Saint Seiya is always good at looking back at the battles that have taken place, with the morally ambiguous and likable warriors on both sides who (for the most part) did not deserve to fall, and remind us how horrible war is. Hilda reminiscing over all her fallen young warriors and to all the pain she put the bronze saints and Athena through was a bitter reminder.
Asgard may not have been amazing as a story itself, but I can't say I've seen a filler arc better than it in the past. The fact it was a complete rehash of the gold saint battles of the Sanctuary arc made it more boring than it had to be, but I enjoyed it for what it was. That and the horrible subs that slowly got better but always struggled to get a coherent point across and were laughably vulgar. It's why this was the part of Saint Seiya that was the slowest to get through for me. However, if you forget about that stuff and look at it for what it is, I think you'd realize this filler arc was still something greater in quality than a fair share of what has come before it.
The God Warriors like Hagen, Fenrir, Mime, Siegfried, and especially Bud were actually good characters and the lackluster ones like Thor, who I enjoyed but admittedly found boring, or Alberich, who had a fight that went on far too long and sullied the value of his backstory, were a fairly small part of the overall arc. We got callbacks to the last arcs, we got new armor, we got our saints fighting with skills they learned in the battles with the golden saints to come out on top. We got some of the best music in the anime. We got immensely memorable speeches and ideological battles like Bud versus Ikki with his speech about how we ought to fight against fate and not our loved ones to one day be happy with them again. Or another from Ikki where he told Shun that even if all they do is prolong earth so that more wars can start, even if 'all they do is but a drop in the ocean, that those drops would cease to exist if they didn't fight. That all they have to live for is the future and hope, so stand up!'. These are topics I've already quoted in life and thought about in detail. Moreover, we got interconnected themes within these fights!
I genuinely thought God Warriors were great. The fights were another story, with me criticizing Thor's, Fenrir's, Alberich's pretty harshly in the past. I think Bud and Siegfried and Mime and even Hagen had some pretty memorable ones though, one's I would not scoff at! What I'm getting at is that I think this filler captured the heart of Saint Seiya and developed its cast even if mostly in strength oriented ways, while giving us a new look at people in a situation similar to our saints with their very own Athena-like leader. The formula and predictability of it did leave me exhausted quite a bit. It wasn't Saint Seiya's best, it dragged on at times, it was a rehash of the last arc shamelessly after it finished with rushed pacing at the start to get us into it, but nonetheless it was still the best filler I've ever seen, something I would not expect myself to say back when I had only seen the first two or three episodes of it.
For Saori to get kidnapped right at the end of the arc, that I'm worried about. I had already hoped the next arc wouldn't follow the trend of these last two. The trend of Saori being a hostage and our saints fighting battle after battle with no breaks. I understand @Sparkyon mentioned how this is the first time she's been truly kidnapped, but I would argue she's still been a hostage and in the enemies clutches in another way the last 57 episodes by either having an arrow through her heart, or by forcing her to risk her life against nature like she was during Asgard.
Sol_Ou said:So I'm guessing in this show endurance is second to love which makes me think -_- seriously? That's just plain stupid. Yes, and no. I do agree Saint Seiya in terms of literal narrative writing is messy as hell. It doesn't confine in written rules and the good guys always win because they're.. the good guys. I first thought this was a massive flaw in Saint Seiya, the 'good' fights were the ones which had the least amount of 'cosmos' talk. However, by watching it until now at some point I realized something. That Saint Seiya is about justice, fighting for justice and what that means. It analyzes it and counters other ideologies and concepts of it through argument and action. The saints fight other people fighting for their 'justice' in many cases. Therefore, the battles are a battle of such. The cosmos is what makes someone just, the more they show signs of it, the courage to fight evil, the self sacrifice to allow justice to prevail, the compassion and love required to know what's right, the perseverance to never give up, etc etc, the more they 'power up'. When you think of it this way you will realize that the power level system in Saint Seiya referred to as cosmos is actually something meaningful! It's a gloriously fun way to look at how we should aim to act, and an analysis on what is right. Sure, you have to accept that on face value the writing isn't consistent, as it breaks the rules in many scenarios(a saint dying if they get punched without armor, the 1000 day battle), or sometimes adds some for the sake of it- to never be seen again(such as the "if a saint dies you need to punch him in the back as hard as the blow which killed him"). Sure, these are legitimate problems and it's why I'm at times so conflicted about it. But think of it this way, in an analysis of justice to show people winning out of strength, or wits, or strategy would tend to turn Saint Seiya into a rule of cool, might is right story about guys who punch the villains to death, not a bittersweet analysis and battle of different senses of justices where the 'true' justice comes out on top via argument through action and even convinces many of the opponents to change their ways. Recall all the times we've heard that 'the winner is the one with the greater cosmos', cosmos being the will to fight for what's right as is evident from how they grow stronger and likewise weaker from reaffirming their resolve, or their resolve fading.
Long post I know, but I had a lot to say. |