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Among Netflix\u2019s slate of upcoming anime was a bright new film headed to the streamer, The Ribbon Hero. \u201cNew\u201d being the operative word because the film is actually inspired by Osamu Tezuka\u2018s classic manga Princess Knight, though judging from their appearances, you\u2019d be hard-pressed to recognize that. However, rather than recoiling in fear at how different the two works look, I\u2019m actually pretty amped about it. If you read the above and thought to yourself, \u201cWho\u2019s Osamu Tezuka?\u201d I\u2019m gonna go ahead and rip the rug from underneath you in saying that if you even have a fleeting appreciation for animation, manga, and anime, you\u2019re already predisposed to him, whether you know his name or not. Known as \u201cThe Godfather of Manga,\u201d Tezuka is the creator\u00a0of\u00a0Astro Boy, Black Jack, Kimba the White Lion, and so much more. He\u2019s your favorite mangaka\u2019s favorite mangaka, inspiring whole generations of creatives, including Dragon Ball\u2018s Akira Toriyama, Ghost in the Shell\u2018s Masamune Shirow, and even Studio Ghibli\u2019s Hayao Miyazaki. As we near what would have been Tezuka\u2019s centennial, his enduring influence on the anime industry is being reintroduced to a new generation of anime fans through Studio OUTLINE\u2018s aforementioned anime film, inspired by his 1953 manga\u00a0Princess Knight, which premieres\u00a0on Netflix this August.<\/p>\n
The Ribbon Hero\u00a0follows the journey of a \u201ccursed\u201d princess named Sapphire who takes up arms to not only overcome the trauma of her past, but to protect her citizens from feral creatures who wish to do them harm. In so doing, Sapphire does a cute magical girl transformation, makes lifelong friends, and battles a bunch of baddies using the power of her magic ribbon. Sounds like your typical cool anime. It also looks wildly different from its source material, which has some diehard fans feeling a bit conflicted.<\/p>\n
For comparison, the Princess Knight manga looks like this: \u00a9 Tezuka Productions And these are the character designs for The Ribbon Hero: \u00a9 Kei Mochizuki\/Studio OUTLINE So yeah, vastly different aesthetics. So much so that it seemed to ruffle the feathers of fans of Tezuka\u2019s classic manga in the replies to Ribbon Hero\u2019s official X\/Twitter account, which posted a key visual of the film, with many people having mixed feelings about how modern and different the anime\u2019s visuals look compared to the manga. Much of the aesthetic difference between The Ribbon Hero and Princess Knight owes itself to the creatives at the helm of OUTLINE\u2019s film. Key among them are character designers Kei Mochizuki (Fate\/Grand Order) and Mai Yoneyama (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Lazarus). The film also serves as the directorial debut of Yuki Igarashi (Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX), who is keenly aware of the expectations placed on OUTLINE\u2019s modern treatment of a beloved classic. \u201cFor this film, I poured in my respect for Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Princess Knight; for Ichizo Kobayashi of the Takarazuka Revue, which lies at the root of the work; and for the supreme, classic entertainment they brought into the world,\u201d Igarashi told Netflix. \u201cThey also created their works while overcoming hardships such as infectious diseases and war, and those works became the very foundation of our culture. To everyone living in this era, I hope you enjoy this blood\u2011stirring, heart\u2011pounding piece of what I believe is \u2018true\u2019 mainstream entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s the difference between Princess Knight\u2018s story and The Ribbon Hero beyond their art styles? Well, after procuring Kodansha\u2019s omnibus of\u00a0Princess Knight,\u00a0reading the manga, and comparing it to what we\u2019ve seen from Netflix\u2019s trailers, Venn Diagram style, I can say quite a lot, actually. But not in the way that other Netflix adaptations go a bit off the rails in an attempt to be different or self-serious. From what I\u2019ve parsed,\u00a0The Ribbon Hero seems poised to maintain the spirit of Tezuka\u2019s work while doing its own thing, and I\u2019m honestly a little excited about that. \u00a9 Tezuka Productions Unlike what appears to be the setup in OUTLINE\u2019s anime, Tezuka\u2019s manga is the stuff of old