What kind of voyeur are you? Moyoco Anno’s manga Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen follows a 20th-century Paris brothel and its star prostitute, Colette, who chronicles her perverse clientele while she becomes romantically fixated on the gigolo Leon. This premise sets the scene for the immersive musical adaptation at the Night Egg, a newly designed venue named for the manga’s setting.

Rob Ashford directs and choreographs a cast led by Beetlejuice star Sophia Anne Caruso as Colette. Composer/lyricist Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening and American Psycho) and scriptwriter Leah Nananko Winkler round out the creative team of Memoirs, billed as the first American, English-language musical adaptation of a manga.

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Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop puppets and Studio Ghibli have teamed up to delight London audiences of all ages with the stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro, running at the Gillian Lynne Theatre through January 10, 2027. The show, penned by British playwright Tom Morton-Smith, adapts Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 film about two sisters who befriend forest spirits while living with their sick mother. The production’s grandest showpiece is a towering, textured Totoro puppet, revealed through a curtain of greenery.

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Write someone’s name in a notebook and write them a cause of death to your liking: That's the concept of writer Tsugumi Ohba illustrator Takeshi Obata's manga Death Note, now adapted into a musical. Bored Japanese high school student Light gets his hands on a Death Note and wreaks his twisted vision of justice on criminals and the unorthodox detective trailing him.

“My son told me I had to do it, as it would be the coolest thing I’d ever done,” Tony-nominated Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn said about writing and composing Death Note: The Musical, with English lyrics by Jack Murphy and book by Ivan Menchell. An English-language demo recorded by a stacked cast, including Jeremy Jordan as Light, helped draw attention to the project.

Death Note: The Musical cycled through stagings in South Korea and Japan before the musical finally had an English-language London premiere in 2024. That production, now with a revised book and songs, just wrapped a run at London's Barbican Centre and will return there in March 2027. But Death Note isn't Wildhorn's only manga musical...

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“You’re already dead” is the chilling catchphrase of a martial artist who can strike an enemy’s pressure points with such precision that they burst into bloody pieces. Do exploding bodies lend themselves to musicals? Frank Wildhorn thinks so. After all, he musicalized the 1980s manga Fist of the North Star, a beloved but notorious envelope-pusher for gore. The musical premiered in December 2021 at Tokyo’s Nissay Theatre, followed by tour stops across Japan and China.

In a WhatsOnStage interview with director/choreographer Nick Winston, Wildhorn expressed hope that he and Winston can bring Fist of the North Star to the West End or Broadway.

Your Lie in April, Naoshi Arakawa's manga series that has also been adapted into a TV show and a movie, was ripe for musicalization. It follows teen piano prodigy Kо̄sei Arima, who becomes too grief-stricken to play until he meets violinist Kaori Miyazono, and their music-making reawakens him.

Frank Wildhorn’s tender musical adaptation played at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in 2024.

Frank Wildhorn, The Great Gatsby lyricist Nathan Tysen, and book writer Susan Soon are developing a stage musical adaptation of Akihiro Nishino's picture book Poupelle of Chimney Town and its 2020 anime feature film. In the smoggy title city, a boy and a smelly garbage creature team up to restore the stars to the skies. The project has had private industry readings in New York City.

Furthermore, a proshot of a separate Japanese musical adaptation, with music by Ko Tanaka and English lyrics by Jessica Wu, can be viewed on YouTube with English subtitles. According to this production’s official YouTube account, an Off-Broadway run is being planned.

Mourners of The Phantom of the Opera, which closed on Broadway after a 35-year run in 2023, can catch the masked opera ghost in the immersive NYC production Masquerade. But you haven’t seen his story in anime form — yet. Andrew Lloyd Webber's production company, LW Entertainment, and Justin Leach of Qubic Pictures Justin Leach (producer of the Star Wars: Visions anime anthology) have reported plans to turn The Phantom of the Opera into an anime.

As of now, details are as scarce and mysterious as the opera ghost himself, but anime is a plum medium for the show's dark, fantastical world.

You can collect Pokémon cards and catch em’ all, but you can’t pocket live theatre. Radio City Music Hall was once the site of Pokémon Live!, which toured the U.S. from 2000-01. Populated by actors costumed as Pokémon creatures, the musical included a mix of original songs and songs from two anime soundtracks, Pokémon 2BA Master and Totally Pokémon.

