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Vertical Adds Tezuka's Twin Knight, Kyoko Okazaki's Helter Skelter Manga
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
North American publisher Vertical announced at its New York Comic Con panel on Friday that it has licensed Osamu Tezuka's Twin Knight manga and Kyoko Okazaki's Helter Skelter psychological manga.
Twin Knight is the sequel to Tezuka's Princess Knight manga. The series revolves around Prince Daisy and Princess Violetta, the twin son and daughter of Sapphire. When Prince Daisy is kidnapped, Violetta must pretend to be both herself and her brother while also trying to find him.
Tezuka serialized the manga under the name Ribbon no Kishi in Kodansha's Nakayoshi magazine in 1958-1959. Vertical previously published Princess Knight in a two-volume omnibus edition last year.
Helter Skelter revolves around RIRIKO, a model who underwent extensive plastic surgery to attain her beauty. The clinic who performed RIRIKO's surgeries goes under investigation for questionable business practices, and RIRIKO's body starts to deteriorate. As the model's prominence in the entertainment industry begins to falter, so does her sanity. The manga inspired a live-action film version starring Erika Sawajiri that opened in Japan on July 14.
The manga won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Manga Grand Prize in 2004, and was nominated for the "Angouleme Essentials" grand prize award at the Angouleme International Comics Festival in 2008. This will be the first manga from Okazaki published in English.
