Land of Tanabata

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A 10-episode supernatural mystery drama in which Disney+ adapts, as an original series under its Star brand, the manga of the same name that Hitoshi Iwaaki, creator of Parasyte, serialized in the late 1990s.

In Japan, the series premiered on July 4, 2024 as a Disney+ Star exclusive, with its 10 episodes released in six installments: July 4 (episodes 1–3), July 11 (episodes 4–5), July 18 (episodes 6–7), July 25 (episode 8), August 1 (episode 9) and August 8 (episode 10). In Korea, Disney+ lists it under the Korean title 칠석의 나라 (Land of Tanabata) with a 19+ rating. The source is a manga that Hitoshi Iwaaki serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits from 1996 to 1999; it was collected in 4 volumes, and a complete edition in 2 volumes followed in 2003. In announcing the adaptation, Disney+ described the manga as a work that had been called "impossible to adapt" because of its large scale and provocative depictions. The music is by Yoshitaka Fujimoto.

Directing duties were shared by Yusuke Taki, Takahide Sano and Hayato Kawai, and the screenplay was written by Akiko Miyoshi, Mari Asato and Yusuke Taki, with Takamasa Oe credited for script cooperation. Taki directed some episodes of the drama My Dear Exes and directed the Netflix film In Love and Deep Water, and he has said he read the manga during its serialization in Big Comic Spirits when he was in high school and university. The series has 4 producers, including Teruhisa Yamamoto. Yamamoto produced the film Drive My Car and the Disney+ series Gannibal, and on season 1 of Gannibal, Hayato Kawai served as co-director and Takamasa Oe as the main screenwriter. The official copyright notice names Toei alongside the original author and Shogakukan (©2024 Hitoshi Iwaaki/Shogakukan/Toei).

Kanata Hosoda plays the protagonist, Yoji Minamimaru. Known by the nickname Nanmaru, he is the head of a university club called the New Skills Development Research Society and has an ability that is useless except for making small holes in objects without touching them. In episode 1, Nanmaru is summoned by Masami Marukami (Hiroshi Mikami), a folklore professor he has never met, only to find that the professor has already disappeared, and Sayuri Emi (Mai Kiryu), a lecturer in Marukami's seminar, and seminar students Sakuragi (Reika Nishihata) and Tagaya (Tatsuomi Hamada) ask him to help search for the professor. Episode 2 is set in Marukawa Town in the Tohoku region, known as "Marukami Village," where the group goes to trace the professor's steps. The residents of this insular town, which holds an out-of-season Tanabata festival every June, treat Nanmaru alone with unusual hospitality. Sachiko Higashimaru (Ryoko Fujino), who works at a café in town, talks to Nanmaru about an ability associated with those "within reach" (te ga todoku mono), and her older brother Takashi (Shuhei Uesugi) has the same power as Nanmaru. Yoriyuki Marukami, a man whose identity is not revealed, is played by Takayuki Yamada with his face almost entirely concealed by special makeup. Yui Narumi plays Aki, a member of the club, and Masato Ibu plays Ryuzo Higashimaru.

When the adaptation was announced, original author Hitoshi Iwaaki said that screen adaptations of his manga are like grandchildren to him, the apple of his eye, and after the release he said that although he knows the overall story, he still found himself drawn in, and that with the actors' performances added, he felt a sense of breadth and vitality. Director Yeon Sang-ho, who made Netflix's Parasyte: The Grey, sent a comment saying that when he first read the manga, he felt the same excitement as when he first saw Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. At a screening held the day before the release, director Taki said he had felt that bringing the story to the screen required capturing the distinctive atmosphere and rhythm of the original, and in an interview he said he tried to preserve the feeling he had when he first read the manga, weaving in some of its lighter episodes that give a breather. Ryoko Fujino said that at the first script reading she played Sachiko as somewhat light, close to the manga, and was told by the director to play her more flatly and not to overdo it; the director added that he had told Hosoda, who plays Nanmaru, the same thing. Of Takayuki Yamada, who plays Yoriyuki, the director recalled that there was a moment when everyone on set was overwhelmed by his performance.

See alsoParasyte: The Grey 2024Parasyte: Part 1 2014Parasyte: Part 2 2015Gannibal 2022In Love and Deep Water 2023My Dear Exes 2021

Drama Lineup editors · Fact-checked against: toei.co.jp, thetv.jp, Japanese Wikipedia, oricon.co.jp, disneyplus.com, Official site, press.moviewalker.jp · 2026-10-14