The Ribbon Hero Anime Film Review – Review

It’s hard to overstate the lasting influence of Osamu Tezuka‘s The Princess Knight. With the manga published between 1953–56 and an anime that aired from 1967–68, it’s widely considered a foundational title for all things shojo, magical girl, and capital-g Gender. This is, obviously, nothing new for the storied Tezuka. Even so, Princess Knight still stands out in Tezuka’s immortal library as one of his most iconic and beloved works. So it’s hardly a surprise then that, not unlike a number of his other works, it would be loosely reimagined in the modern day as The Ribbon Hero.

The Ribbon Hero follows Princess Sapphire after her home kingdom, Silver Land, is destroyed by a creature called the Nergal. Almost completely alone, maimed, and homeless, she wanders for seven years before eventually finding herself in Gold Land. But just as soon as she’s able to find a life for herself there, the Nergal appears once more. But this time, Sapphire can do something about it—she discovers she has some kind of power that lets her transform into a much more powerful version of herself, the Ribbon Knight, who has the potential to defeat the Nergal once and for all.

If you read that and thought that sounds absolutely nothing like the classic Princess Knight you remember, you’re correct. Fans of the classic series will, of course, recognize some details, and pick up on a handful of Tezuka-isms, but only to a certain—and frankly, very limited—extent. In many ways, this is a total, from-the-ground-up reimagining of Tezuka’s classic series, far more divorced from its source material than, say, Naoki Urasawa‘s Pluto is from Astro Boy. This might disappoint some longtime fans, although admittedly, it makes it feel easier for new fans to dive right in without worry or hesitation. This accessibility allows it to take influence from other anime and manga that themselves were so obviously influenced by the original Princess Knight. Revolutionary Girl Utena (especially the Adolescence movie), Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Rose of Versailles, and Sailor Moon‘s influence are all over the DNA of this movie. It feels like a full-circle moment.

The movie itself is action-packed and visually stunning; the overall production value and look are simply unmatched. Stylish, well-choreographed, and featuring some excellent new character designs by Kei Mochizuki, there’s nothing out there that looks quite like this film—certainly not, for example, Princess Knight. The coloration alone feels like a feat of design, let alone bringing it together with the new environments, character designs, costumes, and more. The CGI (in particular, the CGI used for the Nergal) is admittedly nowhere near as impressive as the 2D visuals, but its presence in the film is pretty minimal. If unique visuals are enough to get you on board for a movie, you won’t want to miss this one in all its lusciously-colored glory. For that matter, while it doesn’t necessarily hit you as hard on the head with how unique it is, the soundtrack is still excellent all the same. As far as voice acting goes, whether you prefer dub or sub for this one is likely to come down to personal preference, as both were quite good but neither seemed particularly better than the other.

Beautiful as this movie’s exterior may be, its story can’t even come close to matching that energy. Calling the pacing “rushed” is underselling just how fast things move in this movie. The audience rarely gets time to breathe, let alone really soak in and make sense of what’s going on. New conflicts keep happening, in rapid succession, until they simply… don’t. The theatrical structure is a cool idea in theory, but in practice, it does little to help the story along because of the pacing. This is also probably why a lot of the themes and messages of the movie can often come off as incoherent as well. This is especially the case for the messy way it handles classism—if it can be said to handle it at all. A breadcrumb trail is left for the audience to follow, but the movie isn’t able to follow through on it in a meaningful or satisfying way. Without getting too into the spoiler-y weeds, the movie just isn’t able to reckon with rules it itself established, making for a frustrating watch—as though the movie could either be a massive visual success or a massive storytelling success, but it can’t be bothered to be both.

Although this movie has stellar production value, its contents just can’t rise to meet that same level of quality. A textbook example of form over function, this incredibly stylish movie’s story absolutely faceplants into the gorgeously animated dirt. Still, I hope this movie can provide a good launchpad for Mochizuki and all those who worked on animating it. For all its shortcomings in the writing department, it’s impossible to deny that the look and feel of this movie is simply unmatched.