Jazz manga Blue Giant is getting an animated movie adaptation and details are starting to get reported on what could be a smash hit musical movie.
Set to be released to theaters in Japan on February 17th, 2023, the story follows a high school senior named Dai who feels like something is missing from his life. That’s when he decides to become “the best jazz player in the world,” except he doesn’t know what he has to do in order to make that dream into a reality.
Animated by studio NUT, the movie will be directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa who will work off a screenplay written by the person who has been the editor in charge of the manga ever since it debuted in 2013, NUMBER 8. Unfortunately, the most important piece of the puzzle was left unaccounted for which would be who is handling the music for this feature. While I’m grateful to know the studio that will bring this series to life, if your central theme is jazz music, you should probably put your composer front and center for fans to see.
Launched as a manga series in the seinen manga magazine Big Comic in May 2013, the first part (titled Blue Giant) ran until August 2016. A sequel series titled Blue Giant Supreme also ran in Big Comic from September 2016 to April 2020. Then, in May 2020, a third part titled Blue Giant Explorer began and is still running currently. If you’re wondering, the series has been collected into 26 volumes so far in Japan as of the end of this month. Seven Seas is publishing the series in English and completed the first part in March 2022.
In the spring 2012 season, we got a certain other jazz series called Kids on the Slope. In that series, which took place in the past, fans were treated to a marvelous story with crisp animation that has yet to be matched since. Will Blue Giant be worthy of stepping on the toes of that series or will this be a flat note that sputters right from the get-go? It’s going to be very interesting to find out and I look forward to seeing a promotional video for this feature soon.
Source: Crunchyroll News
