Live-Action Ao Haru Ride/Blue Spring Ride Season 2 Teaser Unveils New Cast, January 19 Debut

WOWOW began streaming a new teaser video for the second season of its live-action series of Io Sakisaka‘s Blue Spring Ride (Ao Haru Ride) manga on Friday. The teaser reveals a new cast member, as well as the January 19 premiere date for the six-episode season.

Sakurazaka46 member Karin Fujiyoshi (seen below) plays Yui Narumi.

The first season premiered on WOWOW on September 22, and will end with its eighth episode later tonight.

Masato Kimura directed all of the show’s episodes except the fifth and seventh episodes, which Yūsuke Matsuda directed. Sayaka Kuwamura is penning the script.

The story revolves around Futaba, a girl who was in love with a boy named Kō Tanaka in middle school. However, after a misunderstanding, their relationship as friends ends when he transfers schools over summer vacation. In high school, her world is turned around once more when she meets Kō again, this time under the name of Kō Mabuchi. Both have undergone great changes in personality in their time away from each other, with Futaba abandoning her once girly personality for the sake of fitting in with her classmates, and Kō’s turbulent family life turning him cynical and sarcastic.

Sakisaka launched the manga in Shueisha‘s Bessatsu Margaret magazine in 2011, and ended it in February 2015. Shueisha published 13 compiled book volumes for the series. Viz Media released the manga in English.

Production I.G adapted the manga into a 13-episode television anime series that aired in Japan from July to September 2014. The manga also received a live-action film adaptation, which opened in Japan in December 2014, topping the box office in its opening weekend with a 241 million yen (US$2.05 million) gross.

Sources: WOWOW‘s Twitter account, Comic Natalie