Jan 12, 2024
TLDR; It's not an sequel full of charisma, inspiration or even a little bit of originality. Doesn't even feel like a sequel. Forget the characters you like or love, they are not here, not even in spirit. Forget action scenes, forget a cool protagonist, forget the funny comic villains. But if you like the angel, good for you, he's as bad as he's ever been. Tezuka fans, there's nothing for you here, this is not a worthy sequel to Princess Knight. Even if you know and love Mauricio de Sousa characters, you might want to avoid it and instead read the new ALMANACÃO DE FÉRIAS.
The
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most popular and prolific brazillian cartoonist, Mauricio de Sousa was a great friend of Tezuka (at least according to sources in Brazil). This friendship led to him (his company, at least) being invited to drawn a commemorative of Tezuka (would be) 90 years in 2018. They let him drawn 6 chapters of a follow up to Princess Knight. This manga is what I can only describe as OK.
The story takes takes place in a modern (1950s I think) world, with the reincarnation of princess Safiri, a princess tired of her controlled schedule and not being able to do what she wants, who, following a cat Heckett, escapes the palace and encouraged by her decides to have a little fun in secret. A journalist, probably reincarnation of prince Franz discovers her, and, to try to have a scoop, get closer to her.
According to the authors, the story it's a mix of Princess Knight + Roman Holiday. But man, I have not seem this movie, but only reading the synopsis of it I can tell, besides the witch Heckett and the angel, it is a total ripoff of the movie premise. And it got nothing from Princess Knight (bear in mind I have only read the original 1953, The Twin Knights, and the 1967 anime series). The story has nothing special, and the "reincarnated" characters don't really remember me of their original counterparts. And it has no action at all.
I won't get in details of why I think his company MSP is bad for the national comics scene, Mauricio has done probably more good than harm. But I really dislike the fact that he almost never credit the artists in his company. And I don't have no source to know if he did or did not drawn this. Most probably not, since he nowadays only drawn a few of comics he created, the rest is drawn by nameless artists of his company.
This is a very personal review since I, like many people around my age in my country, grew up reading his comics, most famous Turma da Mônica (Monica's Gang), a slice of life following the lives of kids in a neighborhood, as they play, prank and quarrel with eachother (kinda like Little Lulu). Despite being 50 years old, it is still running with many derivatives/spin offs. One of those is a manga-like comic featuring the characters from Turma da Mônica as "cool" teenagers. And in it, there has already been a crossover of his and Tezuka's characters.
When it was announced, it was told that the Turma da Mônica characters would appear in it as kinda of special guests, in a scene or another. It felt like they appeared out of nowhere just to be there as a movie extra (and many other Tezuka characters also). It was so unnecessary. For someone who doesn't know these characters, this might be annoying. For me it was a waste of potential. They almost had no interaction with each other. They didn't even had to be there if it was just to be a easter egg.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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