Saint Seiya

Saint Seiya was one of the very first anime series I watched as a young kid. Being that I might've had a bias towards this anime, I decided to watch it again not very long ago. While I admit this series is not as good as I remembered it, I belive it is still worth watching.

Saint Seiya had a brief run on Cartoon Network, but due to its violent content, it was moved to a very poor time and gradually lost any attention it received. If you followed it while they aired it or if you are just curious, I encourage you ... to give it a try.

The story follows the following paradigm: Athena, with the help of the zodiac saints, protects the Earth from the other gods whose wishes are only to do away with humanity. The use of Greek mythology is vastly employed throughout the story as other gods such as Poseidon and characters such as Medusa make appearances.

While that may sound quite simple (and it is very much straight forward), the characters undergo a thorough process of development. With each fight they seem to acquire more knowledge and powers that help them mature from teenagers to men. The themes of friendship, loyalty and endurance are some of the most explored throughout this anime. The bond that ties the saints with Athena is mere responsibility at first, but extends itself to friendship and love.

Regarding action, there is plenty of fighting from beginning to end. At first the matches are part of a game, but later on they develop into life and death situations. As the series progresses, the saints also acquire more power, which makes the fights all the more interesting. I do have to warn you, though, since there is quite an amount of death and blood throughout these fights.

When it comes to animation, it shows that the the series was made in the 1980's. For its time, and even compared to some more recent anime, the animation is quite decent. I have no complaints about it.

The OST fits the series very well. Most of the tracks help convey the series' feeling of the larger-than-life plot and battles in the entire story. I believe they did a phenomenal job here.

---
One last comment I'd like to make: This is not another dragon ball z. While there are some similarities, there is more involvment of more characters than in dbz (it doesn't always come down to helping the main character do everything).

- edited 01-16-2021 -

Story

Saint Seiya is a shounen anime that features several elements of mythology (mostly Greek mythology) where the characters represent and are too protected by one of the 88 constellations.

The main characters, the Bronze Saints (or "Knights" in the Western version), are the ones responsible to protect the goddess Athena and the humanity against the 'evil' Greek gods.

The fighting is generally interesting to watch, since (almost) every character has an unique gimmick or superpower.

On the other hand, due to 'low budget' issues and a more old school approach (it's 80's, fellas), the character won't move much while fighting ... ... so this may not seem fit for a younger audience, used to a more fast paced animation.

Meanwhile, the plot itself is quite simple for the most part, and goes in a very monodimensional way, but not tedious, since all the gimmicks keep you coming for more.

The biggest mistake through the start of this series is the fillers. The fillers not only alters some events from the original manga, but also creates some new characters that appear and disappear for the sake of the convenience of the plot and, after all, for the sake of the expensive licensed toys (figures, if you like it better).

Although Saint Seiya was not meant to be a cheap excuse for Bandai earn some good money on licensed toys, the beautiful and very well done adaptation of the ugly and lifeless armors from the manga into the shining armor designs of the anime (courtesy of master Shingo Araki) would inevitable create a paramount market for high quality toys for boys and grown men alike.

Yes, I said the fillers messed up a lot of the series in the beggining, and some filler characters were obviously created for the solo porpouse of selling new figures.

But the anime production seemed to have learned from their own mistakes and later on, they developed an entire filler arc that not only gave Bandai some nice looking figures for selling but also created some good content and good filler characters that match the ones from the original source material, in the Asgard arc.

Talking about the arcs, if you ask a Saint Seiya fan, probably one will point the Twelve Zodiac Temples arc as the highlight memory of the anime.

The 'enemy of the week' formula applied here alongside with the (let's call) 'tower of combat' (like in the infamous 'Game of Death' of the late Bruce Lee) were a very clever concept put on by Masami Kurumada on his manga, and that was for sure perfected in the anime series.

Nevertheless, Kurumada has became so found of this formula that he shameless repeats it on later arcs, until there was nothing much left for the anime to going on.

As some of you may know, this 'Saint Seiya' anime is an incomplete adaptation, ending in the Poseidon arc, and having its sequel in Hades Chapter OVAs decades later - mostly for the avid Western (Latin) audience.

Animation and sound

Saint Seiya's overall OST is very, very good. From the chatchy 80's heavy metal-ish opening theme 'Pegasus Fantasy' by the now legendary Nubou Yamada to the sad instrumentals of the likes of 'Hyouga visits his mother's grave on the deep of the ocean', SS is remarkable for its music.

The quality of the animation, though, decreases a lot in some episodes and its more static and low budget than Dragon Ball, for example. On the other hand, the beatiful character design by Shingo Araki makes Saint Seiya a bliss to the eyes, with all those cool and colourful armors.

Characters

Though some people may criticize their lack of free will in them following Athena, I think the main characters of Saint Seiya stand out in their own merits and distinct traits.

Each one of them helped to create the stereotypes of the 'boy band' shounen team that would later influence the very conception of Gundam Wing's main cast.

The impulsive protagonist (Seiya), the prime rival with a cool mind (Shiryu), the 'ice guy' with a hidden melting heart (Hyouga), the sensitive anti-violence femboy (Shun) and the badass avenger (Ikki), they all seem fit and are nicely portraited through the series.

But other characters I must highlight here are the Gold Saints. Each Gold Saint represents one of the signs of the Zodiac, sometimes even in powers and personalities, which adds some very cool gimmicks for most of them. Special compliments for Aries, Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Aquarius, Capricorn (won't say much to not spoil anything).

Veredict

I am suspicious for praising Saint Seiya qualities, since it was my first anime, so it was very important to my childhood, and as Saint-Exupery once said, 'childhood is like my country'.

Still, I can highly recommend Saint Seiya to those into old-school anime, since it may be dated to younger viewers (probably if you are a Naruto ou Boku no Hero fan, Saint Seiya will not be your thing).

If you have time and want to further understand the story, I also recommend to read the manga. The art is worse for sure, but the plot works in a better (and even more consistent) way.

Let me start by saying that this was the very first anime I watched complete. Truth is I was really young when I watched it the first time, but just recently when new OVAs came out I watch it once again.

Basically the story follows a group of 5 "Zodiac warriors" of Athena in their mission to save the world from the "evil" gods who want to destroy it. The anime heavily relies on Greek mythology, so the story follows a path trough Olympian’s gods.

The story is really absorbing and exciting, the fact that the 12 zodiac signs appears as a main part of ... the story sets the mood for a more personal and deeper involvement in the story (who doesn't want to watch he's own Zodiac sign win??). Whilst the animation is not up to what we are used nowadays, it’s quite decent for its time. The sound is decent but just that. And the characters are well built.

But what makes Saint Seiya stand alone, is, its art. Every warrior is based upon a constellation, and every warrior has his unique armor. Somewhat around 100 armors are displayed trough the anime.

So I really recommend this anime if you are interested in watching a cult anime, with really cool art, average animation, and a no so deep story arc.

This series is a hard one for me to rate at all. It is one of my all-time favourites, has amazing nostalgic values + I like to think of it as the father of all Shounen Fighting Anime. This is because it started a lot of storylines that have now become cliches Naruto, Bleach and many more use quite often. These include giving the opponent a backbone by giving him a backstory. Tournament arcs are touched on. The attacks of those shows are also very reflective of Saint Seiya and two other animes from its decade (DBZ and Fist of the North Star.) Even Yakitate ... Japan uses ideas born in Saint Seiya, but obviously in a more satirical way...

The animation for this series is obviously going to seem dated because of the poor frame rate and some jerkiness in its presentation. However new masters have been made available recently and I had a chance to get a look at them. Overall, it has stood the test of time fairly well. The only things that might be a problem for some viewers are the (as mentioned above) poor frame rate, repeated footage but also the fact that some episodes have inconsistent artwork.
Overall, these series has beautiful character designs for both the boys and the girls AND some beautiful backgrounds to match. It's just that some episodes reflect those better than others. Of course, at the time the series was made and with the demand for more episodes, its fidelity to the art is amazing. It does not make the characters look cheap so that they stay on budget. This already makes it better (animation wise) than later shows like Ranma or Naruto where the quality just drops as the series progresses.

In the second and third series of Saint Seiya (criminally not given their own sections by most sites) the animation quality raises a bar. The artwork looks a lot cleaner and sharper. The saints are given better armors (or cloths) to fight in. The backgrounds are even more detailed (the Asgard series just looks breathtaking).

The sound of Saint Seiya is made up of JRock intros, JPop outro and symphonic compositions within the episodes (with vocals on some tracks). Overall, this gives the series a magnificently epic feel as all types of music are produced incredibly well to suit the mood/s of the show. Soldier Dream is the stand out vocal track for me. The stand out composition in a sea of greatness is Athena's Theme. The only reason I did not give sound a 10 is because these symphonies are reused a few times and as lovely as they are to hear, I just kept wishing for more of them. This does not mean the series is a one trick poney as it does have about 13 soundtracks at last count.

The story is what will get you into this series as first. As the synopsis describes it is about a war for humankind (yeah I know, a cliche in today's anime climate but not so much at the time it was made). The interesting thing about this though is that it uses mythological aspects to move the story along. A lot of mythologies are explored, with the obvious ones being Greek, Norse and Bhuddist. The saints themselves wear armors that are derivative of mythologies but in an astrological sense. Like Seiya having the Pegasus armor, Shun having the Andromeda armor or Algol having the Medusa armor.

The best thing about the story is how it manages to keep a lot of mysteries to itself in the first series (the Sanctuary Arc) as you do not know if the protagonists are actually right until about episode 50. Preceeding episode 50 are wonderful episodes that develop the characters so well that its climax just moves you to tears.

The second and third series have different stories that are persued but despite the length (25 and 15 eps respectively) they still maintain the epic atmosphere and have some of the most touching characters in all of anime.

The characters in the Asgard series are probably the best antagonists (as a group) that anime has to offer. They are marvellously well developed so that you feel their triumphs and failures like they were transcending you. Mime, Fenrir, Thor and, Syb and Bud are the best of that cast and their respective stories have the potential to move you to tears (Think Now and Then Here and There). The best part of it is how they actually affect our leading team of five (Seiya, Shun, Shiryu, Hoyga and Ikki) which makes them connect with us even more.

The main five are also very successful characters. Of them my favourite is Shiryu because of his values and willingness to sacrifice himself. Shun and Hyoga are close seconds as they have interesting backstories and a powerful bond. Ikki has a very interesting personality that is developed very successfully as the series goes. Seiya, although the main, is my least favourite of the five as he is a little childish and annoying (yet, still well developed). I have grown to like him a lot more with the newer releases of the series though.

The great thing about this series is that you are sure to connect with at least one of the characters as there are quite a few of them and, even ones that don't feature for very long have enough of a story that you don't feel they are a waste of time.

The sanctuary arc has Aphrodite, Camus, Shura, Saga, Shaka, Shaina, Cassios, Aiolia and Aldebaran as stand outs for various reasons I do not want to spoil. The poseidon arc has Krishna, Scylla, Lymnades, Canon and Poseidon himself to keep you interested. All these characters are so well done that some of their characteristics have become cliches. So you should watch Saint Seiya to see where it all starts.

I own this whole series and it a definitely a must see. If you're unsure as to whether you will like it, ADV Films is releasing an affordable thinpak with the first 30 episodes for you to decide whether it is your cup of tea. Also try www.rightstuf.com for good deals on the singles. I think they are something like $5 at the moment for 5 episodes a disc, which is amazing value.

I thoroughly enjoy this show everytime I rewatch it as a whole or in parts so I think all of you shounen fans will find something to like too. The chracter design also allows for a few bishounens so the girls are thought of as well.

