Saint Seiya

Oh Saint Seiya. My adored. My beloved.

What is there to say about Saint Seiya that hasn't already been said? That it was fumbled so hard by DiC that no one in America has ever heard of it? That it has more plot holes than plot threads? That most of the characters have stupid backstories that make no sense, and that it retreads character arcs like there's no tomorrow?

Sure. Fine. Fine! I will acknowledge that Saint Seiya is no Mob Psycho or [insert quality anime of the month here], but what it lacks in plot coherence (and at times, animation), it makes up for in charm. ... In staying power. Kurumada created a universe with such a fascinating premise, brimming with potential - so much that you can't help but get hyped as you're watching it.

The main squad has such powerful bonds and fun, fascinating personalities that I felt so attached to them by the end, even if there were things about them that frustrated me. Hey, it's a shounen from 1986 - I'm not expecting them to be groundbreaking. But honestly, some of them WERE. Shun is allowed to be his authentic, kind self without anyone making fun of him for it. Sure, the others worry about him, but at the end of the day, they acknowledge that he's a powerful and capable fighter. And that's really special, honestly.

DO THINGS GET STUPID? YES. KIND OF. There's no doubting that.

But at the end of the day, I have NEVER. EVER. Had more fun in my life than when I watched Saint Seiya.

ALSO!! THE CHARACTER DESIGNS GO HARD AS FUCK. I may be biased, but the 80s pretty boys are just... *chef's kiss* NOT TO MENTION THE CLOTHS THEMSELVES! Like, dude, the whole transforming armor thing toes the line between silly and awesome to create something truly just... loveable. Campy.

Also, Camus is my wife.

10/10, have sold my soul to Saint Seiya.

Saint Seiya is really a classic of anime shounen. It has remarkable characters with very well developed stories. Great fights with very remarkable soundtracks.
The protagonism is very forced having unexplained scenes.
The fights were very big, having some that lasted more than 20 episodes! Really.
Sagas good but very repetitive.
Great bad guys with good motivations. It does not focus much on the story, even taking a few flashbacks during a fight.
There are no episodes fillers, which is an element that makes the anime have all episodes are mandatory to watch.
The animation was very advanced for epoch, having very beautiful scenes.
Overall I give 7.00 rating to Saint Seiya.

Saint ... Seiya é realmente um clássico dos animes shounen. Tem personagens marcantes com histórias muito bem desenvolvidas. Ótimas lutas com trilhas sonoras muito marcantes.
O protagonismo é muito forçado tendo cenas inexplicáveis.
As lutas eram muito grandes, tendo algumas que duravam mais de 20 episódios! É sério.
Sagas boas mas muito repetitivas.
Ótimos vilões com boas motivações. Não foca muito na história, mesmo tendo alguns flashbacks durante uma luta.
Não tem episódios fillers, que é um elemento que faz o anime ter todos episódios serem obrigatórios de assistir.
A animação era muito avançada para epóca, tendo cenas muito bonitas.
No geral eu dou nota 7,00 para Saint Seiya.

The Story


The story follows five young warriors called saints and a young lady named Saori, who is the reincarnation of Athena. The saints fight their hardest and would give there lives to protect their Goddess Athena.

Saint Seiya has a Greek mythology theme to it, the universe itself is set in a Greek world with Greek Gods. The sacred armor called cloths all the 88 of them are named after the constellations, there last name are replaced by there Greek animal or sign. While Greek myth is the most common theme in this anime, it mixes a bit of other myth's like Norse, Christianity, ... even Buddhism.

The majority of the story revolves around five young warriors of Athena, knowing the true identity of Athena's reincarnation. They fight grueling and bloody battles with misguided warriors under the order of the Pope the leader of the warriors of Athena. Through the story they become stronger, find allies and uncover the true plot of the Pope.




Characters

Pegasus Seiya. Seiya is a bit simple minded Goku like character. A warrior that trained most of his life and can come off as dump, do to knowing nothing but fighting. He is the most loyal of the saints and will never stop fighting, even if hes been beaten badly, broken bones, having his senses removed, and fighting characters way out of his league, He will always stand and fight. Seiya may not the most in depth character but he is likable.


Andromeda Shun. A very kind and gentle character, even by looks I thought he was female before I watched the series. Unlike the others shun will not try to kill or even heavily hurt another person. cause of this he comes across as week, but when the situation calls for it he shows he is one of the most powerful of the group.

Dragon Shiryu. One of the most skilled and level headed of the group. he was trained by the highest tier saints, called a gold saint and uses the most durable Bronze Cloths. He like the others will fight to the death to protect Athena, Shiryu himself often fighting blind and nearly giving his life on more then one occasion. In all Shiryu is a cool and loyal character.

