2 DVD sets to feature edited N. American broadcast edition of series with English, Spanish dubs

The North American licensor and retailer Right Stuf, Inc. announced on Wednesday that it has licensed the Princess Knight television anime series. The company will release the series in two DVD sets in 2013 featuring an English-language dub as well as a Spanish-language dub.

The DVDs will feature the edited and cut version broadcast on television in North America in the 1970s and 1980s. The Japanese audio for the series will not be available as it cannot be synched to the edited video. Right Stuf has noted that the DVD sets will feature the edited version "due to the availability of materials." The 52-episode series originally aired in Japan in 1967-1968.

The series revolves around a princess raised as a boy so that she can inherit her kingdom's throne. The manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka drew the original story in Kodansha's Shoujo Club magazine from 1953 to 1956. Princess Knight and Toshiko Ueda's Boku-chan (1951) are among the first shōjo manga in history.

Vertical released the original manga in a two-volume omnibus in 2011, and the company recently announced it will also release the sequel series Twin Knight.

Update: More release details, background information added.

Image © Tezuka Production・Mushi Production