Princess Knight

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)
GenreFantasy[1]
Manga
Written byOsamu Tezuka
Published byKodansha
MagazineShōjo Club
DemographicShōjo
Original runJanuary 1953January 1956
Volumes3
Manga
The Twin Knights
Written byOsamu Tezuka
Published byKodansha
English publisher
MagazineNakayoshi
DemographicShōjo
Original runJanuary 1958June 1958
Volumes1
Manga
Written byOsamu Tezuka
Published byKodansha
English publisher
  • JP: Kodansha (bilingual)
  • NA: Vertical
MagazineNakayoshi
DemographicShōjo
Original runJanuary 1963October 1966
Volumes5
Manga
Written byOsamu Tezuka
Illustrated byKitano Hideaki
Published byKodansha
MagazineShōjo Friend
DemographicShōjo
Original runApril 1967April 1968
Volumes1
Anime television series
Directed byOsamu Tezuka
Chikao Katsui
Kanji Akabori
Produced byTadayoshi Watanabe
Kazuyuki Hirokawa
Music byIsao Tomita
StudioMushi Production
Licensed by
Original networkFuji TV
English network
Original run April 2, 1967 April 7, 1968
Episodes52 (List of episodes)
Anime film
Directed byMasayoshi Nishida
Produced byMinoru Kubota
Sumio Udagawa
Written byMayumi Morita
Music byTomoki Hasegawa
StudioMedia Vision
Released1999
Runtime8 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.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference orig was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Schodt 1996, p. 253.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference gravett was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Power 2009, p. 113.


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