As someone who had an interest in Greek Mythology since childhood, Saint Seiya was a series that naturally appealed to me. Coupled with it's other aesthetic elements such as the intricate, inventive and cool Cloth designs, the great level of detail and style in it's art to make the male characters noble and the females beautiful or having one of the best opening songs in anime and a great soundtrack in general, the series seems top tier from a stylistic point of view, but what about substance?

When it comes to plot and characters, the series can be described as simple but fairly well executed. All ... of the major characters have pretty transparent motivations without too much subtlety, yet their personalities of it's major players are all very memorable and fairly consistent.
As for the plot, this is something that is pretty simple and unfortunately can suffer from a few poor Shonen tropes such as power of friendship, resolve power ups and general plot armour. However, this series manages to execute these poor plot devices far better than any modern Shonen. The nature of burning one's Cosmo excuses the power ups that can occur and many characters being plot armoured by Athena's intervention is actually fitting in it's ties to Greek Mythology, in which many heroes such as Heracles and Odysseus couldn't get through some impossible tasks without help from the Gods.

===Story Analysis - Part 1: Sanctuary Arc===

Moving on to talk about a few of the individual arcs, the first is the Sanctuary Arc. This arc had a pretty decent opening act with a tournament that had some actual stakes in the risk of the combatants dying and could have been one of the best tournaments in Shonen had it continued to the end, though it's understandable to abandon it when tournaments were a saturated plot line even during the mid 80s. While the later events with the Black Saints, filler villains such as Docrates and then the Silver Saints could feel quite repetitive in their structure, they did have quite a few highlights for the main cast to help emphasise their differences such as Shiryu's tendency of self-sacrifice and Ikki's merciless nature.
Things start to truly rise in quality when the events of the 12 Zodiac Palaces occur, which is the most popular part of the series and indeed it's peak. The tension was great as the race against time with a clear limit to reach, with the Gold Saints all having clearly distinct personalities and most of them being interesting characters. Gemini Saga is a particular highlight, with the conflict of his personalities being at constant odds with each other and being the best execution of a split-personality character in Shonen (better than the highly overrated Sensui from YYH). The arc can seem somewhat disappointing in the lack of major deaths in the main cast despite the severity of their injuries, though this is somewhat excusable when one major theme of the arc was the Bronze Saints proving themselves as worthy successors to the Gold Saints. Overall, it was a fairly solid action/adventure that I'd rate a 6.5/10.

===Part 2: Asgard Arc===

This anime exclusive arc is far more than just a filler arc; it's the best filler arc in anime as it actually bothers to make it's anime exclusive characters, the God Warriors, very memorable both in design and personality to the point their characters are even better written than most of the far more iconic Gold Saints for the most part. It was also very well done in how this arc transitions back into manga canon territory and ushers in the next arc in a far more exciting way than the original manga.
However, the arc wasn't as good as Sanctuary. For one, Hilda wasn't an interesting villain due to her actions being purely due to mind control. The sense of tension was nowhere near as great as the previous arc either. The amount of time the Bronze Saints had to accomplish their task within was nowhere near as well shown as in Sanctuary and aside from Siegfried, the God Warriors had power nowhere near as great or consistent a strength or grouping as the Gold Saints, with their 2nd strongest member still being only equal to Taurus Aldebaran. The general structure is also a copy-paste of Sanctuary as most of the series was from then on, showing how the series lost a lot of steam after it's first 73 episodes and went with rehashing it's most popular plot line in new ways. Despite that, it was still a decent arc and a masterpiece by filler standards. 6/10.

===Part 3: Poseidon Arc===

The final arc of the original anime was the Poseidon Arc, which was a definite step down from the previous two. It did at least try to be less formulaic by not having it's standard opponents be in such a linear road, but that means little when the execution is still repetitive and, unlike with the two previous arcs main group of villains, the Marina Generals are for the most part a major disappointment. Kanon was good due to his role as a manipulator and Isaac was decent due to his ties to Hyoga (though mainly only to serve as character development for Hyoga), yet the rest were completely bland beyond a gimmick or two. It doesn't help that power-wise, only Kanon, Krishna, Isaac and maybe Sorrento felt that impressive, with the rest getting steamrolled pretty quickly once the Bronze Saints got serious.
It was good that the battles required more than just beating the opponent, but it didn't really matter after the first battle since the destruction of the Sea Pillars was no longer a big deal with the Libra Cloth. Having a god as the main antagonist did increase the scale and Poseidon's desire to reshape the world wasn't too hyperbolic from his perspective, though he felt very underwhelming for such a powerful god when he was overpowered twice by the combined power of the main cast (the second time in which he'd gone through a gigantic power up of his own) and coming close to his full power didn't change much overall. It also doesn't help that the sense of tension, like the previous arc's, is nowhere near as great as Sanctuary due to having no solid grasp of how much time Athena had left. If anything, it was worse due to not even being told a solid time limit or constantly shown her physical condition prior to the end of the battle, which in both anime and manga lacked any sort of build up for the next arc (though this is expected with the anime concluding on this arc until adapting the Hades Arc over a decade later). 4/10.

Going back to the aesthetic qualities and expanding on them, it's truly where the series stands out as rule of cool. Along with the creativity within the armour of each character, the change of Kurumada's art style to this equally as iconic style of Shingo Araki's lead to it's art possibly being the best of Toei's TV Anime. The soundtrack has an excellent range from triumphant or emotional orchestras to cool rock in order to really fit the tone of each scene. Voice acting is also great with some very well revered seiyuu establishing their performances as iconic with the characters such as Toru Furuya's performance as Seiya, Hirotaka Suzuoka as Shiryu or Hideyuki Tanaka as both Aiolia and the narrator.

Overall, Saint Seiya is a fairly enjoyable series, even if fairly flawed. It's far from the peak of Shonen as even during it's era, there were quite a few Shonen of overall better quality such as Hokuto no Ken or the original series of Dragon Ball. However, what tropes of Shonen it established and utilised, it at least performed them better than most, if not all, Shonen to copy it's formula thereafter such as Yu Yu Hakusho and Bleach. Along with having some pretty likeable and unique characters, it deserves a place amongst the good Shonen titles.

Overall ranking - 6/10

Pegasus... Ryuseiken!

Ahh, Saint Seiya. The curious case of Saint Seiya. An absolute classic that helped Dragon Ball in popularizing the long-running fighting shounen "genre" back in the late 80s, that yet, as opposed to Mr. Toriyama's work, gets so little attention, interest and recognition online in comparison to virtually all of the other big ones that followed it later, with some of them even being inspired by it (well-known authors like Tite Kubo, Masashi Kishimoto and CLAMP have all declared to have been inspired by this show. In fact, Bleach’s most popular arc was inspired by Saint Seiya’s most popular arc too). Along with the ... fact that this was the first ever anime show I completed back in the 90s (when internet wasn’t even a thing yet) that instantly became one of my all-time favorites, I must admit that this has been somewhat disheartening to notice. Though, this result is understandable when remembering not only that this is an old property, but also that this was the ONLY major long-running fighting shounen to absolutely BOMB in the highly coveted US market and by extension in every other English speaking country due to an unfortunate very late release in Toonami back in the early 00s (almost 20 years after its original release in JP) with probably one of the worst cases of localization in all of anime (see “Additional comments” at the end of this review), which ultimately prevented it from building any relevant fanbase there forever. Anyway, no matter its scarce knowledge and traction in English based sites, truth is that Saint Seiya’s position as one the most famous battle shounen shows worldwide is undisputed, mainly supported by the Latin American and Latin European (France, Spain, Portugal and Italy) regions, where its fate, as opposed to the one it suffered in the Anglosphere, was quite different. In fact…the polar opposite.

Saint Seiya was HUGE here, even more than in Japan, and the French are the ones to blame, by being the first in bringing the series to the West and renaming it as “Knights of the Zodiac”. So much that, specifically in Latin America, this show got an almost religious following since it first aired. To put things into perspective, pick random people in any Latin American street, ask them what anime shows do they know, and Saint Seiya will be among the titles with the most mentions along shows like DB, Pokemon and Naruto. Go to any anime related store or shopping center and you’ll see the radiant (and expensive!) action figures -whose sales are still red-hot after all these decades- being displayed right in the main shop windows. Every time anime pops-up as a theme of conversation in social meetings, Saint Seiya is vigorously discussed. And this is the ONLY fighting shounen franchise along Dragon Ball that has ALL of its installments (including non-canon movies) completely dubbed to Latin American Spanish, something that not a single member of the so-called “Big 3” ever achieved here. It’s truly an icon of the “Latinsphere” pop culture and its collective memory. But why was it so successful? What was the reason behind the madness? If I had to describe it in few words…simply because Saint Seiya is just a fascinating tale about honour, courage and loyalty, and a blast of energy, style and passion. Well, let’s start digging out this.


The universe

Undoubtedly, one of the main reasons of its appeal has to do with its setting: Saint Seiya is a shounen heavily inspired and nourished by mythological themes, mainly greek. This is a world where mythological deities coexist with the real world and fight for the control of the Earth, in large-scale conflicts known as “holy wars”. For this purpose, each of them count with an order of warriors (in the case of the Goddess Athena, the one the author chose as the “protector of the Earth”, known as “Saints”), who swear them allegiance. These warriors wear armours known as “cloths”, sacred robes forged by gods which not only are used to protect their bodies, but also to enhance their powers, which represent diverse mythological concepts/entities. In the case of saints, the 88 greek-based constellations; for example, the Leo warrior, representing the constellation of Leo, wears a cloth that when not being used, its pieces assemble together taking the shape of a lion (watching the assembled form of each of these cloths is such a pleasure, especially the zodiac constellations!). The cloths must only be used for noble causes and never for personal ambitions, and aren’t mere inert objects, they are imbued with a “soul”, and a form of intelligence, they establish a bond with their bearers and may even reject them if they detect that they have deviated from the right paths.

To acquire the title of saint and wear a cloth, the warrior must first learn to channel their inner spiritual energy called “cosmos”, from which he gets his powers (the equivalent to chi, chakra and nen). Ever heard that every human being is “made of stars’ dust”? Well, battle system sorta plays with that; it relies on the fact that the spirits of individuals are linked to their “guardian constellations”, which protect them and grant them power if they discover how to “become one” with them. It’s nothing really complex, but it’s still, let’s say, very “poetic”. And as a show with a mythological motif, this actually fits. This way, fights aren’t really entirely decided based on who’s physically the strongest, but rather on who can manipulate and “burn their inner cosmos” or create an “explosion” inside their bodies and become one with their guardian constellation the most. Fights are NOT decided by mere power levels!


The warriors

Within the order of Athena’s saints, there are three different ranks: the bronze saints (the lower rank), the silver saints (intermediate rank) and the golden saints (higher rank). Our main cast of 5 members belong to the first category. All of them are orphans with painful pasts which represent the tests they have to overcome in order to grow as better warriors. SS might not be exactly your show with lots of characters study, but it still does a good job in making its main characters more than just the powerful cool dudes that go to the field to fight, throw some attacks to defeat their enemies, entertain the audience and that’s it. With every fight they grow as both human beings and saints, so it’s not like the show does nothing with them besides using them as plot devices to just showcase the cool action scenes. It’s also important to note that, unlike what happens in most battle shounen series, Saint Seiya is a role model in having a team of warriors all of them sharing equal amount of spotlight; the distribution of fights is pretty even (despite the fact that at the end of every conflict it is Seiya the one who, given his MC status, gets a brief credit-plus).

