The Ribbon Hero review – do-gooder princess battles giant flying earwigs in update of classic yarn
Yûki Igarashi’s adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s influential manga is a conservative (if impressively animated) reimagining that dulls the
First-time director Yûki Igarashi should hit the jackpot here: the first big-screen adaptation for decades of Princess Knight, a seminal postwar manga series from Astro Boy genius Osamu Tezuka. But this very loose reworking is an anticlimax: conservative in solely concentrating on the girlishly feminine side of its protagonist, Sapphire (voiced by Saya), where the gender-flipping original was heralded by many as pioneering; and bland in its vanilla characterisation and dull adherence to battle-anime norms.
The owner of the most prominent hair bow since Minnie Mouse, Sapphire is a princess forced into exile when a Nergal – a kind of gargantuan flying earwig – lays waste to her home kingdom of Silverland. Wandering with her lady-in-waiting Zirco (Mayumi Shintani), she takes refuge in neighbouring Goldland and, in need of cash, bags a job working in the mines that supply crystals to placate the Nergal. When another one attacks, she falls into a crystal pool that activates her head ribbon and transforms her into Princess Knight, who is capable of trouncing the interdimensional critters. Local noble Velvet (Seiran Kobayashi), keen to slip free of the Nergal yoke himself, is paying close attention.
It’s understandable that Igarashi might want to pay fan service to Tezuka’s more innocent era of entertainment. But surely that should have been manageable while carving out fresh terrain for Princess Knight? Instead he simply serves up a saccharine do-gooder, always bleating about helping other people (something which proves contagious among her forgettable posse). Nor are the contractually obliged sky brawls livened up by a madcap array of special powers showcased in the likes of One Piece or My Hero Academia.
The animation can’t be faulted though, encompassing an impressive array of different styles that place haute Euro-pageantry against striking 2D backdrops, along with chibi-style emotional meltdowns, and dumbshow and shadow play interludes among the mayhem. It displays the creative intrepidness in short supply elsewhere; failing to capitalise on Tezuka’s more far-out impulses means this adaptation merely registers as run-of-the-mill girl-power puff.
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