Graphic · ages 8–12

Unico: Awakening

Name: Unico: Awakening
Author: Osamu Tezuka
ISBN: 9781339036335

Awakening

Written by Osamu Tezuka · Illustrated by Gurihiru

Book 1 in UnicoView the full series

Film adaptation

Top giftableAdults love it too

A full-colour manga reboot of Osamu Tezuka's classic: a little unicorn whose power to spread love gets him banished by the goddess Venus, then befriended by a watch-cat as he tries to remember who he is. Tender, beautiful and beginner-friendly.

Best for8–12
FormatGraphic
Length162 pp
Read aloud~1 hr15 min

Where to buyPaperback

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The vibe

What it’s like.

Style

Literary
Conversational

Tone

Heartwarming
Adventurous
Bittersweet
Whimsical

Themes

On the pageunicorn, magic, friendship, gods and myth, cat

Experience meters

Energy3/ 5

Humour2/ 5

Scariness2/ 5

Peril3/ 5

Wonder4/ 5

Cosiness2/ 5

Emotional intensity4/ 5

Conceptual intensity3/ 5

What’s it about?

The story.

Reimagined for a new generation by Eisner-nominated writer Samuel Sattin and the Eisner-winning art team Gurihiru, and developed with Tezuka Productions, this is a groundbreaking full-colour manga revival of one of Osamu Tezuka's best-loved creations, reading left to right for newcomers to the form. Unico is a young unicorn with an extraordinary gift: he can fill the hearts of those around him with love and happiness. But his power so enrages the goddess Venus that she has him banished, carried across space and time until he forgets everything he once was. Alone and lost, Unico is taken in by Chloe, a resourceful watch-cat who becomes fiercely protective of him. When the pair shelter with a kindly but frail old woman, Chloe begs Unico to transform her into a human girl, an act of pure kindness that carries an unforeseen cost: it awakens Venus and her minion Byron, who now want them both destroyed. Warm, wondrous and quietly moving, Unico: Awakening opens a beautifully drawn saga about love, memory and the courage to keep being good in an unkind world.

Fit check

Right for your child?

Where it lands by age

A full-colour manga for independent readers aged 8-12, and a genuine crossover for nostalgic adults. It carries fantasy peril and emotional weight, banishment, lost memory, a villainous goddess, so it suits confident readers happy with a bit of jeopardy rather than the most sensitive youngest ones.

Best fit · 8–12
Read aloud · 8–11
Independent · 8–12

Prose load

Moderate

Visual support

Very high

Reluctant-reader friendly

Very

Read-aloud quality

Workable

Works well for

Gift-buying
Reluctant readers

Low sensitivityNo content warnings

Nothing in the book is likely to concern most parents. Safe to recommend without preview.

Bedtime suitability

2 / 5 · Better outside bedtime

Sensitive-child

3 / 5 · Mostly fine

Graphic intensity

2 / 5 · Mild

Best for

Manga fans
Fantasy lovers
Animal lovers
Emotional readers

Avoid if

Wants light comedy
Sensitive to peril

Why it lands

Why they love it.

Why kids love it

Unico is impossible not to love, and his bond with Chloe the watch-cat is so protective and sweet. There's real magic, a scary goddess out to get him, and gorgeous full-colour art that makes every page feel special, brilliant for anyone starting out with manga.

Magic powers
Friendship and belonging
Surviving danger

Why parents love it

The art is stunning and the emotional core, love, memory and kindness against the odds, gives real substance to share. It's an ideal, accessible entry into manga for younger readers, with the added pleasure of a Tezuka original reborn.

Beautiful illustrations
Great writing
Nostalgia

In the series

Unico.

3 books · open the series →

You are here

Unico: Awakening2024 · Book 1

Unico: Hunted2025 · Book 2

Unico: Lost2026 · Book 3

About the creators

About the creators.

Osamu Tezuka

Writer · Japan · b. 1928

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) was the Japanese cartoonist known the world over as the 'god of manga', the towering figure who shaped modern comics and animation. Creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and the epic Phoenix, he drew tens of thousands of pages across a prolific career, many of them for young readers. His gentle unicorn hero Unico, a little creature whose gift is to fill hearts with love, has been lovingly revived for a new generation in the full-colour Unico manga (Awakening, Hunted, Lost), keeping Tezuka's tender faith in kindness at its heart. Warm, wondrous and emotionally rich, his stories pair sweeping adventure with a deep moral seriousness. Decades on, Tezuka remains one of the most influential storytellers in children's and all-ages comics.

Samuel Sattin

Writer · United States

Samuel Sattin is an American writer with an MFA in comics and a long career across graphic novels, animation and games. He is best known to young readers as the writer of Unico, a full-colour manga revival of Osamu Tezuka's classic, created with the art team Gurihiru and developed with Tezuka Productions. Across Awakening, Hunted and Lost he follows a little unicorn whose gift for spreading love so enrages the goddess Venus that she has him banished across space and time, leaving him to relearn who he is with the help of fiercely loyal animal friends. Tender, beautiful and beginner-friendly, the saga carries real emotional weight while keeping faith in the power of kindness. Sattin has also adapted the animated films WolfWalkers, Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells into graphic novels.

Gurihiru

Illustrator · Japan

Gurihiru is a Japan-based art team, Chifuyu Sasaki on pencils and inks and Naoko Kawano on colour, working together from Saitama under a single studio name. Long celebrated for their glowing full-colour work on the Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels and for Marvel, and winners of multiple Eisner Awards, they bring the same warmth and clarity to children's comics. In our corpus they illustrate the Unico manga revival, written by Samuel Sattin and developed with Tezuka Productions, a full-colour reimagining of Osamu Tezuka's little unicorn who can fill hearts with love, is banished by a jealous goddess, and must hold onto kindness and courage across a saga of loss, friendship and reunion. Their art is beautifully drawn, emotionally rich and welcoming to newcomers, threading kindness, resilience and good against evil through every page.