Seiya, who gives the show its name, is the “main” of the 5. He represents everything in old shounen heroes: brave, determined, impulsive, the nice dude every kid wants to be friend with and…wears obviously red! Then you have Shun, who started the trend of “the girly” dude in shounens (he may have been the inspiration for Kurapika, who, the same as Shun, has powers related to chains), very sensitive, delicate and kind, with a soft personality and pacifist. He’s the younger brother of Ikki, the cold-hearted, powerful and distant lone-wolf who’s always arguing with the rest of the group, acts by himself and obviously wears…blue. Before Vegeta, there was Ikki! He’s also the most psychologically complex of all since he was basically trained in Mordor, where he was inculcated the hate philosophy: hating yourself and the nefarious world around you will make you stronger. And that’s as far as archetypes here go (though to be fair, Shun and Ikki pretty much were pioneers, so they weren’t really archetypical back in the day), since the other two, Shiryu and Hyoga, seem pretty “untaggable”. The former is a noble, serene and wise chinese dude with a strong sense of honor, loyalty and self-sacrifice, embodying best the ideals and virtues of a saint, and the latter is a russian dude who’s by far the less stereotypical of the bunch with a very real characterization. He’s the “cool”, calculating and smart of the group who shows himself as strong and tough, when in reality hides a very emo-ish side and has the hardest time when it comes to overcome his tragic past and grow both as a person and saint.


The style

You would probably be thinking, after reading all this, that Saint Seiya is "oh, just another dumb battle shounen show made for kids". Don’t get me wrong, the saints wear cool-looking armours, use, pose and yell cool special moves, and give passionate, overdramatized speeches, and all of this is certainly appealing to kids, but this doesn’t mean it’s just another 80s show with a kiddy tone made only to sell tons of action figures. In fact, it’s quite the contrary: Saint Seiya (the original) is probably one of the shounens with the most grown-up, adult feel you’ll find out there. Not because it tackles “dark themes” whatsoever, but because unlike most shounens, the tone here is very serious and basically never lighthearted. Saint Seiya never feels “shounen-y”, in the sense of presenting a charismatic set of characters you would like to “hang out with” that will put all these funny goofy faces and will engage in funny dialogues during lighthearted/silly parts which are typical of most shounen shows and that try to make you “love” the characters. There’s none of that in Saint Seiya. Believe me…SS is closer in tone to Trust & Betrayal rather than the TV Rurouni Kenshin! There are a bunch of comedic moments, but they are minimal, only for very punctual comical relief (and most of them involving a situation with kids), they are “lovely” rather than goofy and only come in during the first part of the show. The show is just fully dramatic and sober the whole time and avoids the inclusion of any type of silliness, something that not even more substantial shounens like FMAB or HxH can say. It is important to note that it’s precisely thanks to this overall serious, dramatic and classy tone that all of the cheesy speeches the saints give never feel fake, tasteless, cringey and annoyingly forced like it may occur in other shounens, but indeed are actually effective in making the viewer really feel all the passion this series breathes out in a credible, intense and inspirational way like an heroic, ancient epic Greek drama. Finally, the fact that this appeals to kids doesn’t mean it was suitable to them, since Saint Seiya is VERY violent and bloody and never tries to hide it. Characters are seen being tortured in most of the fights with some gruesome moments and a lot of times bleed rivers (though towards the latter arcs the level of violence is relatively softened). This is exaggerated and may look absurd at times, but its part of its essence and style. It wasn’t so heavily censored in the US turning it into a complete failure there for nothing! I mean the very first episode features a human ear being ripped-off! Not for no reason the show generated a lot of controversy back in the 90s among parents and even the Church who could not understand how could something this violent could have been aired during after-school timeslots, and the series was even prohibited in some countries. To conclude: no, it may be appealing to kids, but it’s not a kiddy show.

Following with the style, the show may not be anything truly outstanding when it comes to substance, but it CERTAINLY is in regards to its artwork, one of the other main factors that explained the popularity of the show. The level of detail and creativity poured in the designs of each of the many cloths to make all of them appealing, cool-looking and distinctive from each other and also into all the many buildings/temples that pay homage to the beautiful arquitecture from ancient Greece and the Neoclassicism artistic movement (Sanctuary itself is reminiscent of the Acropolis), reveals all the passion, love and hard work that the designers had to put in which are nothing short of admirable. The designs of all the many characters are also very detailed and stylized and there’s no one that will look similar to another. This is another thing: Saint Seiya, despite being a shounen, actually has a very shoujo-esque artstyle, because of the relatively big eyes, the long, fluffy hairstyles with vibrant coloring and the fine body proportions that not only made the characters look handsome, but also so respectable and so CLASSY, particularly the golden saints. It it also important to note that the artistic decisions in regards to character designs largely contributed to give the series the adult, solemn and serious feel it irradiates that was explained earlier. No single relevant character has a “funny”, “sweet”, “kiddy” or “teeny” appearance (excluding children obviously), something that can make lighter the tone of a series, especially in shounens, and in fact, the bronze saints (the main cast) while all of them officially around 13-16 years old, are really drawn as if they were WAY older. Seiya is the only one that can pass as a teenager, though never younger than 17. Finally, animation can look a bit poor at times, in fact there’re lots of reused animation sequences here (think of Sailor Moon transformation moments), and there’re clear budget disparities among episodes, but this is pretty much the norm in every long-running show (especially from Toei) so it’s nothing to feel very bothered about. Also the visual-effects are stunning, especially the ones to animate the cosmos gleaming light that the knights irradiate from their bodies that have nothing to envy to modern techniques. Overall, Saint Seiya is a gorgeous anime to look at.

And not only to look at, but also to hear. Not only because the voice-over cast did an excellent job, but also because it features probably the most outstanding soundtrack in anime history. I’m sorry if I trigger anyone with this comment, but if you think that Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or Attack on Titan enjoy the best OSTs in anime, well, that’s because… you haven’t seen Saint Seiya yet! The music is simply INSANELY good. I know this is highly subjective, but what it’s not subjective is the fact that that the amount of memorable, resounding and powerful tracks that the genius Seiji Yokohama composed (as opposed to many shows with good OSTs but that in reality just feature at most two or three tracks that truly stick in your mind) is VAST. Most of the tracks not only boost the epic, triumphant and colossal nature of the show and brilliantly fit with EVERY single frame of it, but also explain a large part of what makes Saint Seiya the legend that it is. It just would not have made the same impact without them. You can really tell that each of the tunes was composed with the heart and brain at their fullest and there was a LOT of hard, passionate work behind them. I’ve yet to hear a score more exquisit, detailed, rich, stimulating, full of passion and love than the one Yokohama crafted. If SS’s score would have been the one of a Hollywood movie, it would have EASILY won the respective Oscar, and I mean it. And to insist with this: even the detractors of the show have recognized how damm awesome it was!


The clashes

SS -similarly to DBZ- consists of 3 main arcs where the first one contains an introductory sub-arc. The first one (Sanctuary, episodes 1-73) kicks-off the series with a tournament part that introduces the 5 members of the main cast and their personal conflicts and that is interrupted towards the end by a major event (ever heard of this before?). Excluding the legendary Seiya vs Shiryu fight, it’s unfortunate that this string of first 15 episodes or so (a significant amount) not only is the less interesting/exciting part of the show; it is also the lamest. It does not give an accurate idea of the mythological essence of the show, it doesn’t tell you since the beginning that this will be a show relying heavily on fantasy, and introduces the terrible Black Saints which are literally a bunch of dudes looking exactly the same as all of our protagonists with no single explanation whatsoever. Bad decisions didn’t stop there and in the next part of this first arc (Silver Saints) Toei decided to cram in the Steel Saints who were basically the Centurions: biologically enhanced warriors wearing mechanical/artificial armours whose existence went against the mythological/spiritual nature of the show (think of them as the “Porygons” in the SS universe) and were included with the single purpose to increase the action figures’ sales. It was stupid and the studio knew it: they soon after made them vanish leaving no trace at all! It was also unfortunate that some of the Silver Saints were bad filler characters and their concepts didn’t even have associated real constellations. However, all of this is more than compensated given that this part still did a very good job when it comes to develop the dynamics, relationships and conflicts of the main cast, creating intrigue about what’s going on here by slowly revealing the details of the plot and universe and by quietly setting the stage for what would be one of the most memorable arcs in battle shounen history: the Golden Saints, the fan-favorite one, the highest point of the whole franchise and what granted Saint Seiya its legendary status.

Spanning around 33-34 episodes, the last part of the first arc easily catches the attention since the very beginning when an unexpected event takes you by surprise and from there onwards it’s just a non-stop epic hell of a ride charged with large amounts of adrenaline, real drama and passion all of which brilliantly blend together to yield one of the most memorable and fascinating tales I’ve ever experienced not only in anime, but in media in general. Beating with incredible tension, what made it good was that not only is a thrilling race against time with highly dramatic fights, but also an inspiring process of personal growth and learning from both the bronze saints and the golden saints, which were all of them enemies with rich, well-defined characterizations that made the viewer actually care about them and made them more than just forgettable “enemies of the moment”. (In fact, the golden saints are as equally if not more popular among the fanbase than the 5 protagonists themselves). The arc also efficiently manages to keep clear of the monotony that could have arisen given its stage-by-stage sequence by presenting some sort of novelty in most of the links of the chain. Not all of them are solved the same way and there’s a lot of creativity poured in, which lastly prevents any type of fatigue. I don’t want to spoil much, but it’s for this matter necessary to highlight that the main cast DOES NOT win all of the fights in their way up which is the most obvious expected outcome for a “typical shounen”. It is also a very inspirational journey where their virtues as saints and their determination are constantly being tested. The conclusion is nothing short of amazing (episode 72 is among my all-time favorite episodes), and while some argue that the way the conflict ended seemed somewhat convenient in the sense that it gave the bronze saints more credit than the one they were “logically” supposed to have, this was in reality the necessary way to go to prove wrong and destroy the ideals and beliefs of the main antagonist (who was probably one of the most interesting villains in all of battle shounens given the nature of his personality and concept linked to mythological themes) and to convey the overall message that “power alone is not enough to rule and it will never overcome justice”, which was the entire point of the whole arc.

The next two following clashes, Asgard and Poseidon, face some controversy since, given how successful and well-received the Sanctuary arc was, they copy-pasted its plot structure (a race against time where the 5 bronze saints have to fight a group of warriors step-by-step that culminates with the big boss at the end of the journey) adding some slight modifications here and there (in Poseidon for example, the ordered sequence was broken when some bronze saints reached the final boss before every henchman had been already defeated), a decision that for some may seem non-creative, and may make them legitimately think: “come on, this again?”. Personally, I never cared about this, to me they are still enjoyable rides, but the situation for others may not be the same and not without good reason. They have been also subject of controversy since, given the new context after the conclusion of the Sanctuary arc, it wasn’t the most logical decision that the bronze saints were the ones to go to the battlefield (twice) again, considering they were not the most powerful saints in the hierarchy and some mild conveniences had to be introduced to justify this situation. However, I argue that this was necessary considering that, otherwise, they would have lost their protagonist status, what wouldn’t have made much sense.

Anyway, going back to the arcs themselves, the Asgard arc (episodes 74-99), where the saints have to face a threat from the cold north, is basically a lecture of a “filler arc done right” that most long-running shounens would kill to have. Toei did an excellent job and proved that fillers don’t have to suck long before some other shounens did. The arc is well-integrated into the storyline and while the new enemies (the god warriors) aren’t as cool-looking, beloved and popular as the golden saints, they are still respectable and are in fact more developed in terms of characterization and backstory than the latter, which made them still very interesting. It may not have been as exciting and suspenseful as the Sanctuary arc, but it’s still a competent, highly enjoyable ride, with the Siegfried (the last and most powerful god warrior) confrontation as the highest point. Finally, the Poseidon arc (episodes 100-114), where the saints have to stop the ambitions of the king of the seas, while enjoyable overall (especially towards the end where it showcases the most colossal, larger-than-life moments of the whole series; certain event in the last episode always takes my breath away), it relatively failed to live-up to the hype since it was supposed to be the hardest confrontation of the series given that this was the first time they were battling against a real god and its army, when in reality most of the henchmen (the marina generals) were mediocre and were defeated without much difficulty by the bronze saints, which made things less exciting. It didn’t help that 4 of the 7 were totally forgettable enemies with no characterization at all. Nevertheless, the arc (and the show) still manages to end in a high-note with an inspiring and cheerful final message.


