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Eleven Arts to Screen 1st Haikara-San: Here Comes Miss Modern Film in U.S. in June

Eleven Arts announced on Monday that it will hold United States theatrical screenings for Nippon Animation's two-film anime adaptation of Waki Yamato's Haikara-san ga Tooru manga. It will release the films with the title Haikara-San: Here Comes Miss Modern. It will start screening Haikara-San: Here Comes Miss Modern Part 1 (Gekijōban Haikara-san ga Tōru Zenpen - Benio, Hana no 17-sai), the first film, on June 8. The second film, Gekijōban Haikara-san ga Tōru Kōhen: Hana no Tōkyō Dai Roman, is scheduled for this fall. The screenings will be in Japanese with English subtitles.

Eleven Arts' website for the anime currently lists a June 8 screening for Bloomfield, Illinois, a June 10 screening for Larkspur, California, and a June 17 screening for San Francisco.

Warner Bros. Japan announced at Anime Expo last July that it plans to screen the Haikara-san ga Tooru films in the United States with English subtitles.

Kazuhiro Furuhashi (Rurouni Kenshin, Hunter x Hunter) directed the first film in the series, which opened in Japan last November. Toshiaki Kidokoro (March comes in like a lion episode director, Fireworks, Should We See it from the Side or the Bottom? line director) is replacing the previously announced Mitsuko Kase (Ristorante Paradiso, Young Black Jack) as the director of Gekijōban Haikara-san ga Tōru Kōhen: Hana no Tōkyō Dai Roman, which opens in Japan this fall. The film was originally slated to open this spring.

The story is set in Tokyo in the Taishō era (1912-1926). The story follows Benio "Haikara-san" Hanamura, who lost her mother when she was very young and has been raised by her father, a high-ranking official in the Japanese army. As a result, she has grown into a tomboy — contrary to traditional Japanese notions of femininity, she studies kendo, drinks sake, dresses in often outlandish-looking Western fashions instead of the traditional kimono, and is not as interested in housework as she is in literature. She also rejects the idea of arranged marriages and believes in a woman's right to a career and to marry for love.

Haikara-san's best friends are the beautiful Tamaki, who is much more feminine than Haikara-san but equally interested in women's rights, and Ranmaru, a young man who was raised to play female roles in the kabuki theater and as a result has acquired very effeminate mannerisms. Haikara-san's betrothed is Shinobu Ijūin, a second lieutenant in the army.

Terumi Nishii (Penguindrum, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable) is designing the characters, and Kentarō Akiyama (ReLIFE, Magic-kyun! Renaissance, Selector Infected Wixoss) is in charge of both background design and art direction. Kunio Tsujita (INTERSTELLA 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, Penguindrum) is the color designer. Takeo Ogiwara (Chain Chronicle: The Light of Haecceitas, Yuri Kuma Arashi) is the director of photography at Graphinica. Kazuhiro Wakabayashi (Eureka Seven, Kuromukuro) is the sound director, and Michiru Oshima (Sound of the Sky, Little Witch Academia) is composing the music. Nippon Animation is in charge of animation production.

The all-female Takarazuka Revue theater troupe's Flower Troupe performed a musical adaptation of the manga last October.