fairy tales, centering less on the selling point of a warrior princess, though that\u2019s certainly there, and more on gender. The setup has angels in heaven assigning hearts to babies about to be born. One angel named Tink gifts baby Sapphire a blue boy heart moments before Sapphire is given a red girl heart. This oopsie gets Tink kicked out of heaven to find Sapphire and remove her girl heart\u2014a problem made all the worse by the fortune of her birth as the progeny of a Kingdom whose stake lies in her being born a male rather than a female. After a snafu in which a retainer with a lisp confuses the kingdom by calling Sapphire a \u201cprinshesh,\u201d the king and queen continue a farcical ruse, raising their daughter as a boy while those who wish to usurp their power try to expose Sapphire as a boy. Along Sapphire\u2019s journey is a slapstick story that feels like a pastiche of\u00a0Cinderella,\u00a0Sleeping Beauty, and\u00a0The Little Mermaid, and all of Tezuka\u2019s titular whimsy. The manga even got an anime adaptation back in 1967 by Mushi Production, so any loyalists worrying about a faithful adaptation can nip those complaints in the bud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Princess Knight is as silly and fun-loving as it sounds. Looking back on Tezuka\u2019s manga, it\u2019s uncanny how ahead of its time it is narratively, considering that a manga from the \u201950s explores gender in ways that predate Rumiko Takahashi\u2018s\u00a0Ranma 1\/2. Granted, its exploration of gender is still a touch antiquated as a read in the big 2026 (you can fall on either side of it being progressive and a touch misogynistic in Sapphire\u2019s journey). However, it does get there in the end, with both Sapphire\u2019s boyish and girlish nature being seen as a strength rather than a contradiction. That\u2019s rad. While The Ribbon Hero doesn\u2019t appear to be exploring gender as its tentpole theme, fans have gleaned from its trailers that the film may instead focus on queer themes between Sapphire and her gal pal. Given that Princess Knight inspired old-school queer manga\/anime works like MAPPA\u2019s anime adaptation of The Rose of Versailles, it\u2019s likely where the film will go too as a reimagining of its tale. Either that or fans (present company included) are about to lose chess to the dog, as it were, when The Ribbon Hero releases this August. Either way, adaptations should feel more fearless in branching out of the confines of old myths they retell, so long as they\u2019ve kept their core spirit intact, and Tezuka\u2019s works are no different.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time Netflix has landed a reimagining of Tezuka\u2019s classics. In fact, back in 2023, Studio M2 released the anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa (Monster) and Takashi Nagasaki\u2018s Pluto. Pluto, in my humble opinion, was the best sci-fi anime that year. And much of that wasn\u2019t solely in seeing what Atom and its titular villain look like in motion, but from how it used the footholds of its story to strike at something deeper. Namely, Urasawa uses the robot manga to critique the United States\u2019 invasion of Iraq. And that\u2019s just one of the hot-button topics Pluto touched on, weaving new life and perspective, building off the foundation of Tezuka\u2019s Astro Boy. All that to say, despite its aesthetic and story differences, I\u2019m going into The Ribbon Hero with an open mind to see how another group of creatives will reshape and reimagine a classic like Princess Knight\u00a0and keep Tezuka\u2019s stories on the mind of a new generation of anime fans. The Ribbon Hero premieres on Netflix on August 8. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. Among Netflix\u2019s slate of upcoming anime was a bright new film headed to the streamer, The Ribbon Hero. \u201cNew\u201d being the operative word because the film is actually inspired by Osamu Tezuka\u2018s classic manga Princess Knight, though judging from their appearances, you\u2019d be hard-pressed to recognize that. However, rather than recoiling in fear at how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[676],"tags":[816,1376,2175,2176,2177],"class_list":["post-6181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-ai","tag-anime","tag-manga","tag-osamu-tezuka","tag-princess-knight","tag-the-ribbon-hero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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