The Achilles’ heel

Now it’ time to talk about the show’s actual main flaws that no SS fan has ever denied: the consistency of its storytelling during the first arc and its lack of worldbuilding. During this part, the show suffers from some inconsistencies that anyone with a brain and a pair of eyes will notice, all of them arising from the fact that the author didn’t really have a very clear idea of where to head its work since the beginning. There’s just too much stuff of the likes “how can this be this way if this other thing I saw before was like that?”, especially regarding the identity and ambitions of the first main antagonist and the information some characters are supposed to possess given who they are and what they have lived in the past (for example: Seiya, who had trained in the Sanctuary for 6 years, is unaware of the existence of the golden saints, who precisely live right there! It’s not believable). Also one of the cloths changes its shape overnight and no one even wonders why. There is some discontinuity in terms of places too: some buildings that were not supposed to be located in a certain place given what had been shown before, suddenly are. And let’s not even talk, as I mentioned earlier, about the sudden vanishing of the Steel Saints. There are many others, but I don’t want to spoil and there’s no need to mention them all; the point is clear.

Also, the show leaves a lot to be desired in terms of worldbuilding: it will leave you wondering many aspects about its universe and its functioning that will never be explained. For example, it never bothers to tell where the cloths come from, who crafted them, when does a saint stops using it (they are after all humans and can’t be fit warriors forever) and inherits it to its next holder. It’s also never explained how does the Sanctuary interacts with the rest of the “real world” (the Sanctuary is a place where “normal” people can’t get in, it’s supposed to be hidden, despite the fact that it’s an open place right next to Athens!) and what kind of roles does it have besides being just the place where Goddess Athena will stare the world from its heights. In the end, the show raises a lot of questions regarding its universe that will never be answered in it, but rather in the source, other media or simply in interviews with the author, however I do think that it would have added a lot of value if they had been answered/explained within the TV show. Personally, as one of my favorites, I’ve never been really bothered by all of this, the lack of answers and inconsistencies are really all minor and hence unable to diminish by enjoyment, however for adult starters, this could legitimately not be the case. So as a final advice: don’t think this too much. It is not a show to expect logic from. It is a show with a mythological concept after all! You should watch it as if reading a myth, a poem, the nature of SS is highly poetic, so instead of feeling lazy or illogical, it actually feels romantic.


The tragedy

The unfortunate case of Saint Seiya is that for starters it might look like a shounen show that “didn’t age well”, and is in fact something that is said about this show by some people. (I myself hate using that term, not only because it has been overused to death and because it has become the cheapest way of all to argue that modern shows are better than older ones, but also because I just can’t think that artistic productions are subject to lose value in time like they were cars or any type of electronic device). Why? Because during the last decades, anime fans have become more “brainy” and rational when it comes to judge (and enjoy) shows and in Saint Seiya EVERYTHING is in reality “hearty” or “faithy”, something that hence inevitably isn’t compatible with their demands, and that ultimately has led them to be unable to realize the whole point of the show (more of this in next paragraph). They started watching shounens like FMA, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece or even Naruto, all of them who helped to modify the shounen trends, became the new generation battle shounen benchmarks and consequently have been placed as what every shounen should aspire to be. Unsurprisingly, when they out of curiosity watch (after them) a shounen from the 80s (15-20 years BEFORE the aforementioned shows premiered, when the trends where clearly completely different), they deem it as a “generic, cliched shounen”, when the truth is that it wasn’t really (that) generic during the time it came! Which is exactly the fate Saint Seiya has unfairly suffered. Would Saint Seiya look generic today? Maybe. Was it generic when it premiered? NO, since it, alongside DB and HnK, were among the first ones in using many of the common tropes that many other battle shounens keep using until these days! It was definitely not (that) generic when it was released. Of course, battle shounen realm has evolved in such a way that shows like Saint Seiya with simple premises and no major substantial themes (even if they aren’t dumb) may not be appealing for newer generations (especially if they are already adults) who are more demanding after having established shows like FMA and Hunter x Hunter as the shounen benchmarks, but this doesn’t have to render all the shounen shows that came before them and that obviously could not follow these new modern trends they established necessarily as bad ones. Saint Seiya, as one of the first long-running battle shounens, was indeed a good show by the time it came (though not necessarily the best) and it’s very important to have the right mindset and perspective prior to watch it. Comparing an 80s show with a post-2000 not only is unfair, it is also pointless, since it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison!

In line with the aforementioned issue, Saint Seiya has also been very criticized for its heavy use of shounen cliches like plot armour (the bronze saints suffer in many times severe damage, bleed like hell, are in many times at the edge of dying, and they never do, except for one of them), power-ups that seem illogical, main characters that stand up and never give up no matter how hurt they are and the so-called "power-of-friendship" resource that has nowadays been completely demonized after certain shows have overused it to an extreme with no grounds whatsoever. Some people were bothered that the fights did not have “tactical”, “strategic” or “logical” solutions, which demonstrates that they really never had a clue of the show they were watching and is a testament of the problems that arise when anime watchers become overly “brainy”: they are unable to understand shows that do not follow realistic paths. What do I mean with this? Saint Seiya is a show with a mythological motif, that pays homage to all those mythological greek tales, is entirely faith based, and people ask it… logic? Do all those tales seemed logic to begin with? To me, it’s just not the case. While I do agree that fights solved by strategy are more creative, this doesn’t imply that the ones that are not based on it have to be bad, and even if we consider them as “lazy writing”, facts still are that in this show every boost in power the saints experiment have a believable justification given the mythological context of the universe it takes places in and the rules it establishes since the very beginning which also are always consistent. The whole point and overall message of the show was always a highly romantic and “religious” one: imbued by the grace and protection of the god you believe in, overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles can be accomplished if your spiritual control linked to the cosmos, determination, perseverance and your faith in both yourself and the right causes you believe in and fight for, are strong enough, which is a theme that is permanently tackled throughout the whole show and is well-executed, so there’s never really any reason to feel annoyed by. Lastly, the “power of friendship” moments, aren’t exactly that, but rather “power of the union”, the same way the spirit bomb worked in DBZ. It’s not like the saints remember their friendship and voila, we are now more powerful, so the bad idea many people have towards this concept is not really present here.


The legacy

Saint Seiya, despite its minor flaws in its storytelling and its inconsistencies (that don’t really hurt the experience in a relevant degree), the repetitiveness of its arc structures later in the series and the fact that it may seem like a cliched story by today’s standards, it’s still a worldwide relevant and competent action shounen that executes its relatively simple ambitions in terms of overall messages well and which can be a highly enjoyable, inspiring rollercoaster ride (boosted by the enormous level of detail in its style) if you watch it from the right perspective. It’s a good show if you are both able to realize that this is a mid 80s battle shounen when the demo was only starting to take shape, when what now may seem typical wasn’t really so back then, and that it isn’t a show that you should ask for much logic, considering its mythological/religious elements. It also may not be a very thematically rich show, but this doesn’t mean it’s a stupid “turn-your-brain-off” one either. It’s pure colossal, passionate and cheesy 80s fun and from the best you can find. It may not be the most compelling shounen ever, but this one is still as classic and legendary as Dragon Ball and deserves to get more credit, attention and recognition than the one it currently has.

8/10.


**Additional comments**

• About the rest of the franchise: (i) Saint Seiya continued in 2002 with the Hades arc in OVA format, which, as canon material, should be watched. The arc has an spectacular first act, however, the second and third ones are sadly underwhelming. (ii) The first 4 movies of the 80s are all as interesting and exciting as your standard old DBZ movie. In other words: don’t bother with them. (iii) The Heaven arc overture movie was supposed to continue the show, but it was a failed project that never saw again the light of the day, so also don’t bother with it. (iv) The Lost Canvas is a non-canon “prequel” to SS. It is overall better written than SS, however, it also lacks the passion and excitement the original enjoys (still a good watch). (v) Saint Seiya Omega is the real “kiddy” dumbed-down version of SS. It is non-canon, has another universe and you’d be better avoiding it, as I did. (vi) Soul of Gold is just a cashgrab whose existence was as necessary as DBS.

• If you haven’t seen this show and you are from an English speaking country, AVOID the dub. It is an abomination, one of the main reasons the show never took off in the Anglosphere and it’s not even complete. (For further details, check: https://landofobscusion.blogspot.com/2018/08/dics-knights-of-zodiac-i-just-ran-i-ran.html).

• Despite the art being outstanding, sadly the versions that are available online are not very good and don’t make it justice, and belong to a “remastered” version that is probaby the only case of a remaster I’ve seen that ended being worse than the original. A lot of the beautiful details resulted butchered and the color pallette and contrasts are bad. Try to find the original version which is the best.

• There’s this misconception that SS is a super sentai show and is “the Sailor Moon for boys”, since both use universe concepts, have a team of warriors who pose and yell their attacks and give speeches about friendship, perseverance, love and faith. However, that’s as far as similarities go. Aside from the obvious fact that SM is a cute and lovely and magical girl show, SS is a raw and violent shounen, and it’s NOT a super sentai show. In sentai shows, the warriors always go to the battlefield and fight together, while in SS the saints move separately and combats are always one-to-one. It is also not episodic and there are no transformation sequences like sentai shows usually are and include, respectively.

• It’s also a myth that in SS the saints are overpowered. Sure, they are strong and powerful, but it’s not like they can destroy entire planets with their powers either like in DBZ.

• It will draw your attention that when the bronze saints put on their cloths, for no apparent reason their hair grow a bit and their trousers change their color. For example, Seiya wears blue-jeans and when he puts on his Pegasus cloth they magically turn red. No: the cloths do not include wigs neither ink: it’s just an author’s whim.

• The french (the first in bringing the show to the west) changed the title of the warriors from saints to knights, to avoid controversy with the Catholic Church, and hence in all the western dubs saints are known as knights.

• Netflix is preparing a remake for 2019. The trailer has recently been launched. Watch it and judge for yourself. If I did here, this review would have actually never ended.

Well, perhaps I'm one of those self-declared #1 fans. I can't tell exactly how many times I rewatched this series. All I know is that there were lots of times. So maybe now I can act like a kind of advertiser for the series.
I'd start saiying that Saint Seiya was my introdution to the world of anime. The story, the characters, the myth, the bloody and very impressive fights, the dilemmas the characters had to go through, all created a perfect and attractive piece of something I wasn't used to watching. I kinda compare it to the influence that the american music exerted over ... me. I wasn't a music enthusiast untill I heard Mariah Carey for the first time. I mean after watching Saint Seiya, I experienced the kind of excitement that an animation could 'cause and became an otaku.

Let me try my very best to describe Saint Seiya:

The story
It's about goddess Athena, who reincarnate on the earth every 200 or 300 years to protect it from the aproaching evil, and her saints, who are, in most of the cases, teenagers.

The Saints
There are three different ranks of saints. Bronze saints(the lower rank), silver saints and the highest rank, that happens to be the gold ones. The five saints who are around Athena(in her current reincarnation as Saori Kido) in almost the whole series belong to the lower rank. Though they're supposedly the weakest ones, they manage to overcome even the gold saints in order to protect they're goddess. If you watch it, you'll find out sometimes that it's kinda hard to believe that those boys(Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, Ikki and Shun) could achieve such level of power, performing miracles to the point that they don't seem to be simple humans anymore.

