Grand Blue Dreaming Manga Goes on Hiatus, Inspires Stage Play for 10th Anniversary – News

The August issue of Kodansha‘s Good! Afternoon magazine announced on Friday that Kenji Inoue and Kimitake Yoshioka‘s Grand Blue Dreaming comedy manga did not publish a new chapter, due to Inoue’s poor health. The magazine stated that Inoue is already recovering, and the manga is scheduled to return in the next issue on August 7.

In addition, the August issue of Good! Afternoon also announced a stage play adaptation titled Butai Grand Blue (Grand Blue Dreaming on Stage) to celebrate the manga’s 10th anniversary. The stage play will run from November 13-17 at the Theater Mixa in Tokyo.

The stage play stars (image above from top left to bottom right):

• Gaku Takamoto as Iori Kitahara
• Ryō Saeki as Kohei Imamura
• Shion Tachibana as Chisa Kotegawa
• Sumire Yokono as Nanaka Kotegawa
• Yuki Iino as Shinji Tokita
• Yūki Kimisawa as Ryūjiro Kotobuki
• Kei Kawamoto as Aina Yoshiwara
• Arihiro Matsunaga as Hajime Nojima
• Yoshinari Oribe as Yū Mitarai

Yū Murai is directing and writing the script for the stage play.

The Grand Blue Dreaming manga previously went on hiatus from January to March 2021, as Inoue had been suffering from back pain due to overwork. The manga went on hiatus again for one month in May 2021 due to one of the creators being hospitalized for a sudden emergency. Most recently, the manga went on hiatus in February 2023 due to one of the creators suffering from a sudden illness.

Kodansha USA Publishing is releasing the manga digitally in English, and it describes the story:

After moving out on his own to a seaside town, Iori Kitahara makes a college debut he never anticipated. A new chapter of his life unfolds, full of diving with beautiful girls and shenanigans with a gaggle of lovable bastards! Idiot-expert Kenji Inoue and au naturel authority Kimitake Yoshioka bring you a glorious college tale filled with booze-fueled antics!

Inoue and Yoshioka launched the manga in Kodansha‘s Good! Afternoon magazine in April 2014. Crunchyroll is also releasing chapters of the manga as they debut in Japan. Kodansha published the manga’s 22nd compiled book volume on April 5. Kodansha USA Publishing will release the 20th volume on November 19.

The manga inspired a television anime that premiered in July 2018. Amazon Prime Video streamed the anime worldwide as it aired. The manga also inspired a live-action film that opened in Japan in August 2020.

Sources: Good! Afternoon August issue, Grand Blue stage play’s X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie