Last month, Scholastic released a 2-minute trailer for its upcoming Unico: Awakening graphic novel, ahead of a newly announced panel at this year’s upcoming San-Diego Comic Con. The first volume of the series will be released in bookstores on August 6, 2024.
Anime Trending was also provided with four preview pages from the Unico: Awakening graphic novel, which is a new reimagining of Osamu Tezuka’s Unico manga.
A special panel focused on the work will also be held at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con entitled “Discover the Magic of Osamu Tezuka: New Adventures for a New Generation!” Panelists will include writer Samuel Sattin (A Kid’s Guide to Anime & Manga), journalist Deb Aoki, and manga translator Ben Applegate, who will discuss Tezuka’s enduring legacy and preview an exclusive first look at Unico’s next adventure. It will take place on July 25, 2024 from 2:00 PM PST to 3:00 PM PST in Room 28DE.
Speaking on the impact of Tezuka, Sattin offered the following statement:
My view on [Osamu] Tezuka is that — as far as comics go — he was simultaneously a classicist and a pioneer. His work is timeless, but it also pushes boundaries at every turn. From a cartooning perspective, he discovered countless ways to express emotion, action, downfall, and triumph. His characters are hemmed in by encroaching darkness when they’re undergoing transformations or strain. Action moves at the speed of sound and then slows when scenes come into focus. His characters contain such a wide span of emotions. And the stories they star in are massive in scope.
[He] was a worldbuilder both inside his stories and in the actual world itself. He’s beyond comparison. A God in the truest, most mortal sense of the word, which is to say that his human hands reached the stars.
Unico: Awakening is written by Sattin and illustrated by artist duo Gurihiru (Gwenpool, Spider-Man & Venom: Double Trouble). The series is developed in collaboration with Tezuka Productions and features full-color artwork and left to right pages in the Western comics style that matched the original manga.
The title marks the first ever manga publication from Scholastic and will be released through multiple volumes in 12 languages.
Scholastic describes the synopsis of Unico: Awakening as:
In UNICO: AWAKENING, Unico awakens on Earth and is befriended by a resourceful cat named Chloe, who feels protective of the young unicorn. When they find themselves near a small village in the forest, they take refuge with a kind, but lonely, old woman. Chloe begs Unico to turn her into a human girl so she can help the old woman, but that act of kindness has unforeseen consequences: Unico’s use of his power alerts Venus to his location, and now she wants to destroy them both!
Source: Email correspondence
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