The cosmos
Every saint has his own guiding constellation in wich the power of they're cosmos(something like chakra in Naruto's world) is based. As it's explained trough the series, the cosmos has no rank. So even a lower rank saint could master it and become strong enough to fight and defeat the gods.

The music
There's also a lot to comment about the musical themes of the series. I kinda can't get those songs and arranges out of my mind. The one I like the most is that one played in the end of every episode, causing you that anxiety for the next episode that keeps you always coming for more. For myself, I can say that Seiji Yokoyama did an amazing job in composing the soundtracks.

Another Shounen animes
If you liked Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hunter x Hunter, Dragon Ball Z, etc. Then you won't be wasting your time and Iencourage you to watch this amazing anime that h ad a huge influence over my entire life. Though it's not visually impressive as the ones I've just mentioned, it's still worth it watching. Belive me you won't regret.

I'm gonna finish it now, 'cause I'm afraid that this review could be so boring that you guys can't bear reading it 'till the end. That's it for now. Hope I have helped you get to know one of the best series out there.

I have HUGE problems with this anime :

1 : the fights
Unlike a lot of people apparently, I don't like the fights in this anime. Why ? because almost every single one of them are resolve with a deus ex machina, creating little to no tension, despite the fact that the hero always come close to defeat at some point.
As this deus ex machina always comes after the hero looses his armor, it makes it as useless as some kind of super heavy insignia (except for those who literally have a weapon in it like Shun).

2 : the heros's immortality
For some reason, the main characters keep ... "dying" over and over again sacrificing themselves for a reason or another. It wouldn't be a problem if they would actually stay dead (or at least use a valid method to bring them back like in Dragon Ball), for example, when trying to revive Seya's and his own armor, Shiryu survived reviving the two armors with his blood, despite Mu clearly stating it would be fatal if he did. And then winning and surviving a fight where he lost more blood than his body should have contained.
The only character that really dies is Ikki, which is conveniently the only one that can resurrect (as he is the saint of the phoenix constellation), rendering this op ability completely useless.

The main cast is not really interesting in terms of personality and objectives but that's just a detail compared to the other 2 major problems I mentioned.

On a more positive note, the art is appealing, the character design is not bad (especially the armors that are really cool), the music is nice, the opening is fucking awesome (the first one at least), and the animation is not bad either. Considering how old it is, it's actually pretty impressive how good the production is, but unfortunately, that is not enough to make a good story.

It was presented to me as a masterpiece of the level of Hokuto no Ken and Dragon Ball, that's why I'm so disappointed (I guess discovering Jojo's Bizarre Adventure just before might have helped).

To sum it up, if you're not nostalgic about it, I don't recommend watching it, it certainly does not live up to its reputation.

ps : if you disagree with me, please be an adult and don't hate me for it.

pss : English is not my mother tongue so if my writing is awkward or incorrect, I apologize.

Story and Characters
What really appealed to me about this story was the inclusion of Greek mythology and the use of the constellations to each represent a guardian to Athena. As a modern day re-telling of those qualities, I find that it's adapted very excellently. I like how the concept of chains for lets say Andromeda is transitioned from the original mythology to the character Shun, and of course everybody knows what the legend of the phoenix is, and its used very conveniently with the character Ikki. If you pretty much know the original Greek stories on a basic level, I say it can add a ... bit more to the enjoyment. If you're expecting something very accurate and 100% faithful, don't bet on it. Keep in mind this is a semi-retelling of Greek mythology with some Asian cultural twists to it which add a unique element to it in that sense.

The pacing can be slow, but very spread out. The amount of episodes put into this series allows each character to have their own contribution to the story, as well as to have their own individual and relationship development. For example, the main character, Seiya, wants nothing to do with being a saint for Athena, and wants to find his long lost sister. But after awhile, he discovers that he can use his role to hopefully have his sister also find him early on in the series. But after a short while, Seiya comes to embrace his role as Earth's protector. But it's not only interesting that Seiya only develops, but the rest of the cast and even some of the villains have their own unique development as well. And when you get to know some of the characters in an individual sense, you do get drawn to them because of how well they are presented with their personal traits and background.

The personalities of the main cast overall can be considered stereotypical by modern day standards with Seiya as the act now/never think leader; Ikki as the lone wolf; and Shun as the more soft and feminine guy, but at least the chemistry is balanced and each character can be a foil to one another. Anybody can be a foil to Seiya in the group, and Seiya can be a foil to anybody and so on.

Of course being a Shounen Jump adapted anime, there are its share of fillers. The worst part about this series is certainly the Steel Saints. I felt their concept really negated what Saint Seiya was about with manipulating the cosmos in your body and really cheapened the value of that. But thankfully they are only in a few episodes and they disappear without a trace never to be seen again. But after the Sanctuary Arc, there is a filler arc called the Asgard Arc where the Bronze saints must fight the God Warriors inspired by Norse Mythology. I felt this is one filler arc that I found to be very productive and in some ways advanced and contributed to the development of the story, and finds a way to connect the last story arc of the anime TV series. I thought the respective characters were an excellent represenation of the myths they were adapated from and matched up very well with the Bronze saints.

Art and Animation
I have to say is that I really liked how the design of the characters and I find to be a bit better than the original manga version. I like how it feels more "cleaned up," and not as rough looking. Granted Saint Seiya is an action series, but the way Kurumada inks makes it difficult for me to follow sometimes. Then again, I got bad eyes. I like how the anime makes the characters faces a bit wider and more circular. In that sense, the characters come across more convincingly as teenagers. In the manga, I wouldn't believe that Seiya was thirteen, while in the anime, I believe he can. I also like how Ikki kind of looks like a Nagai Go design. It really makes him stick out and suits his big frame since Nagai liked to sometimes design characters like that. Sometimes I wonder if Ikki was meant to be a tribute to Nagai Go's style.

Of course what some people may have problems with is Shun's design. I'll admit that I first thought he was a girl looking at the pictures. His face, his figure, the design of his armor just makes you think he's a girl. Apparently thanks to this design of Shun, it pushed way for yaoi. Not only did Kurumada-sensei pave way for Shounen Jump with his original manga, Ring ni Kakero, his creation of Shun paved way for yaoi. Kind of interesting that Kurumada is the father of both Shounen Jump and yaoi. I don't know why I can forgive Shun for looking like a girl, I guess in series like these, you may not directly need a woman, but a guy with a feminine side and Shun fills that role very well.

What also makes this series very appealing is of course the various designs of the armor that ALL the characters wear. A good fraction of the armor isn't of course 100% accurate to what you see in Greek mythology, but I felt it works with the characters' individual builds, along the way the action and the individual techniques are performed with more emphasis on speed. The armors well represent their respective constellations, and I like when they don't wear their armor, the pieces will form the constellation they represent.

Another thing that sticks out to met before I talk about the action is of course the design of the God Warriors and the Asgard characters in general. Obviously they were not designed by Kurumada, and their coloring is a lot lighter and brighter, and their hair is much thinner compared to how Kurumada draws more wild and thicker hair styles. The designs reminded me of a Josei style manga. But I suppose it does allow more diversity to the style of Saint Seiya if you want to look at this more postiviely. But lets move on.

Another high and low point of this series is the action. A lot of recycled animation is used, but Saint Seiya of course isn't the only hit anime series guilty of this feature so I think myself along with a good amount of fans can forgive that. The fighting is explosive with some super bad ass techniques, but not to a point where it gets ridiculously over the top. Despite the more emphasis on special moves, the fights are still strategic, and I like how the concept of styles makes fights is applied here. For example, one character can't beat this guy because of such and such, but this character may be able to beat this bad guy because they have a technique or a feature with their cloth in which it gives them the opportunity to win. So in some ways, it makes you feel that this character isn't the strongest amongst the saints and so on. It's all about who matches up with who.

And I have to say that Saint Seiya has some of the coolest techniques I have ever seen in action anime. I think some of the techniques used in this anime are way cooler than what you see in Hokuto no Ken and Dragon Ball Z. So, if you want to see some cool action with some sweet moves and bad ass looking armor, then Saint Seiya is for you.

Music and Voice Acting
All I have to say is that Pegasus Fantasy by MAKE-UP is certainly one of the best opening themes of an anime in history. If anybody is going to make a top anime theme list, you are no true anime fan if this song is not on your list. The opening guitars just insantly grab you by the balls and the drum beats are catchy. The singing is very energetic and passionate, and the lyrics pretty much tell you the basics of what Saint Seiya is, and that it's about masculinity, the burning fire of youth being a hero,and kicking ass. It's just the talent of MAKE-UP just makes it sound so epic. If I were a pro-wrestler or professional fighter, this would certainly be my top choice of an entrance song just like how MMA fighter Josh Barnett comes out to Ai Wo Torimodose from Hokuto no Ken. The song is so awesome that this French guy went on French Idol, and actually sang it. Granted he wasn't a great singer, but I felt from his posture and his tone, that his inner cosmos igniting for the world to see made up for his lack of talent. Hell, I think he's far more talented than a majority of idiots who go on shows like that anyway.

The second opening theme, Dream Warrior sung by Kageyama Hironobu, who is also famous for doing the songs for Dragon Ball Z is also excellent in its own right though I don't think it compares to Pegasus Fantasy. The ending themes tend to be more relaxed and is a good way to cool the audience down after seeing the intensity of what this show has to offer, so it shows another good balance to the series. It still tells the same stories of living out your dreams and being a myth come to life.

The voice talent consists the best of what anime has to offer. I'll admit the one seiyuu who impressed me most was Horikawa Ryo, the voice of Vegeta from DBZ, as the voice of Andromeda Shun. With Vegeta, he's always angry and hostile and is ready to kick somebody's ass. While as Shun, he's very soft, feminine, and a pacifist. His acting is so convincing as this character, it makes it very hard to believe this guy would later voice Vegeta. It just shows how well talented he is. Another great name is of course the voice of Seiya himself, Furuya Tooru, who is world known as the voice of Amuro Ray from Gundam, and as Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon. His talent allows Seiya to be very young and yet masculine and hot-headed. The late great Suzuoki Hirotaka, famous for playing Captain Bright from Gundam, Kaifun from Macross, Kuno from Ranma, and Saitou Hajime from Rurouni Kenshin plays Shiryu. He makes him sound calm and contemplative. And I can't deny the presence of Ikeda Shuuichi as the voice of Milo, The Scorpio Gold Sait. This guy origially played the Mother Fucking Red Comet, Char Aznable from Gundam, and Hiko Seijuro from Rurouni Kenshin.

As for the many dubs out there, I can't speak much for them. I tried watching the English dub, but I found it horrid with the static acting, and the mispronunciating of names such as Shiryu as She-ru, Hyoga, as Hai-oh-ga, and Saori as Sei-o-ri. I just couldn't get past that. I know that Saint Seiya was already popular in Europe and Mexico, but I can't speak for the dubs of those countries. But as an English speaker and as a mediocre Japanese speaker, I can only speak for the Japanese and English version. But watch this in Japanese, you will get one of the best ensemble voice acting casts of all times. Not just for their names, but for their talents and how they bring their characters to life.

Overall
Sadly, despite it's popularity overseas, America was stupid 20 years ago and didn't pick up this series when it had the chance. It could have been a HUGE success and put anime on the map 100% worldwide long before Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z did. But for some reason, somebody just looked over this awesome classic and not many American fans have seen this old school epic, and it's one of the most influentional titles in the history of manga. But you know, that's the way it is. As for who I recommend this to, of course people who love old school for starters. And I say if you love Hokuto no Ken, then you gotta check out this baby. The basic premises are very similiar with using constellations and the presentation of the action is kind of the same but gives a different flavor with a different type of explosiveness.

Definitely one of the greatest Shonen series of our time! Saint Seiya has unfortunately never been very well known or popular where I live, but it was and still is very popular in France and South America and I really understand why! Even though I already finished watching this series back in 2020, I'm still only going to review this now.

Story: 10/10
The story of Saint Seiya is fantastic, full of great characters and great twists. However, since the anime was running at the same time as the original manga, it naturally has quite lot filler episodes, which for the most part are very watchable (Episodes ... 18 and 19, however, are something so incredibly hilarious, even though they have their gems too). The plot is quite repetitive, but it never tired me because things still happened somehow differently than before. The fates of the characters were often very touching.

Art: 8/10
The art and animation are very good considering the time. Although, in some episodes you can tell that the budget has been quite low as the characters looking pretty silly... But well, it's a 80s so nothing complaining about it.

Sound: 7/10
Considering the time, the sound quality isn't the best, but you can still distinguish the voices of the characters well and the audio isn't too noisy.

Music: 10/10
Now to the best part, the music! Seiji Yokoyama's score is just so perfect, so it's no wonder that it was this series that brought him to great fame as a composer! Both openings and endings are also very awesome.

Voice acting: 10/10
Lots of the great seiyuus here! Toru Furuya, known for many other hero roles such as Yamcha in Dragon Ball, Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon and Amuro Ray in Gundam, gives a memorable role as the impulsive but sympathetic Pegasus Seiya, and Hirotaka Suzuoki as the wise and calm Dragon Shiryu, Koichi Hashimoto as the cool but tragic Cygnus Hyoga, Ryo Horikawa as the sensitive and caring "pretty boy" Andromeda Shun and Hideyuki Hori as the strong and epic Phoenix Ikki don't pale in comparison too. Han Keiko also gives an impressive performance as Saori Kido who wins others over with her words, despite being only a 13-year-old girl. Honorable mention also to the legendary Kazuyuki Sogabe, who plays the evil side of the main enemy of the first arc, Gemini Saga. That voice just chills inside you!

Characters: 9/10
Despite some of the filler characters being weird, the characters are very memorable and the heroes likeable. You can't help but worry about what will happen to your favorite character, even if you already know in advance that the character will survive. Background stories are also very exciting and touching.

Enjoyment: 10/10
This is definitely a 10/10 series. Lots of drama and suspense that will hook the viewer instantly, at least in my case!

So overall, Saint Seiya is one of the best Shonen series ever and one of the most significant works of its time! It's a shame that this didn't reach the level of popularity of Dragon Ball or Z, but it belongs in the culture of every lover of action anime. Give it a chance even in countries where it's not known!

Saint Seiya is one of the most well know anime around the world except in north america, so my first advice to understand this is you avoid the dubbed versions, if you can´t see anime with subtitles, then as usual you going to see different terms and the poetic language altered in several parts, especially since this is an anime that adapt elements and terms of Greek mythology, Buddhism between others.

I barely gonna talk about the story or any spoiler since you can read that in the description.
The direction of the anime first part is very influenced by fist of the north star, the ... stamp of the Shōnen about fights of those years, and besides many legendary directors animated different episodes, the atmosphere and art style keep an distinctive general style.

This is one of the Shōnen than embody as few the cocepts of corage, sacrifice, friendship and sorrow.

The armor design is one of the strongest and most distinctive features of the series, being one of the anime with the most toys or merchandising.

There are fillers and even a long arc, but i consider the filler word is contemptuous, when the writers and the mangaka work hard this are companion episodes. That arc for example is the favorite of many hardcore fans and after seeing anime for more that 30 years, still the best "filler arc" ever written, so don´t skip or think if what you see is or not in the manga.

In addition helped by the sound design and the music. This is one of the most beautiful soundtrack ever composed for any narrative, being constantly performed by many orchestras around the world, so many people know the openings and endings songs, but this anime is composed (without counting the films and ovas) for more than 60 pieces of symphonic music with elements of Symphonic Rock to traditional Chinese music.

I read how people refer to Dragon Ball, Fist of the Northern Stars, Saint Seiya and many older anime as "generic", guys, these are the creators of the most popular formula in fighting Shōnen and Shōnen in general,

This is a must-see anime for anyone who considers himself a lover of this art, loves martial arts, wants to see inspiration for fitness training, loves Greek mythology, armor designs, cool hair, and sacrifices for others.

This is my first review so please don't be to harsh on me.

I became a fan of this series only a couple of years ago because in the US this anime and manga series is ignored probably because of a poorly done dubbing back in the early 2000's.

The plot involves a group of orphan boys serve the Greek Goddess Athena and they fight with armor that is based on constellations called Cloths and they battle enemies that are in the Sanctuary and they battle other greek gods as well.

What I like about this series is that the cloth designs are really cool and ... creative and I like the character designs as well.

What I don't like is that the characters need more development, most of the time they are serious but there is some comical scenes and I wish that the anime stuck more to the manga, because there is a lot of episodes that are fillers.

Overall I think it is a good series the fights are good and plus if you are a girl like me that likes Bishounen there is a ton of characters that are like that in this series. Also this series is considered a classic it may not be popular in the US but on other parts of the globe it is.

I have never been so much interested in writing reviews since I joined, but since there are very few in the Saint Seiya series, I begin, obviously, from the legendary one.

I think everyone knows the knights of the zodiac, at least in name. A historical series, a pious milestone in the world of manga like Dragon Ball and JoJo, written by Masami Kurumadain the 80s, but which has found its fame mainly thanks to the anime, illustrated by the great hands of Micho Himeno and Shingo Araki, and with Seki Yokoyama music. A must watch!


STORY: 7

I don't go in details, since there are already other ... reviews., In short words, the story speaks of the Saints, warriors with superhuman abilities thanks to the dominion of the Cosmos, who wear armors called Cloths, 88 in total, associated with the constellations, trained to serve the goddess Athena and defend the Earth from evil, in a mythological atmosphere.

The development is generally simple and straightforward. The protagonists face a series of enemies, fights, risking their lives several times and becoming stronger, generally to save the goddess Athena (Saori Kido) and preserve peace on Earth. This is also subject to some clichés, or repetitions, and also to some inconsistencies (evaluating the series as a whole, because these 114 episodes cover 2 of the 3 main arches, plus the various fillers).

Anyway, history shows itself without problems, manages to immerse you in the Greek atmosphere, the 12 houses are a legendary saga, and the FILLERS are a great merit. Not all, but many are well made, excellent additions. The Asgard saga in particular, despite being filler, is perhaps one of the best.

NOTE: THE STORY OF SAINT SEIYA BETWEEN MANGA E ANIME IS SIMILAR, BUT BUT HAVING BEEN REALIZED IN THE SAME PERIOD, THE ANIME HAS ADDED FILLER AND CHANGED SOME IMPORTANT PARTIES, THEREFORE BECOME A ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE.


ART: 10

Sublime, exceptional, magnificent.


SOUND: 10

The same. From epic to deeply sad music, a show!


CHARACTERS: 10

With the exception of the protagonists, and some secondary enemies (such as the God Warriors by Asgard, filler), the other important characters do not have a larger background, but stand out for a strong characterization, which leaves its impact.


ENJOYMENT: 10

Astrology, mythology, armor, mixed with exceptional designs and magical music, manage to immerse you in that atmosphere of classical Greece, to make you live, between enthusiasm and tears for certain very sad deaths, which characterize the series.


OVERALL: 10

As I said, it's a must watch.

There are a few things I want to say before I get into this review. This is my first ever review so it's probably not going to be anything special. I was inspired to write this because recently it's been announced that Saint Seiya is going to receive a live action movie, a spin-off anime (the manga of which is being officially licensed), and a Netflix remake. All of these are going to be coming out around 2019. That's a lot of material to be released in a one year timespan, especially from an 80s anime that barely anyone hears about. That's another thing, Saint ... Seiya was never popular in North America (for various reasons, one being the anime has very bad subs about halfway in) so there's not a lot of people talking about it online. I think this is a good opportunity to review the series since it's possible more people will be interested in checking out the original. I want this review to be spoiler-free so I can't be extremely detailed.

Art & Animation:

Saint Seiya has beautiful art and the animation is good and pretty consistent. The art may not look very good because it's an old series and, in addition, it's pretty hard to find online in good quality. I've personally seen the series in Blu-Ray quality and that brought out the show's vibrant colors. Surprisingly, Saint Seiya has decent animation. It's nothing outstanding but it's not utter garbage like some of the stuff that Toei's recently been putting out.

Sound:

The OST for Saint Seiya is one of its strong points. A lot of it isn't quite my taste, but I do admit it's very well done. The voice acting is also good I suppose. Sorry if this isn't very detailed, but I'm not one who pays attention to this kind of thing unless it's especially terrible. Thankfully, this isn't the case.

Story:

Saint Seiya has an average good-vs-evil premise. For that reason, I'd normally give this category a 5. However, I believe there's more to a story than simply its premise, which can usually be summed up in a sentence. One should also take into account the story's execution and the world it takes place in. Speaking of which, the storytelling is one of the show's downfalls. I don't want to go in depth as I want to keep this review spoiler free, but it seems that the mangaka didn't think too much about his story before putting it on paper. There are some plot holes and inconsistencies but you'll most likely not be bothered by them since they aren't major and won't ruin the story. To make things worse, deus ex machina is also a thing in this series. Another thing I want to talk about is the fights. I'm not sure it's something that belongs in the 'Story" category, but Saint Seiya is a battle shounen and the action is a big part of the series. The battle system is nothing special and boils down to who can "burn their Cosmos" to a higher level. That kind of battle system isn't something as complex as Nen from Hunter x Hunter or Stands from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, so the Saint Seiya fights aren't going to be as beautiful as fights in those series (in the technical aspect). For that reason, I think Saint Seiya's fights could've added some filler hand to hand combat so they weren't as static. However, even though the fights aren't visually impressive, they excel in the emotional aspect. They have you rooting for the main characters and you really feel for them when they win (which is pretty much always). This is due to the characters' backgrounds which I will talk more about in the next section. Anyway, I don't want to dwell on the fights too much since this section is supposed to be about the story.

The world of Saint Seiya is one of my favorite aspects. It's heavily inspired by Greek mythology (and Norse but it's only for one arc) and astronomy. It has an interesting and huge lore which the anime only scratches the surface of. Even then, it's very cool and has the kind of feel that you don't get in many other shounen. The lore feels mystical and epic and I guess that's the result of it being based on Greek mythology. Keep in mind, the mythology is only and influence. There are some changes to the original stories and not everything is included in the anime, especially since the series takes place in the modern era (modern as in when the manga was written).

Character:

The characters in Saint Seiya, like the premise, are pretty simple. Simple isn't a bad thing, as we see here. They all fit into a certain archetype and you can always tell which one they fit into after a few minutes of screentime. You could argue this is a bad thing because characters will act in a predictable manner, but they are well written for the series they're in. At the end of the day Saint Seiya is a simple show with simple characters. The characters have good backgrounds and clear motivations. One thing I specifically like about the characters is the villains. Most of the villains are better written than the protagonists and don't feel one-dimensionally evil. Some villains on the other hand (even non-villains, actually) in the beginning of the series are bland. I blame this on the fact that the anime premiered only a few months after the manga began so Toei was forced to cram in very bad filler. Consequently, the first 30 or so episodes are boring and have bad anime-only characters. It sucks because the filler was integrated into the story so it's impossible to skip.

Value:

I'm assuming this category means how much value the anime had to its genre so that's how I'll go about this. Now I know shounen isn't a genre, but I consider battle shounen to be popular enough to be considered a subgenre. With that in mind, Saint Seiya was among the first battle shounen and it inspired many others alongside Ring ni Kakero, Fist of the North Star, and Dragon Ball. If you look at it like that, Saint Seiya is a series with a lot of value so I'm giving it a 10 in this category.

Enjoyment:

I think I briefly covered the things I like about the series so there's not much to say here. It's my favorite anime so this is obviously a 10.

Some things to know:

I already mentioned this at the beginning, but at a certain point, the subs become very bad and almost unreadable. This is something you'll only be able to power through if you really like the series and want to see the ending. Speaking of the ending, the anime doesn't tell the whole story. It leaves out the final arc, which was adapted into a 3-part OVA series beginning in 2002. For me and many others, the final arc is the best, so if you liked Saint Seiya be sure to check out the Hades OVAs. They have newer art, fluid/non-static action, and good subtitles.

If you're interested in the series but discouraged by the bad subs, I recommend reading the manga. I'd recommend it even if you've already watched the anime because I think even though it has some of the same problems as the anime, it doesn't have the bad filler that plagues the anime. I don't want to write a whole review for the manga, but just trust me in that the manga is overall better. The official translation does have many of the names slightly changed, which that might get in the way if you decide to watch the Hades OVAs, but there is another fan translation that keeps the original names intact.

All 114 Completed. (Español Disponible)
If you would like to see an old classic anime, this would be a perfect choice, I must warn you, it would be a little slow at the beginning but, don't worry. I'ts a good start for old anime. The animation will be not the best (undestand it's 1989) so it's very good for the time they were making it.
I speccially like the music, because it tells you many things, when the battle is gonna begin, when it ends, in the special attacks, it's very beautiful.
I don't wanna give you any spoilers, but it's worth it.
*********************************************************************
Todos 114 Capítulos ... Completos.
Si quisieras ver un anime clásico antiguo, esta sería una elección perfecta, debo advertirte, sería un poco lento al principio pero no te preocupes. Es un buen comienzo para los inicios del anime en los 80's. La animación no será la mejor (entiendo que es 1989) pero es muy buena para el tiempo que la estaban haciendo.
Me gusta especialmente la música, porque te dice muchas cosas, cuando va a empezar la batalla, cuando acaba, en los ataques especiales, es muy bonito.
No quiero darte ningún spoiler, pero vale la pena verlo.

Maybe a good anime for children, but overall it isn't very well written. The stories and plots are all the same; even the characters and bad guys outside of a few are all the same. Same powers with different names.

Every battle has the same flashbacks of being twin brothers and best friends but now enemies.
Sometimes the flashbacks are the same exact production clipped from previous episodes redone over and over.

The first arc with Ikki was better than the rest of the 114 episodes. I'd be happy to give the first season a better score if it wasn't bundled together with the other ... 114 episodes.

The highlight of everything is yelling Nebula Chain everytime Shun fights then finding the episode with the Nebula Chain song. This is despite Shun losing 99% of every fight accross all 114 episodes to have his brother help and save him.

In the Japanese version, the mermaid armor is worn by a woman named Thities (literally pronounced Titties). Mermaid Titties. wtf

Saint Seiya is a series that ,unfortunately, a lot of people are not familiar with. If you ever have the honor of watching the anime, please do so because I can honestly say that the 3,420 hours you put in won't be disappointing.

~Story: As you should know, Saint Seiya is a back in the day shounen anime which means it is targeted to young males with a huge emphasis on A LOT of fighting/action and little to no romance. The story is told in a simplistic way, you will never be confused or lost as everything pretty much laid on the table for you. This ... however does not take away from the fact that it sells soooooo well in the light of it's attempt to be humble and unique.

~Art: The art style was great, however it was only something that Saint Seiya could pull off back then. The elements they incorporate mesh well seeing as the nature of the universe is superb theme. The art is improved over the course of the anime

~Sound: Un-f*cking believable, I tried to keep the review professional and strict as possible but I'm sorry they could NOT have found a better voice acting cast or music composer. Unlike a lot of anime, Saint Seiya will leave a lasting impression on your eardrums. There are many notable tracks that play that make the scenes all the more better.

~Character: I love the way the personalities are set apart. For obvious reasons many characters stuck out more than others. I must say though, the way hierarchical scale is used is very creative. Ranks are intact and that makes the story even more simple. Development in the characters tend to be slow but at least they are not completely flat.

~Enjoyment: Last but not least I think you will enjoy this anime, give it a chance :D. If I'm wrong, let me know but you have to try it. To be honest I love the charisma that is shown throughout the anime, it portrays everything a anime like this should be. Influence is the way to go. It drives me to never give up in real life.

This is a hard one for me to write about because I started watching it about 6 months ago and my memories of the earlier episodes I enjoyed have faded. I remember thinking the Galaxian Wars arc was fun and a nice introduction to the characters. There was just enough there that was a different, cool twist on this sort of show's formula to keep me interested. I started using this show as kind of a "start the day with an easy episode of X" thing.

Then the arc with Phoenix Ikki as the Big Bad started up and I remember thinking that was hype. It ... was a cool brother against brother story with simple, significant stakes. The later stories about the silver saints and the various battles over the Saggitarius Cloth were also quite good. It was sad that the Saints present for the Galaxian Wars who weren't slated as main cast members disappeared during this period, but I overlooked that. Y'know what really worked, in spite of the show not having many ideas for it? Shaina. Easily the best character in the whole show. Never had anything going on that didn't involve a man in some way, but she was a great concept for a better story.

And then it started to transition into the Sanctuary Arc by introducing a shitton of retroactive continuity. I was fine with that because it seemed to be leading somewhere cool. "Oh, shit, there's actually a whole army of saints who are in a completely different league than even the silver saints!" With my monkey brain, I know this is just an incremental threat increase from silver to gold. But with my reptile brain, I was enticed and willing to follow it. I was into it.

The Sanctuary Arc is a god damn Fyre Festival. Every fight against a Gold Knight is essentially interchangeable with any other one, especially towards the end. Most of them have a tiny gimmick to try to make the fight unique, but there's only so much they could do to change things up if they were going to run through ALL TWELVE ZODIAC SIGNS with NO BREAKS AT ALL with THE SAME RESOLUTION EVERY TIME. They push their cosmo to its peak, the Gold Saint beats them anyway and deprives them of their senses, the bronze saint masters the seventh sense and raises their cosmo to a new peak, and the bronze saint wins. Every time. For fuck's sake, when they were fighting the silver saints, the bronze saints had a command center and they had a tiny semblance of a home life. Suddenly, it's just a constant, samey gauntlet for 32 EPISODES. Saori was a near-constant presence before and now she's knocked unconscious for almost this entire run, so it's also just a huge sausage fest as far as the main cast is concerned. Shaina's arc was a small blessing in this bland sea. I grew to dislike the show over this time, but I trusted there had to be something on the other side that would make up for this. After all, there WERE some variations and they threw together a bunch of background details. Things were still advancing and the conflict made sense, however protracted. And the visual direction of the show up through this point was quite good at times. Despite the story problems, "Saint Seiya" had a lot going for it.

But then Sancuary mercifully concludes. They must have caught up to the manga because they immediately began anime-original material. I think anime-original arcs are cool opportunities to explore the characters more and take a different tack on the series. What the show desperately needed at this point was a reprieve from constant fighting. Maybe Seiya could have spent some time with any of the three women the show was shipping him with on-and-off, much to my chagrin. Maybe Hyoga could have spent time mourning his mother. Maybe Shiryu could have gone to the Wulau Peaks to have nice scenes with Shunrei. No. What we got was the Asgard Arc, which is one of the absolute worst shonen battle manga stories I have ever encountered. A legitimately 1/10 storyline with nothing going for it that runs for ANOTHER 25 EPISODES.

A God Warrior from the icy region of Asgard, heretofore unmentioned, shows up and beats up a Gold Knight offscreen so we know he's a Bad Dude. OK. Sure. I hate this already, but I understand the storytelling technique of having them take down someone we know is strong to prove that they are stronger and a threat to the main cast. Fine. In the second episode of this arc, the bronze saints are already in Asgard fighting the God Warriors in what is basically Another Sanctuary Arc. Insultingly, they show some of the infiltration we were just to assume the bronze knight had done in flashbacks later. They fight each of the God Warriors individually, exposit backstory details that mean absolutely nothing outside of these fights we will never think of again, and they make progress towards saving Athena, who has been essentially removed yet again. On paper, this is so similar to the Sanctuary arc that you could be forgiven for thinking that I'm overreacting when I say it is a 1/10. But it's literally just the worst parts of it with nothing else. It's so aggressively formulaic and badly structured that it comes off as a story written by someone who hates shonen battle manga and wants this story to convince other people to hate it. Every single fight has exactly the same structure as a fight against a Gold Saint, but they cannot actually give whatever "new peak" the bronze saints' cosmo reaches a new name, so there's no progression at all even though it's telling us there is. And then there's the fact that the God Warriors, like the Gold Knights before them, are literally working against their own interests. With the Gold Knights, I was willing to overlook that because they were sworn to serve Pope Aries and they believed Athena was in Sanctuary even though she wasn't. They had no reason to disbelieve the bronze saints, but they had little reason to believe them either. In Asgard, their version of Athena is Hilda and she has suddenly become openly evil. Her plan will destroy the world. Her sister, Freya, joins up with the bronze knights to stop her. And the God Warriors fight to defend her because they just assume she's right and that Freya has been brainwashed or something. At one point, Hyoga says "helping us would be directly helping Freya" to the God Warrior who was in love with her. The God Warrior's response was "I have had enough of your bullshit." That level of idiot ball shenanigans is, again, not even backed up by good fights. By the end of the arc, I was literally watching it 1.5x speed for a few minutes at the beginning of the episode, skipping to the 15 minute mark to see that the villain had turned the tables, and then skipped to the end to see the bronze knight come out on top. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. No setups. No payoffs. Only punching and yelling. And not even good punching and yelling. A new director had come on at the beginning of this arc and the difference in their ability to keep the wrestling-style storyline interesting absolutely shows.

And then there is just the tiniest bit of fresh air, which is the show gracefully rerailing itself onto the manga plot by introducing one of Poseidon's warriors. As I understand it, this is essentially putting on-screen the manga fight between this Mariner and the Gold Knight who was defeated off-screen at the beginning of Asgard, but with a God Warrior instead of that Gold Knight. And it's fine. It's definitely a step up from everything else that happened in Asgard. The first episode of the Poseidon Arc that follows this actually takes a step back to introduce Poseidon's civilian form and create a connection between Saori and him for us to build some tension around. Oh, sorry. Just kidding. Saori gets knocked out again and we basically do the Sanctuary Arc again, only with pillars instead of temples (as in Sanctuary) or gems (as in Asgard). These fights have slightly more roots in the saints' characterizations than the Asgard fights, so there's more here for fans, but it's still so boring and bad. By the end, I was watching complete episodes, but I couldn't do it at less than 3x speed. I just couldn't.

Any shonen battle manga story can survive one or even two lackluster arcs. "Saint Seiya" has three which span a total of 67 EPISODES and includes, again, some of the worst storytelling in this genre I have ever seen. It's really mind-numbing for me to think that I had spent so long savoring those first two major arcs and the intro to Sanctuary for so long, considering it was only 41 episodes. Honestly, just watch Galaxian Wars and the fights with the silver saints and you have the point of "Saint Seiya". It only gets worse from there. And when it jumps off the cliff into horrible storytelling, it just jumps off that same cliff three more times.

The best thing about "Saint Seiya" is "Pegasus Fantasy", which is an immortal jam that has slapped for 40 years straight. I also liked the second ED.

