Today’s review is in part thanks to the constant evangelizing of Raybon No Kishi on Twitter, who alerted me to some interesting plot complications in this recent reworking of the story of Sapphire, the Girl Prince. Shinyaku Ribon no Kishi, Volume 1 (新約・リボンの騎士) is…well…it’s kind of interesting. Written and drawn by Bureido (the pen-name for a three-person team of Miyamoto Loba, Hamamura Toshiki, and Muramasa Mikado (many thanks to Hamamura-sensei for the correction_ whose work otherwise seems to be pedestrian and pornish – it’s a not-terrible homage to the iconic character created by Tezuka Osamu.
The story follows the outline of Princess Knight‘s origin, with some interesting changes. In Silverland, the rule of the Kingdom is entailed and can only be passed on to male heirs, so Sapphire reluctantly pretends to be the dashing Prince. It does not make Sapphire happy at all to do so. Upon saving a young woman, Sapphire takes the girl’s beribboned hat as a reward and wears it, gaining the moniker “The Ribbon Knight.” Really, Sapphire just liked the pretty hat.
Duke Lester wishes to dethrone Sapphire and doesn’t really care how he does it. He hires Willema, an assassin, to either prove Sapphire is a girl or to kill the Prince if he is a boy. Instead…Willema and Sapphire find themselves attracted to one another. After she and Willema sleep together, Sapphire rides to confront Lester, while Willema rides off to talk to her mother, with tragic consequences.
Lester immediately begins working on a new plan…a weapon to destroy Silverland! And there will be pirates, as once might expect, if one has read the original.
As you can see, while basic plot idea is the same, pretty much everything else is different. Sapphire definitely does not like pretending to be a boy…and in this story she is pretending, there is no dual heart or a fairy who gave it to her. It is still Sapphire’s nature to be princely and she certainly is dashing, but she’d really rather not have to lie about her sex or gender.
This iteration has a fair amount of nipple-less nudity and the principal women are busty, which seems to be the style Bureido prefers. But even with that, it doesn’t feel too skanky. Honestly, this volume held up pretty well for a more modern retelling. What it loses in Disneyfied innocence, it gains in Yuri. ^_^ I’m not gonna lie, I wouldn’t mind watch this Sapphire wreck Lester’s stupid face.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 6
Yuri – 8
I mean, I get it, Willema’s doomed, and no Sapphire isn’t going to be living happily ever after as a boyish girl, but I’m actually still interested to see what happens in Volume 2, so that’s good. ^_^
Bureido? Did they invite author ща lewd seinen yuri to reboot of the cult children’s manga? However, if this is respectful enough to the original source and at the same time something more than an attempt to re-sell the cult series, then I do not mind.
Given that they seem to have decided to develop the unused yuri potential of the original story, I wonder where this will lead. A similar attempt at relationship development in recent Dororo’s reboot was cute.
Wait there’s been a potentially more queer-positive version of “Princess Knight” this whole time and I’m only *just* learning about it now!?
While I wish we would get a version of the story that respectfully addresses Sapphire’s gender dysphoria in a respectful way, a yuri series is more than I ever expected for a retelling of this manga (or anything else based on Tezuka’s works for that matter).
Here’s hoping there won’t be tragic lesbians though; we have far too much of that in the media already *fingers crossed that Willema is OK*
It’s only from last year, so you hadn’t missed much – and I knew there was a new version, but had no idea if it had an queer content, and only found out because of Raybon. So you are entirely excused from having not known. ^_^
I’m going to guess that it goes less queer from here. But it was nice while it lasted. ^_^