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Live-Action Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine Show Reveals Title, Main Cast, Story

The official website for the original live-action series inspired by Akatsuki and Kadokawa's Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine smartphone game revealed two main cast members for the series on Tuesday.

The show costars Nagisa Sekimizu as Mai Natsuha and Tōru Nakamura as Tomohiro Itō. In the show's story, Mai is a 17-year-old high school student who gets a part-time job at the Natsuha Batting Center that her uncle runs in Tokyo during her summer vacation. There she meets Tomohiro Itō, a mysterious man and former pro baseball player who watches customers batting every night, and just from watching them swing, he can understand their worries and conflicts. Through his "baseball doctrine" as a metaphor for life, he is able to help the young women who visit the batting center sort through their worries.

Yoshitatsu Yamada and Kōichi Yajima are writing the scripts, and Hiroto Hara, Kentarō Shima, and Kentarō Harada are directing the series.

The series, titled Hachigatsu wa Yoru no Batting Center de. (August is for Nights at the Batting Center), will premiere on TV Tokyo and affiliated networks on July 7.

In the game, the player takes the role of an unnamed former little senior league baseball ace who lost their baseball career after suffering an unspecified injury. The character moves to their grandmother's hometown and enrolls in the local high school, resolved never to enter the world of baseball again. When the character meets Tsubasa Arihara, they are persuaded to be the manager of the school's baseball team, and to take the team to the high school nationals at Koshien.

In the game, players gather team members (there are over 50 characters in the game) and experience the team members' stories. Players also train the members to improve their skills, and take members to games to compete. Players then have to decide on the batting order.

The game launched on iOS and Android devices in June 2017. The game is free to play with in-game items available for purchase.

The game inspired a television anime that premiered in Japan in July 2019. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired. Sentai Filmworks licensed the anime, and released it on Blu-ray Disc on April 14.

Sources: Hachigatsu wa Yoru no Batting Center de's website, Eiga Natalie