Unstable Molecules: Japanese edition!

Osamu Tezuka was the greatest comic book storyteller of all time. He's also an amazing designer. He was also endlessly creative, creating comic series after comic series. He was a master of his craft, almost without peer. But... uhhh...

Sometimes he does stuff like this...

This is from Princess Knight, Tezuka's classic girls' series about a princess with both a girl and boy's heart, who has to pretend to be a prince, when really deep inside she's a princess. It's an incredibly girly comic.

The reason that I chose this outfit is that, aside from being hilariously girly, it illustrates a point I'd like to make. It illustrates it really well. In all the other Unstable Molecules articles you look at the insane outfits and you just wonder what the hell they were thinking. You know what they were thinking? They were thinking: "This will appeal to my audience."

Yes, that's right, Flash Thompson crotch arrows? They were meant to APEAL TO THE AUDIENCE.

I think with Princess Sapphire's (that's her name, did I forget to say that?) outfit here you can actually SEE Tezuka's wheels turning as he tries to create the ULTIMATE outfit for a girl. The gown's got to be BIG! No, bigger! No, BIGGGGGER!!!

Bows? It needs bows! And sparkles! Girls love sparkles! And those poofy sleeves! It needs EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING!

When I was reading this story it was one of those rare times that I actually got shocked out of the experience, taken out of the moment. Usually when I'm reading Tezuka stuff I just lose myself in the world he's creating. But this time I got taken out of the world.

By giant bows.
--Andrew S.