Twin Knights, The (Vertical Inc.)

The Twin Knights (Vertical Inc.)

English Title: The Twin Knights
Japanese Title: 双子の騎士
Publication Date: 2013
Publisher: Vertical Inc.
No. of Volumes: 1
In Print?: ✔
Digital?: ✔

From the Publisher

A gem from the late fifties when the legendary master was most deeply involved in girls’ comics, The Twin Knights is more than just a sequel to the shojo manga milestone Princess Knight. More closely addressing issues of station as well as gender, this one-volume tale has all the antic innocence of the early Tezuka even as it revises the more famous work’s premise, doing away with the conceit of “boy and girl hearts” and invoking the vagaries of chance and power in their place.

The Godmother of Manga”

Once known as a skilled fencer who had masqueraded as a prince in order to succeed her late father, Sapphire is now happily married to her love Franz and queen of their combined realm. After she gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl who are now equal in the royal line of succession, however, a dispute arises among the courtiers and populace over which child is the true heir. When a whimsical cherub with a familiar face is unwisely summoned to settle the matter, he allows sheer luck to rule in favor of the boy.

Yet once Prince Daisy is whisked away by a cabal opposed to his ascension, the remaining Princess Violetta must embark on the same path her mother once tread to safeguard her family’s claim to the throne. Cross-dressing is hardly the end of it as she undertakes breathless adventures with a gypsy lass she meets—Emerald!

What you should know

Unlike most of Vertical, Inc.‘s releases, The Twin Knights  was published with “un-flipped” artwork to preserve the original Japanese right-to-left reading order.  It was originally published as a single softcover trade paperback set in July 2013.  Each volume was approximately 248 pages in length and printed in a 6″ x 8 ” format. However, in 2014, Vertical Inc. began releasing digital editions of their Tezuka editions, primarily available in Amazon’s popular Kindle format.