На небесах происходит священное таинство: господь раздает сердца детям, которые должны родиться завтра. Обладателям голубого сердца предстоит стать храбрыми мальчиками, а получившим розовое сердце - добрыми девочками. Но планы Всевышнего нарушает шаловливый ангел Цинк. Из-за его проказ у долгожданного ребенка королевской четы серебряного королевства оказывается сразу два сердца - мужское и женское, и теперь принцессу Сапфир приходится воспитывать как принца. Если вы любите волшебные сказки, романтические истории, невероятные приключения и искрометный юмор, манга "Принцесса-рыцарь. Том 1" японского классика Осаму Тэдзуки - для Вас!
Dr. Osamu Tezuka (手塚治虫) was a Japanese manga artist, animator, producer and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. He is often credited as the "Father of Anime", and is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, who served as a major inspiration during his formative years. His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the father of manga" and "the God of Manga."
¡Pues me ha sorprendido para bien! Se siente mucho más episódico que otros mangas, se nota más que de usual el formato revista y eso le quita esta cosa del cómic japonés de leerse de un tirón en un ratito. Aunque es, por supuesto, corto, creo que leerlo del tirón va en perjuicio del lector.
En algunos sentidos está también, digamos, desfasado. Por momentos impacta la manera de tratar ciertos temas, por momentos repele. También añado que siempre es extraño ver el cristianismo reflejado así.
Sea como sea ha merecido la pena, he disfrutado la lectura y tengo ganas de ponerme con el siguiente tomo
La princesa caballero es un ejemplo de la versatilidad de Osamu Tezuka. En este Shojo nos encontramos a Zafiro, una princesa que tiene que ocultar que es una chica para poder reinar. La historia está repleta de aventuras y líos derivados de este "engaño". Lo que más me ha gustado es que con un estilo que ahora puede resultar naïf, Tezuka nos permite reflexionar sobre los roles de género, a través de una agradable aventura.
Gender, Adventure, Romance, Suspense, and Humor in the First Modern Shojo Manga
By mixing adventure and romance with a disguised female protagonist, Tezuka Osamu’s Ribbon No Kishi or Ribbon Knight or Princess Knight (1953-56) started the modern shojo (girls’) manga, leading to things like Sailor Moon. Tezuka also added some interesting elements regarding gender and identity, and through 700 pages told an exciting, humorous, unpredictable story with dynamic artwork and layouts.
The story begins in heaven, when a mischievous pint-sized angel called Tink approaches the line of babies waiting to be born on earth and shoves a boy’s heart into a baby girl just before God inserts a girl’s heart in her, so she is born with both a boy’s and a girl’s heart. Tink’s punishment is to descend to earth until he’s able to get the girl to act feminine enough and or to remove her boy’s heart from her. His task is complicated by the fact that the girl, Sapphire, is born to the King and Queen of Silverland, and as only males may inherit the throne (shades of Japan) and as they have no other children, they announce that their baby is a boy. Thus, Sapphire grows up as Prince Sapphire, learning fencing and horse riding and acting masculine, apart from some private moments where she’s able to dress like a girl and enjoy flowers in a private palace garden. Meanwhile, the scheming Duke Duralumin and his nefarious minion Sir Nylon suspect the truth and try underhandedly to reveal that Sapphire is a girl. If they’re successful, Duralumin has a spoiled young son called Plastic ready to be a puppet on the throne.
This situation provides Tezuka with plenty of gender material. Much of it is stereotypically disappointing: e.g., boys’ hearts in heaven are blue, girls’ red, and Sapphire is rather weak, passive, blushing, and “feminine” when her girl’s heart is dominant compared to her feisty self when her boy’s heart is dominant, while Plastic becomes independent and commanding after swallowing Sapphire’s boy’s heart. Despite Sapphire having been raised as a boy, she starts acting like a girl the second she has a chance to. At one point, the pirate Captain Blood gives her (disguised as a boy) a beautiful ball gown, and as soon as she’s alone she puts on the dress, becoming a swooning maiden, daydream-dancing with the prince of Goldland, Franz Charming. She speaks feminine Japanese when alone and masculine Japanese around other people. The reader never forgets that Sapphire is always a girl, even when she refers to herself with the male pronoun “boku” and says to guys who see her in feminine costume and want to marry her, “Hah--I’m a boy!” The manga repeatedly indicates that because her body is female, Sapphire is female, regardless of the gender of her heart or hearts.
