Features
High School Musical In Japanese
It took a little while, but Disney’s “High School Musical” seems on the verge of conquering Japan the same way it’s conquered dozens of other countries in the past year.
NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, has shown the 2006 TV movie several times. The original film, as well as its attendant dance-along and singalong videos, are in semi-regular rotation on the Japanese version of the Disney Channel.
A huge promotional campaign is under way for the local version of the DVD, which went on sale May 23.
More significantly, a Japanese-language stage production will debut for a two-week run at Tokyo Aoyama Theatre on June 12 and will move to Osaka’s NHK Hall the first week of July.
The show will star Nami Tamaki, a 19-year-old pop singer discovered at a 2003 Sony Music Japan audition where she danced to Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor.”