy school nonsense or gross moe pandering. It’s awesome too that something ancient by manga standards can get recognized and brought to a worldwide audience due to its quality.
But I have never read the manga because I have always heard it is a relentless downer, filled with violence, tragedy, and angst from start to finish. And while I’ve never had a ton of appetite for stories like that, I find that especially now and for the foreseeable future I don’t think I’ll be in a space to add MORE depression into my life. I can personally only appreciate and process stories like that when after the lights come back on I’m coming back to a place of stability and security. I never feel like pivoting from sadness right into anxiety.
So, kudos to the creator for getting this opportunity. I just don’t think I’ll be able to experience it. :/
In my very personal view this is the best manga I have ever read. It is relentless, but there are amazing moments. It’s not cheerful, but there are moments of affection. It is violent and about desperation and loneliness.
I cannot imagine a live-action story could be as good as the manga. But I will definitely watch it. ^_^
I just read about your post about you finishing the manga. I’m happy to hear (er, read) that you think Gunjou is the best manga you’ve read as I think the same too! I admit that it definitely is not the cup of tea of many but I always become happy whenever I see people appreciating Gunjou! I was worried at first at how they’re gonna compress all the important scenes but reading that it’s gonna be 2 hours and 22 minutes long alleviated some of my worries. Still, given that short amount of time to cover the whole manga, I’m dreading that the movie might fail to capture the manga’s essence but I’m also hoping that they’ll exceed my expectations and be successful in doing so.
The movie is 99% likely to fail to capture the essence of the manga. LOL
Ah, I was just about to DM this news to you, Erica! It’s excellent to hear this is getting a, simultaneous no less, worldwide release. Legal western releases of J-drama are still next to non-existent, so I’ll definitely make sure to watch and share news of this one so maybe Netflix will consider bringing over more licenses.
Also great to hear about the English release of Gunjo, putting that at the top of my Plan to Read now.