Although Sapphire is a girl who can do most of the things a boy can, she’s often rather passive, getting captured and wounded and rescued more often than she does the capturing, wounding, and rescuing. A good fighter, she’s nonetheless often defeated when possessed only of her girl’s heart. After all, in many ways she’s a stereotypical traditional girl as seen from the 1950s. Tink at one point asks Sapphire, “Which do you want to be, a boy or a girl?” That the question is starkly binary reveals Tezuka’s 1950s era: there’s no question of Sapphire choosing both or neither.
All that said, when the early 50s publication of the manga is accounted for, Tezuka does some cool things with gender, like criticizing the (Japanese style) line of succession through male heirs only. The women of Silverland are stronger than the men (husbands, soldiers, advisors, etc.), and make the men start doing “women’s” work to teach them a lesson and win a war between the genders. And the most powerful and compelling characters in the story are female. Metamorphosing people or turning herself into a dragon and summoning snakes etc., the formidable witch Madam Hell wants to take Sapphire’s girl’s heart and give it to her own wild daughter Hecate. The ponytailed Hecate, clad in modern slacks and turtleneck, doesn’t want Sapphire’s girl’s heart and constantly subverts her mother’s plans. The goddess Venus also transforms herself or others and becomes a potent foe of Sapphire’s. Finally, Furibe, a young lady who dons black armor (with hearts over her breasts), fights in tournaments and wants to marry Sapphire disguised as a boy.
Into his episodic story Tezuka weaves disparate elements: Christianity, Greek mythology, the supernatural, chivalry, pirates, fairy tales, and exotic islands. He also does some social commentary (as when Plastic makes a law guaranteeing equal treatment for women and men), refers to other literature (as when Duralumin compares his suddenly independent and feminist-oriented son Plastic to King Lear’s wicked daughters), and plays postmodernist tricks (as when Duralumin tells Nylon to take a photo of Sapphire dressed as a girl only to have his minion say, “Unfortunately, cameras have not been invented in this era”).
About Tezuka’s art, it often looks cartoonish and violates human anatomy. His animals look cuter and less natural even than Disney’s. His art is nothing like Hal Foster’s for Prince Valiant or Otomo’s for Akira. But Tezuka’s art is dynamic and vivid and boasts playful or compelling visual touches, as when Duralumin becomes so frustrated at not being able to execute Sapphire that he bites the bottom line of his panel frame and pulls it up with his teeth. Another remarkable page features a broad panel at the top showing Captain Blood bringing a life-restoring medicine to Silverland, sailing in a small boat on the sea set against the big full moon, beneath which panel a pair of broad ones combine to show a single scene, Silverland’s castle and surrounding town set against the same moon. The juxtaposed scenes impress with suspense and beauty. And Tezuka’s imaginative flights of fancy are neat, as when Tink dreams that he’s surrounded by an orchestra of crickets, their music swirling all around him.
In Ribbon no Kishi, Tezuka created a compelling and immeasurably influential and amusing, exciting, surprising, and sometimes moving story. There is an English translation available…
Se si pensa che quest'avventura è stata scritta agli inizi degli anni Sessanta, viene voglia di tornare indietro nel tempo e capire cosa sia andato storto nella ricerca dei modi per raccontare e condividere l'identità di genere. Pur essendoci alcuni stereotipi dettati dalla società, Osamu li sottolinea con sguardo critico e a volte ironico escogitando un inganno pur di evitare di lasciare un popolo in mano a dei tiranni. Zaffiro sembra sapere cosa desidera ma non si lascia certo fermare da ciò che detta il suo cuore e la sua testa. Tavola dopo tavola, una serie di (s)fortunati eventi guida il lettore fra tratti semplici eppure splendidi, di quelli che hanno il sapore del classico.