Cygnus Hyoga. One of the most calculating and battle smart of the Bronze saints. He was also trained under the guidance of gold saint. While he seems to just be quiet and calm, he dose have emotional bond with his master and mother. In all another good character you will enjoy as he develops.


Phoenix Ikki. By far the most brutal of the bronze saints, Ikki wears the strongest of the bronze cloth the Phoenix cloth. He starts at the beginning of the series as scary and heartless. But the more you learn about his tragic past and the more he develops in the story, you see he has a lighter side to him. Unlike the others he dose not care for Athena and will rarely help at first but he loves and will do anything for his brother shun. His Phoenix cloth gives him the ability to come back from the dead stronger then before, so he is often be the last man standing when facing a powerful enemy. All in all hes a very interesting and badass character.


The Gold Saints. The highest tier of Athena's warriors. The gold saints are one of the most interesting part of the story. They start as enemies, but among them there were those who were fooled by the false Pope, and chose to help. They each have there own reason and backstory for what they do. The conversations and emotional dialogue between them and the bronze saints are great and lead to some truly epic and moving moments.



Saint Seiya's Pros and Cons.


Cons

It is a old anime so the animation is very lacking by today's standards.


Characters could be more developed.


While it has a good opening that sets the mood very well for the show, it can be very slow at times.


The same techniques are often used a lot, with the same animation at times.


Anything that was removed from the manga I wish where there.


The worst part and what beings this anime down for me. Filler characters, one group of filler characters that do nothing but slow the anime down and disappear without a trace, as well as replacing a characters role that removes the emotional impact of a great fight in the manga. But that's what happens when you start an anime the same year as the manga.


The Pros

The music in the anime Is really great and fits very well to whats going on.


Many likable characters throughout, most notable the gold saints who wish you could see more of.


While some may repeat, the techniques are still really cool.


A great mix of action and drama, there are some great emotional moments in this anime that's makes you more invested in the fights.


A great well developed villain.


A great interesting universe, to the powers they have and the mix of myths make the world very interesting.

While it's not nearly as gory as some other mature anime, it is still very bloody and brutal.


My final thoughts.


This is a good action anime, with some good drama and good characters.
This is my fav series so I might be bit biased, but if your like me and enjoy old school anime and your into Greek and other mythology's then saint Seiya is a must watch.

A classic that will always burn its Cosmos in my heart.

Saint Seiya is one of the first anime I ever watched, and it became a cornerstone of my childhood. Along with Tiger Mask, it taught me lessons that have stayed with me for life: no matter how hard life hits you, you cannot give up because giving up means losing.

At first glance, it might look like another 80s shōnen with flashy fights, but Saint Seiya is something far more meaningful. The Bronze Saints, Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, and Shun, are not invincible heroes. They are young fighters who bleed, suffer, and push themselves beyond their limits ... to protect Athena and humanity. Every victory feels earned, and every fight carries emotional weight because of the sacrifices made along the way.

The Sanctuary arc is one of the most iconic storylines in anime history. Watching the Bronze Saints fight their way through the twelve Zodiac Temples, each guarded by a Gold Saint, is an unforgettable experience. Later arcs, such as Poseidon and Hades, built on that foundation and added rich mythology and drama, while even the anime-original Asgard arc remains beloved for its characters and story.

The soundtrack deserves special praise. Seiji Yokoyama’s score elevates every battle and every emotional moment, giving the show an epic, timeless quality. The music makes you feel as though you are witnessing a Greek myth brought to life, and its orchestral themes remain among the most iconic in anime history. Combined with hand-drawn animation and passionate direction, Saint Seiya has a soul that still shines decades later.

For me, Saint Seiya is not just nostalgia, it is a masterpiece. It shaped me as a child and continues to inspire me to this day. If you have not seen it yet, you are missing a legendary series that defined shōnen anime and still stands tall decades later.

