| Princess Knight | |
 The cover for the first volume of Princess Knight from the Osamu Tezuka Manga Complete Works edition | |
| リボンの騎士 (Ribon no Kishi) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy[1] |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Osamu Tezuka |
| Published by | Kodansha |
| Magazine | Shōjo Club |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Original run | January 1953 – January 1956 |
| Volumes | 3 |
| Manga | |
| The Twin Knights | |
| Written by | Osamu Tezuka |
| Published by | Kodansha |
| English publisher | |
| Magazine | Nakayoshi |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Original run | January 1958 – June 1958 |
| Volumes | 1 |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Osamu Tezuka |
| Published by | Kodansha |
| English publisher | |
| Magazine | Nakayoshi |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Original run | January 1963 – October 1966 |
| Volumes | 5 |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Osamu Tezuka |
| Illustrated by | Kitano Hideaki |
| Published by | Kodansha |
| Magazine | Shōjo Friend |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Original run | April 1967 – April 1968 |
| Volumes | 1 |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Osamu Tezuka Chikao Katsui Kanji Akabori |
| Produced by | Tadayoshi Watanabe Kazuyuki Hirokawa |
| Music by | Isao Tomita |
| Studio | Mushi Production |
| Licensed by | |
| Original network | Fuji TV |
| English network | |
| Original run | April 2, 1967 – April 7, 1968 |
| Episodes | 52 |
| Anime film | |
| Directed by | Masayoshi Nishida |
| Produced by | Minoru Kubota Sumio Udagawa |
| Written by | Mayumi Morita |
| Music by | Tomoki Hasegawa |
| Studio | Media Vision |
| Released | 1999 |
| Runtime | 8 minutes |
Princess Knight, also known as Ribon no Kishi[b] is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. This manga follows the adventures of Sapphire, a girl who was born accidentally with a blue heart of a boy and a pink heart of a girl. She pretends to be a prince to prevent the evil Duke Duralumin from taking over the kingdom through his son, Plastic. The gender-bending main character was inspired by the all-female musical theater group Takarazuka Revue in which women performed both female and male roles.
The story was ordered by one editor of Kodansha's magazine Shōjo Club who wanted Tezuka to produce a manga aimed towards a female audience that could replicate the success of his former boy-aimed stories. The author then created Princess Knight, originally serialized in that magazine from 1953 to 1956. The manga's popularity resulted into a radio dramatization in 1955, three other serializations between 1958 and 1968, and a 52-episode television anime series by Mushi Production that aired on Fuji TV from 1967 to 1968. It has also influenced several stage musicals since the 1980s and inspired remakes of the work by other authors.
The series' arrival in the English-speaking market was delayed by NBC Enterprises executives' perception that it could be interpreted as "sex switch". However, still in the 1970s, the television series got a dubbed version produced by Joe Oriolo. Renamed Choppy and the Princess, it was released to American, Australian, and British television audiences, with home video releases to follow. The manga would only reach the anglophone public years later, in 2001 when Kodansha International published a bilingual edition of Princess Knight, which was followed by a newer version by Vertical in 2011.
One of Tezuka's most famous works and widely regarded as a classic, Princess Knight has been very influential in the manga and anime industry. Its portrayal of gender roles is ambiguously interpreted by critics; some claim it has pro-feminist ideals and others think it expresses misogynist ideals of the 1950s–60s Japanese society. Nonetheless, it would start a tradition of androgynous-like heroines and establish several trends in the shōjo genre. In fact, it is considered to be one of the first works in this genre that was narrative-focused and that portrays a female superhero.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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