Plans for a proshot never materialized, but stage manager Chris Mitchell released the grainy recording of the show’s Milwaukee performance on December 30, 2000.

Whole Hog Theatre continued cultivating Anglo-Japanese collaborations with The Garden of Words, based on the 2013 anime film by Makoto Shinkai, at London's Park Theatre in July 2023. The story a shoemaking teenager, a woman he meets in a Japanese park, and their relationship that dangerously blurs the lines between romantic and platonic.

London Theatre's critic highlighted the production’s use of Man'yōshū poetry, dangling paper strands suggesting a wisteria tree, and the “yearning, questing people who have been rendered wistful, or wayward, by love.”

Watch out for giants! Hajime Isayama’s bestselling manga follows the orphaned Eren Yeager as he battles the man-eating Titans with an organization of giant-slayers. Dramatizing the manga's high-octane aerial battles fell to breakdancing champion Go Ueki, director and choreographer of Attack on Titan: The Musical, which premiered in Osaka, Japan in January 2023. On stage, the monsters manifest as projections and puppets.

In 2024, Attack on Titan: The Musical swung into New York City Center for a sold-out three-day run, with the finale teasing a part two. Blu-rays of the musical, filmed during its Japan run, are sold on online platforms like eBay.

Naoko Takeuchi’s manga Sailor Moon, which bewitched the American market in the 1990s, has theatrical flair baked in. The Sailor Scouts' "Magical Girl Transformations" aren't unlike quick changes, and the lesbian characters Haruka Tenou and Michiru Kaiou were inspired by the Takarazuka Revue, a Japanese theatre troupe.

It's no surprise, then, that Sailor Moon musicals were already a staple of Japanese theatre when Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: The Super Live tour (with English supertitles) had its North American debut at the New York City’s PlayStation Theater in 2019. In 2025, the tour returned to New York City’s Palladium Times Square for a three-day run.

To relive Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning 2001 film Spirited Away, travel to Spirited Away: Live on Stage, essentially a living, breathing pop-up book of the movie. The visually stunning production, staged by Tony-winning director John Caird (Les Misérables) and co-adapted by Maoko Imai, is scheduled for a world tour from 2026-28.

The story follows young Chihiro's fight to survive an array of gods and spirits who might be friend or foe. Weaving Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatre traditions with inventive puppetry, the play also includes three new songs drawn from Miyazaki’s lyrics. Mari Natsuka, who voiced the sorceress Yubaba and her twin Zeniba in the film, reprises her role.

Additionally, a proshot returns to cinemas for two screenings during the 2026 Ghibli Festival, each with a different actress as Chihiro.

If My Neighbour Totoro is Hayao Miyazaki’s playful, pastoral love letter, Princess Mononoke shows his ruthless side. Considering that Miyazaki’s acclaimed 1997 film opens with a demonized boar besieging a village, it’s apt that Studio Ghibli teamed up with Whole Hog Theatre to translate the story to the stage in 2013. A sold-out run broke the box office record for London's New Diorama Theatre, and the play subsequently transferred to Tokyo.

The adrenaline-fueled manga sports genre captivates millions. One important entry is Musical: The Prince of Tennis, a series of stage musicals that adapt Takeshi Konomi’s 1999 tennis manga. Since the first installment's premiere in 2003, the sprawling series became known as the gateway for the 2.5D musical industry — that is, musical adaptations of Japanese manga, anime, and video games.

Three "seasons" of Musical: The Prince of Tennis, each containing multiple shows, came out between 2003 and 2020. The franchise is still touring in Japan, and DVDs of the shows are available to buy.

The Demon Slayer franchise has proven to be a behemoth, with record-breaking movies and 2.5-D stage musicals.

When young coalseller Tanjiro's sister Nezuko is forcibly transformed into a bloodthirsty demon, he trains himself as the titular demon slayer to avenge his family and restore his sister’s humanity. The stage musical recreates the manga's illustrations of katana combat with practical stagecraft and 3D projections that summon flame, water, and electricity.

Part one of the Demon Slayer musical series can be viewed on the anime streaming platform Crunchyroll with English subtitles. Meanwhile, in Japan, the series's sixth musical, Pillar Training & Invasion of the Infinity Castle, ran from June 13-28, 2026 in Tokyo.