Ribbon no Kishi

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Ribbon no Kishi ( Japanese リ ボ ン の 騎士 , Ribon no kishi , Eng . "The knight of the bow") is a manga series by the Japanese illustrator Osamu Tezuka , which appeared from 1953 to 1956 in Japan. The anime adaptation was broadcast in Germany as Choppy and the Princess .

The work is about a princess who has to pretend to be a boy and can be classified into the genre Shōjo , adventure and comedy .

content

Princess Saphire is the only child of the royal family of the medieval Silverland Empire. So that the kingdom still has an heir, she is raised as a boy, but in private she still learns to behave like a girl. But besides this fact, she was wrongly "assigned" the soul of a boy before she was born. So she has to constantly switch between the two roles of a sword-wielding prince and a well-behaved princess. But soon Duke Jeralmin and Baron Nylon try to reveal their identity as girls in order to take the throne themselves. In addition, a witch tries to completely rob sapphires of their femininity. After her father dies and her mother is thrown into dungeon, Saphire has to flee and fights jeralmin and nylon from the underground. She also falls in love with Prince Franz Charming. But finally she succeeds in regaining the throne and she marries Franz Charming. In doing so, she allows her male soul to be removed in order to become the "right" woman.

Style and Influences

As with other early works by Tezuka, the style of the manga is heavily influenced by that of the Disney films . Another strong influence was the Takarazuka theater group , which Osamu Tezuka often visited in his youth. In this all roles were played by women who were colorfully made up and dressed. This influenced Tezuka's way of drawing eyes and clothes.

publication

The manga was published from January 1953 to January 1956 in the manga magazine Shojo Club of the Kodansha publishing house in Japan. The individual chapters later appeared in four anthologies . A second version of the series appeared in Nakayoshi magazine from 1963 to 1966 .

An English version was published by Viz Media , a French version by Vegetal Soleil and a Spanish version by Glénat . Hazard published the manga in Italian and JBC in Portuguese.

Adaptations

Anime

Television series
German title Choppy and the princess
Original title Ribon no Kishi
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
year 1967
length 25 minutes
Episodes 52
genre Shōjo , adventure , comedy
idea Osamu Tezuka
production Kazuyuki Hirokawa, Tadayoshi Watanabe
music Isao Tomita
First broadcast Apr. 02, 1967 - April 7, 1968 on Fuji TV
synchronization

In 1967, the Mushi Production studio founded by Osamu Tezuka produced a 52-part anime television series on the manga. Directed by Chikao Katsui and Kanji Akabori . The character design was created by Kazuko Nakamura and Sadao Miyamoto . Kazuko Nakamura and Sadao Miyamoto were artistic directors. The series was broadcast from April 2, 1967 to April 7, 1968 by the Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV .

The anime was broadcast in French by France 3, ORTF and TF1 and in Italian by Italia 1, Rete A / All Music and TelePace. It was broadcast in Spanish in Spain, Peru and Cuba, and the series has also been translated into Arabic and Portuguese.

A German version was broadcast by RTL II .

synchronization

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū )
queen Noriko Shindo
king Kyoji Kobayashi
Sapphires Yoshiko Ōta
Lord nylon Goro Naya

music

The music for the series was composed by Isao Tomita .

Motion picture

In 1994, Ribon no Kishi, a film made up of several short films, was produced. The anime has also been translated into Spanish. In Germany the film was released in 1995 on VHS under the title "Der Engel und der Prinz".

Sequels

In 1958, Futago no Kishi, a sequel to Osamu Tezuka's manga, was published in Nakayoshi magazine . It is about the twins Daisy and Violetta, the children of Sapphire and Franz. The manga was published in French by Soleil .

The same magazine published a reinterpretation of the manga drawn by Pink Hanamori and with the scenario by Natsuko Takahashi from 2008 to 2009 .

interpretation

According to Patrick Drazen, Osamu Tezuka depicts an internal conflict in the manga that arises from the existence of two poles in a person. This conflict soon affects the “outside world” and becomes a danger for it. In addition, it is about the classic conflict between duty and desire.

Reception and meaning

The manga had great success among readers in Japan. He first introduced Tezuka's cinematic narrative technique in the Shōjo-Manga and laid down the basic elements of many later works in the genre, such as a love story, a (from a Japanese perspective) foreign environment, a heroine with big eyes and a certain amount of bisexuality. This makes the manga the first modern representative of the genre. The graphic medium of a figure's personal aura - expressionistic patterns around the figure that represent feelings - is also used for the first time in the manga. In addition, Ribon no Kishi is one of the mangas that brought Japanese popular culture a broader spectrum of sexual orientations that go beyond clear homo- or heterosexuality.

The manga influenced many works that followed later, especially of the Shōjo genre. Works like Lady Oscar , Revolutionary Girl Utena, and others make direct reference to Ribon no Kishi .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Patrick Drazen: Anime Explosion! - The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation p. 86 ff. Stone Bridge Press, 2002.
  2. ↑ a b Frederik L. Schodt, Osamu Tezuka (preface): Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics p. 95 f. Kodansha America, 1983.
  3. ↑ a b Trish Ledoux and Doug Ranney: The Complete Anime Guide 58. Tiger Mountain Press, Issaquah (Washington)., 1995
  4. ↑ a b Paul Gravett: Manga - Sixty Years of Japanese Comics , p. 77. Egmont Manga and Anime, 2004.
  5. ↑ Dinah Zank: Girls only !? - Japanese girl culture in the mirror of Manga and Anime p. 148 in ga-netchû! The Manga Anime Syndrome . Henschel Verlag, 2008.
  6. ^ Paul Gravett: Manga - Sixty Years of Japanese Comics, p. 82. Egmont Manga and Anime, 2004.
  7. ↑ Patrick Drazen: Anime Explosion! - The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation p. 93. Stone Bridge Press, 2002. (English)

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