As one of the earliest fighting shonen, Saint Seiya inspired many series to come. It has elements like the Golden Power Up that inspired one in Gundum and might be the thing that someone inspired even the Super Saiyan, it has a tournament arc, has side characters with popularity that exceed the main character and a story structure that is used by shows like Bleach. In particular Bleach resembles a lot on Saint Seiya and can be considered a spiritual successor. Both series have male leads trained by a female character, have to fight people from an organization they are associated with, a traitor subplot ... and a lot more.

Saint Seiya is about Goddess of War Athena and her warriors referred as Saints who fight for the love and justice of the earth. The enemies range from Saints that abuse their power for evil to literal gods. While this anime is an adaptation of the manga with the same name, it handles things a little differently. As in the anime, the identity of Athena isn't revealed and even the person who is Athena is not aware of it, turning it to a great revelation when it was revealed.

Saints fight with what is called Cosmo. The power to manipulate atoms. With that they are able to destroy, gain abilities such as manipulating elements etc. The stronger the Cosmo, the stronger the character and their ability to change their own faith. There are several ways to increase ones Cosmo. Concepts like spiritualism play a major role, but the most simple way is wearing a certain kind of armor. The armor the saints are wearing are called cloth, which are based on the 88 constellations, and they come in 3 major categories:
- Bronze: The weakest kind of armor, allowing their user to move at mach 1 speed at minimum
- Silver: A rank higher than Bronze, depending on the cloth can move from mach 2 to 8
- Gold: The highest ranked, allowing users to move at the speed of light.
Just wearing a cloth can boost the power of its user to the minimum level they need to be, but like the Zanpakuto in Bleach, the cloth are living and can choose who they think is worthy to be worn by them. In certain situation, the cloth of another character would come to the aid of another. For example, Seiya who is the Pegasus Saint and thus wears Bronze Armor would receive help from the Gold Cloth of Sagittarius allowing him a chance to fight someone above his league. But saints cannot always rely on their armor and thus have to raise their Cosmo through other ways. Sometimes fighting Gold Saint tier opponent's without being able to wear armor where concepts like the seventh sense and spiritualism comes into play. There can be situations where they cannot use their armor as the series continues, there are foes who can pierce them leaving them without protection.

What about the fights? With 88 constellations and thus each being able to use abilities and moves based on that constellation, there are many characters that offer a different potential fights. Tho there are enemies that have similar abilities to our heroes or techniques, the fights bring other things like personal stakes. Examples as showing an enemy the value of friendship and how far people would go or clashing of ideals where neither side is technically wrong. Besides the stakes, fight can range from martial arts hand to hand combat, using abilities to their advantage, exploiting weaknesses of the enemy or teamwork.
A scene I liked personally, without spoiling the details, is when a character remembers a tale on how someone else defeated an enemy he is fighting. What that character did, is replicate the trick only for it to fail as the enemy was prepared for such a tactic. Thus the story would play with expectations making the fights even more engaging.
An advantage what Saint Seiya has over modern fighting shonen is that because of its age, it is not affected by censorship the same way, thus can offer scenes that rival or if not exceed the violence of the manga.

As for characters, this is when Saint Seiya shines the most. The character while all starting selfish and somewhat relatable, as the story goes, they would become more and more of people one would look up to. As they fight for the peace of the world and with honor. Some characters would inspire each other especially after seeing someone risked his life to safe theirs, they would risk their life in a similar fashion to repay them.

Seiya who appeared playful and disrespectful would risk his life several times for the other saints and Athena. Fitting his constellation the Pegasus. The author made him focus mainly fight on hand to hand combat with energy based attacks. Thus making the other lead characters stand out which is a clever way to make them intriguing for the audience.

Shiryu is the Dragon Saint. He has a technique that fills his fist with Cosmo allowing him to hit with a blade-like punch that takes the shape of a dragon which is strong enough to reverse waterfalls. He also has a great defense with his dragon shield which gives him the highest defense of all Bronze Saints. A perfect balance between attack and defense. However, often he would shed away his armor in fights showing that his strength comes from himself and not just from his cloth. As the saying would go, the man makes the armor and not the armor makes the man. Shiryu is the type of character who would put his life on the line to protect what is dear to him often leading him gaining the respect of those he fought.

Shun is the Andromeda Saint. He has two chains that serve as means to attack, defend and trap enemies. While the defense is not as high as Shiryu's shield or lacks the attack potency, he can protect him from enemies from any range and even reach enemies who are several light-years away. He is the only of the main characters who doesn't engage in hand to hand combat but instead fights with chains and flow like Cosmo, thus providing fight scenes with less aggression which fits his character. Shun is a pacifist and doesn't like to hurt others, even going as far as warning his enemies, only killing them when he has no choice.

Hyoga is the Swan Saint and focuses on freezing techniques, thus instead of focusing on destroying atoms by moving them, he focuses on halting their movement aka. slowing them down. He focuses on fighting up on personal or from the distance. His ice abilities come into play in several ways such as halting the movement of his enemies, shielding him from attacks or as projectile attacks. As a character, Hyoga became a saint for his selfish desire and also came as a kind of antagonist on the story, but over the course of the story, he would turn a new leaf. He would become a true saint who learns to learn to cherries the people around him and gets challenged the most for his ideals forcing him to fight those he respects for the name of Athena.

Lastly, Ikki, the older brother of Shun who wears the Phoenix Cloth. The Phoenix Cloth is the only cloth that can repair its name as the name suggest and is the mightiest of the Bronze Cloth. Aside of that, Ikki has a wide range of abilities. He possesses immense physical strength and some level of fire manipulation leading him to have some of the most aggressive fighting scenes. He has other abilities such as shooting the tail-feathers of the Phoenix Cloth like projectiles allowing him to finish off or protect nearby allies from enemies. However, besides physical harming enemies, he has strong illusion based attack allowing him to harm opponents psychologically as well. Thus providing fights that are not limited to simple beat downs but also battles of the mind. As the eldest in the group, he would often be the one who lectures the other bronze warriors. Despite being more of a loner, he can be seen as the closest of an older brother for all of them.

Many anime and manga fail in the regard, despite having on paper unique abilities like manipulating fire or lighting, in many series they serve the same purpose, but as I described these characters fighting styles, one can see that they operate completely different.

As an adaptation, the anime may not be 100% faithful. More than the things surrounding Athena has changed, but it does give more reason to check out both the source and the adaptation delivering a unique experience as neither is necessary superior to the other. With the more lose censorship from the past, fight scenes have a lot more freedom delivering entertaining action scenes. The Silver Saints feel a lot more important as they would not appear very early and get a lot more focus. The motivation of one of the Gold Saints who fought thinking might is right is more noble in this adaptation. And a bit of the past of the mysterious Gold Saint Aiolos gets explored.
Tho the anime does not adapt the whole manga and stops before the final arc, which got later adapted in form of OVAs years alter, it does have a filler arc. By more modern mindset, filler can be considered off-putting, the writers of Toei at the time seemed to be very adapted in the storytelling of Saint Seiya and delivered a very engaging story arc. Tho instead of Saint Seiya's Greek mythology, they implemented Nordic mythology. Probably with the reason of not getting into trouble if the manga add more contradictory events involving these new characters. So depending on how much you like the setting of Saint Seiya and feel like foreign myths could affect your enjoyment, you might make your decision based on that, as that arc will naturally flow to the arc after.

In terms of criticism, there is not much to say. At most some filler scenes could drag on for a bit too long and Toei being Toei would recycle one particular scene involving Shun and Ikki, as the older brother would come to rescue the weaker younger brother. Some of these scenes could come off in the way it is animated as yaoi bait. And despite Toei's best efforts, they could not stick to their guns and eventually do some continuity errors. Tho these are very minor.

Generally, Saint Seiya is a must watch. Especially for those who want to know how the older generation inspired the newer ones.

BEHOLD, one of the grandaddies of modern Shounen Anime!

I must assume you've grown up in the US, because thats the only place in the west where people have never watched or even heard of Saint Seiya in their youth (the english dub is atrocious, so I can't blame ya). It was a MASSIVE hit in Europe (no JoJo reference intended haha) and Latin America so I have very fond childhood memories of it, but I will try to be as impartial as possible.

Story: 7/10

Some people will tell you Saint Seyia is a very cliche 80's shounen battle anime, and for the most part that ... is true. But is it really a problem when this series has CREATED most of the cliches it shows? Together with Dragon Ball, SS has made popular many tropes which are widely used by modern shounen today, so you must take the cliches here with a grain of salt, kinda like visiting a museum.

The most important ones are the Underdog x Hierarchy trope (where a renowned group of powerful people are defeated by a group of protagonists which are considered to be much weaker, ex: Black Clover, Shokugeki no Souma) and the "Boss Rush" arc structure (the protagonists fight extremely powerful foes one after another in a race against time, ex: Bleach). Bleach is basically Saint Seyia with swords btw, Tite Kubo admitted SS was his biggest inspiration for Bleach.

These two tropes are essentially the plot of Saint Seiya: in order to save the goddess Athena from iminent doom, Seiya and co. will surpass their own limits time and again to defeat foes initially perceived as much more powerful than themselves. Every single arc in SS is like this, which may make it a little too simple and repetitive for modern tastes, but it uses these tropes to such great effect that chances are you'll still have a lot of fun regardless.

Art: 9/10

The SS manga was revolutionary at the time of its release for using a very delicate, almost feminine art style in a shounen manga, at a time when nearly all other shounen were testosterone filled Hokuto no Ken clones. Don't let the delicate style fool you though, the fight scenes are brutal and shows a LOT of blood! That delicate, retro art style was adapted well in the anime, and while it can seem dated at times, its still a marvel to look at, specially the awesome armor designs!

Sound: 10/10

I absolutely ADORE the soundtrack in SS. All the OPs and EDs are timeless gems that me and my friends still sing at karaoke bars to this day, so many years after finishing the series. The uplifting, exciting battle themes, as well as the melancholic ones are all beautifully orchestrated and well timed. If nothing else in SS leaves a lasting impression on you, its soundtrack most certainly will. They simply dont make soundtracks like this anymore.

Character: 3/10

This is where the series falls short, unfortunately. For reasons I dont really know, the anime lobotomized most of the protagonists, erasing key personality traits you can only find in the manga. With the exception of best boi Ikki, the main cast are all goody-two shoes with few differences between them (Athena/Saori is basically a walking plot device, barely any character in there). However, the main antagonists in the first arc, the Golden Saints, are all badasses who represent the 12 Zodiac constellations and are easily the highlight character-wise, you will certainly relate to some of them.


Enjoyment: 9/10

Watching "weak", underestimated people overcoming great odds and arrogant people getting rekt is a never-ending source of enjoyment, at least for me. If you like other anime that focus on these same feelings, then SS is a must-watch. The aura of mysticism the astrology influence gives off is very alluring and gives this series an unique feeling of epicness, AND THE ARMOR SUITS ARE SO. FREAKIN. AWESOME!

Overall: 8/10

Saint Seyia is one of the OG Shounen Templates. Combine it with DBZ and you basically have all the building blocks every modern battle shounen has been built upon, its influence was so great it even inspired other manga genres such as shoujo (Sailor Moon was heavily inspired by SS, among others). Again, if you've grown up in the west and never heard of it, you're probably american haha.

DONT GOOGLE SAINT SEYIA ENGLISH DUB. Watch the uncensored sub.

If you're a fan of shounen anime, you own it to yourself to at least watch the 1st season, the Sanctuary arc! It is one of the most iconic shounen arcs of all time, as important to the genre's identity as the Frieza arc from Dragon Ball Z (not kidding). Watch the first season and try not to burn your cosmos, I DARE YOU!