A third trailer (labelled as the final trailer in English) for the upcoming The Ribbon Hero anime movie has been released, revealing more of the premise and introducing some new faces. Among the latter is Hecate, an immigrant quarry worker voiced by Nijisanji VTuber Mito Tsukino.
Tsukino isn’t the only Nijisanji member in the cast, with her colleagues Lunlunand Debidebi Debiru voicing the twin siblings Chick and Jack. The other newly revealed members of the cast areYoshimasa Hosoya as Rock and Yusuke Tezuka as Chorogy. Their characters are also immigrants and quarry workers like Hecate.
The Ribbon Hero, which is inspired by Osamu Tezuka‘s Princess Knight (Ribbon no Kishi) manga, will follow Sapphire (voiced by Saya of the comedy group Lalande) as her new life is threatened by the “calamity” that destroyed her kingdom. Yuki Igarashi (Star Wars: Visions — “Lop & Ochō” director and character designer et al., Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1’s first ending solo key animator) is the director of the anime, with his OUTLINEbeing the animation production studio.
The other production staff include illustrator Kei Mochizuki as original character designer, Mai Yoneyama (“COLORs” music video character designer and animation director, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners ending animation director, storyboard artist et al.) on character design cooperation duties, Issei Arakaki (Extreme Hearts) as animation character designer, and Cedric Herole (POKÉTOON “Wait for Me, Magikarp” director, character designer et al.) as artistic director.
The Ribbon Hero‘s synopsis reads:
Sapphire is the princess of a kingdom that no longer exists. Having lost everything in her homeland of Silverland to the calamity known as “Nergal,” she wanders in despair until she finally arrives in Goldland.
Though burdened by her past, she begins to find a glimmer of hope as she encounters the kindness of the people there. But as if to sneer at her peaceful new life, the calamity Nergal appears once more. The very despair that once reduced her homeland to ashes now threatens to steal the light from this land as well.
“I won’t lose anything ever again. And I won’t let anyone else lose anything either.” Brushing away her tears of sorrow, the girl takes up her sword. This is the story of a lone hero who ties her ribbon and resolves to defy her fate.
The anime recently received a new preview in the form of the Sapphire x Pine Bond trailer, which focused on protagonist Sapphire’s relationship with her new friend Pine.
There are three Princess Knight manga, which are the Shojo Club version (1953 to 1956), the Nakayoshi version (1963 to 1966) and the Shojo Friend version (1967). The Shojo Club Princess Knight had a follow-up titled Twin Knights, about Sapphire’s twin children. The Osamu Tezuka website, which calls Princess Knight “the first Japanese story manga for girls,” describes the synopsis of the Shojo Club version as such:
This is a fantasy of a princess by the name of Sapphire who has both a boy’s heart and a girl’s heart. She cleans up evils by disguising herself as Princess Knight.
Sapphire is born with both boy’s and girl’s mind due to a mischievous angel by the name of Tink. In addition, Sapphire bears a destiny to be raised as a prince to inherit the throne. On the other hand, Duke Duralumin, who wants to make his son the king, ploys to find evidence that Sapphire is a girl in various ways.
Princess Knight previously inspired a 52-episode 1967 to 1968 TV anime with Katsui Chikao and Akabori Kanji as the chief directors and Mushi Production as the animation production studio, as well as a 1999 short.
The Ribbon Hero will debut on Netflix on August 8, 2026.
• Director: Yuki Igarashi (Star Wars: Visions — “Lop & Ochō” [director and character designer et al.], Gen Hoshino’s “I Wanna Be Your Ghost” music video (director et al.), and Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1’s first ending (solo key animator))
• Original character designer: Kei Mochizuki
• Character design cooperation: Mai Yoneyama
• Animation character designer: Issei Arakaki
• Artistic director: Cedric Herole
• Nergal designer: okama
• Background art director: Masanobu Nomura (Mono, New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt)
• Color designer: Natsumi Watabe
• CG director: Akine Nagamine
• Compositing director: Hikaru Fukuda
• Music composer: MONACA’s Satoru Kosaki
• Music composer: MONACA’s Ryuichi Takada
• Animation production: OUTLINE
• Saya as Sapphire
• Seiran Kobayashias Pine
• Koki Uchiyama as Velvet
• Mayumi Shintani as Zirco
