Hiatari Ryōkō!


Hiatari Ryōkō! is a high-school romance manga by Mitsuru Adachi. It was published by Shogakukan in 1979–1981 in the magazine Shōjo Comic and collected in five tankōbon volumes. It was later adapted into a live-action television drama series, an anime television series, and an anime film sequel to the television series. The title translates roughly as What a Sunny Day!

Plot

The story focuses on the relationships of Kasumi Kishimoto, a high school student. When she enters Myōjō High School, she moves into her aunt's boarding house, where four boys attending the high school are tenants. Despite her steadfast determination to stay loyal to her boyfriend, who is studying abroad, Kasumi finds herself slowly falling in love with one of the boarders, Yūsaku.

Characters

;Kasumi Kishimoto
;Yūsaku Takasugi
;Takashi Ariyama
;Shin Mikimoto
;Makoto Aido
;Chigusa Mizusawa
;Katsuhiko Muraki
;Keiko Seki
;Masato Seki
;Taisuke
;Maria Ōta
;Shinichirō Ōta
;Sakamoto
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Live-action drama

The live-action TV drama series ran on NTV from 1982-03-21 through 1982-09-19, for a total of 19 one-hour episodes. The role of Kasumi Kishimoto was at first scheduled to be played by Minako Sawamura, but due to trouble during the shooting of the first episode, the role was given to Sayaka Itō and principal photography with Itō began the following day. The theories as to why Sawamura left include a refusal to do a bath scene and possible schedule conflicts with another show on which she was appearing.
Competing against it in the same time slot were two popular shows: NHK's Taiga drama Tōge no Gunzō and TV Asahi's drama Seibu Keisatsu Part II. Due to this kind of competition, the ratings were not very high for Hiatari Ryōkō!. As this was Adachi's first work adapted for TV, this was disappointing. In the 8pm Sunday time slot, NTV traditionally ran a school drama of some sort, but after the disappointing ratings for Hiatari Ryōkō!, they switched to variety programs in the vein of Kume Hiroshi no TV Scramble and Tensai Takeshi no Tenki ga Deru Terebi!!.

Staff

The theme song for the live-action drama series was "You're the Best", sung by Takayuki Takemoto. The song was produced by CBS/Sony.

Video releases

A DVD box set containing the full series was released by VAP on 2006-02-22.
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Anime

Hiatari Ryōkō completed its serialization in 1981 with five volumes. However, the television anime adaptation of Adachi's later manga, Touch, became a hit which made it possible for the series to get adapted even after completion. Virtually all of Touch's staff, such as series director Gisaburō Sugii and composer Hiroaki Serizawa, moved to Hiatari Ryōkō as soon as Touch's production concluded. Much of Touch's voice cast were in this anime as well, excluding Noriko Hidaka. It seamlessly replaced Touch, which ran for two years in the same timeslot. The anime television series consisted of 48 half-hour episodes made for Fuji TV, airing from March 22, 1987 to March 20, 1988. It was followed by theatrical anime movie, which served as an alternative version, titled What a Sunny Day! Ka - su - mi: You Were in My Dreams. The movie ran as a double feature with the first Kimagure Orange Road film and included all three of Kimagure's opening theme songs as background music.

Theme songs

There were three opening and three ending theme songs throughout the course of the anime television series.

Opening

Ending

Video releases

The anime series has been released on LD by Toho, and a DVD box set was released in January 2006. The anime movie has been released on VHS and LD by Toho but not DVD.
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