Pola has chosen Cesare Borgia, the protagonist of the Renaissance-era manga "Cesare: Creator of Destruction" (written by Fuyumi Soryo, supervised by Motoaki Hara, published by Kodansha), as the image character for its high-end beauty serum line "B.A. Grand Luxe II" (50g/75,600 yen), which will be released on the 20th of next month.

B.A. Grand Luxe II is a beauty serum that focuses on the "autophagy cycle," a system that breaks down and purifies waste products within cells. It advocates a "paradigm shift in beauty" through anti-aging care that "empowers" rather than "resists" aging. Cesare, who aimed for structural reform (paradigm shift) during the Renaissance, a time of major transformation in people's thoughts and values, fits the brand concept, leading to this collaboration.

Initially, the author suggested a female character, Lucrezia, as the product is cosmetics, but with women as the target audience in mind, the male Cesare was chosen. This time, a specially designed image of 17-year-old Cesare will be displayed in newspapers, magazines, online, in-store, and more.

"Cesare: Creator of Destruction" began serialization in the weekly manga magazine "Morning" in 2005. The story depicts Cesare, the legendary Renaissance hero, with the help of Hara Motoaki, a researcher of Italian literature and history, and has been written by scrutinizing a vast amount of material, including Sacerdote's version of the Borgia biography, which has not yet been translated into Japanese. The 10th volume, released in April this year, has sold over 1.3 million copies.