3.5* Que de mésaventures pour cette pauvre Saphir à qui on ne laisse jamais de répit ! Ce manga a près de 50 ans et ça se ressent, pas uniquement à cause du style graphique rétro mais aussi dans la narration qui avance à toute vitesse, chaque case présente une action, il n’y a quasi pas de moment introspectif. Mais c’est efficace pour être assez prenant. Aussi, j’ai bien aimé l’humour cabotin de l’auteur.
I bought this volume because I watched the anime when I was a kid. It was one of my favorites and I loved drawing the characters. The two works are different in terms of plot and characterization. The comedy is now outdated, but it's a pleasure to read the work from which the anime was taken. As a trip down memory lane, it's more than good enough.
Un desastre en todos los sentidos. No se si es que Tezuka no se esforzó por ser este "un manga para chicas" o es que es un autor muy sobrevalorado. Aquí la reseña completa de toda la serie: https://lasangrealrio.wordpress.com/2...
Un classico degli anni ‘80, che ho deciso di leggere perché da bambina amavo l’anime. Lo stile è effettivamente datato, la storia richiama archetipi di fiabe classiche, questo la rende un’opera originale e piacevole da leggere.
Este es un manga que, aunque cae en los estereotipos propios de su época, resulta sorprendentemente progresiva para el Japón de los 60. Combina influencias de Disney y elementos cristianos, presenta una protagonista que anticipa la figura de la “mujer fuerte” y explora el género de forma temprana. Incluye momentos de sororidad, reivindicaciones feministas y una visión más matizada del bien y el mal (aunque sigue siendo infantil, pues esa es la demografía). Es un pilar histórico del shōjo ideal para quienes quieran entender cómo evolucionó la representación de género en el manga.
Nuestra protagonista nace con un destino truncado: debía nacer hombre pero nace mujer. Y para colmo de males, hubo una confusión que hace que deba actuar y vivir como un hombre.
Su "doble" personalidad estará atravesada por ese deseo constante de querer vivir tal cual es: una mujer. Además de empezar a vivir aventuras inimaginables.
Una obra que en su trama retoma otros relatos pertenecientes a los clásicos de la literatura universal y del cine infantil: "La doncella guerrera" y "Mulán". Junto a estos relatos, son incorporados diferentes tópicos del cine de Hollywood.
La Princesa Caballero está lejos de mis obras favoritas de Tezuka, las de su etapa oscura, a pesar de sus puntos de interés. La serie es de las pioneras en dirigirse a un público femenino, vía la manida imaginería del Príncipe Azul/Princesa de cuento, aunque bajo este estereotipo contiene una (beligerante)reivindicación de los derechos de la mujer. Lo más curioso es su carácter occidentaloide, que va más allá de la intrínseca influencia de Disney, aquí explícita sobre todo en el personaje de la Bruja: las resonancias cristianas, la mitología clásica y la literatura de aventuras alejan el relato de las raíces orientales de su autor, por lo menos a simple vista. Lo mejor, el gozo que produce un Tezuka dedicado a las tribulaciones de capa y espada, a piratas, justas medievales e intrigas palaciegas.
Después de las barrabasadas que me estoy tragando en Berserk, es bueno mechar con un poco de manga clásico, de buen gusto, líneas delicadas, fino humor, una divertida batalla de los sexos y, sobre todo, sin gang-bangs infernales y pérdidas de miembros al por mayor.
Un manga qui a malheureusement (très) mal vieilli. Oui princesse, on prie pour que tu puisses redevenir une femme à part entière pour porter des belles robes et attendre le prince charmant...