Before making a review of this anime classic from Toei, let me preface one thing: yes, I bought the figures when I was a teen and I regularly watched and rewatched the reruns in my country to the point of being bored, the last time I did it being twenty-one years ago. This said, I'm trying to objectively review it, with no rose-tinted glasses, especially considering it's the first time I watched it in its original japanese form with no dub or changes of sorts (I don't care if people are crazy about the italian dub as divinity given, I'm an elitist for a reason). ... These premises said...it's great stuff. The way Toei meshed different mythologies and cultures in one tasty recipe it's incredible, and it's even more incredible that under the clothes of a macho shonen the underlying messages could not be more anti-toxic masculinity even if they tried. I mean, the coolest and strongest guy amongst the Bronze Saints (the one with which I fully identify) is the one who wears pink and the one less prone to fighting, the one more emotional and the one with more compassion, and the other saints are not less prone to cry or have their own emotional/compassionate outbursts except maybe the dickish young Seiya who can't stop thinking how women are incapable to fight after being trained by one of them, so it's an absolute plus. Also, except for a badly-executed retcon at the start of the twelve houses saga and the ending of the last one concerning poseidon, all arcs are very well done, in particular...you name it...THE "FILLER" ASGARD SAGA, which is hands down the best of them all in all aspects (music, character development, background, armours, attacks, even the main villain shines as the only woman in all the series seriously kicking all the saint's aRses in one round) and amongst the best arcs I've seen to this day, a 10/10 with no faults I can think and easily on par with the best of the best classic Thor stories by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at Marvel. So, I ABSOLUTELY urge you to not miss it or deem it as inferior otherwise you're going to miss the best this series has to offer in all regards. Watch this incredibly directed classic and eventually buy the figures, it's totally worth it, even if I personally find the following Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon a bit better done and refined overall.

I truly, honestly, cannot understate the importance of Saint Seiya in my life. Whenever I help at the medical center where I live, whenever I help those in need, volunteer to be there, I think "it's just what a saint, be it bronze, silver or gold, would do." It was the very first, and, for over a decade, only, anime, I had ever watched, and watched multiple times. To this day, I'm still here. Still watching, still waiting. People say a lot about how pop culture can have an effect on your life, how it can teach you values, all of that shit, and most ... of it, it's just that. Bullshit. Not this. Saint Seiya is not like most anime. There aren't many jokes, it plays its cards straight, taking itself seriously, sometimes even to a comic degree, I'll admit it. But I will not tolerate shit about how that's bad. It's not. Never was. Never will be.

What this taught us, though, was moral values. How you can be anyone. From any social class. From any people. Any religion. Any past. Whatever it is it happened before. You can shine your light in the dark. You can be a beautiful beacon of hope. Of happiness. Protect it. Keep it from harm. Care for it. For others. For it will be fragile. And then, when it's strong...share it. Give it away. Shine it upon those still trapped in the shadows. And in time...in time, perphaps...the brilliance of your light will outhsine the void within.

As long as I live, I will never forget my golden brothers.

Thank you for all the lessons, my masters.

Shaka.
Saga.
Dohko.
Kanon.
Mu.
Shion.
Aiolos.
Aiolia.
Camus.
Shura.
Milo.
Aldebaran.
Aphrodite.
Deathmask.
Ikki.
Hyoga.
Shiryu.
Shun.
Seiya.

I'm still here.

A long time classic of my childhood, which I appreciated very much thanks to a great epic story based on Greek myths, along with some of the best characters I have ever seen in terms of visual art, especially when it comes to the so called 12 Gold Knights and their amazing gold armours, depicted in such fine details.

The same is for the iconic 5 bronze armoured protagonists and the various secondary characters. It’s not a case that even after 30 years, the action figures of this anime continue to be widely sold and to be very expensive as well (both the so called ... Vintage and Myth EX).

The epic battle of the 12 Houses against Seiya and its companions is some of the most memorable story I have ever watched still nowadays thanks to its dark and mysterious atmosphere of its locations. In Italy in particular, Saint Seiya was also appreciated for its great and poetic dub. All in all, a long time classic of the ‘80s and for me a great milestone of the anime of this period! Thanks for reading me!

This anime made my childhood. This is the best anime that I have ever seen in my life and I'm not exaggerating. Out of all of the anime I've watched, none of them compare to Knights of The Zodiac. The fights, the magical fantasy themes, and Greek Mythology, especially the hot men, make up a masterpiece of a story. Don't even get me started on the music. The music is a godsend. Kazuko Kawashima has such an ethereal voice. Her vocals and melodies are unmatchable. Seiji Yokoyama composed amazing songs for this anime. I will admit, this anime does have flaws. The plot can seem ... repetitive or it's predictable sometimes but despite all of that, it's a great show to watch. I love Shun and Gemini Saga. Saint Seiya is like a religion in Latin America. It really is a bummer that Saint Seiya never became mainstream in the US even though it is part of Shounen Jump. This show really has something for everyone: romance, drama, action, and blood. To conclude, I highly recommend this anime to anyone who has an interest in retro fantasy shounen. Also, if you want to watch anime similar to Sailor Moon (which is my second fave anime of all time), I recommend Saint Seiya because it's basically a magical boy anime!

Saint Seiya is a rather weird series for me. I watched the DiC Dub when I was a kid and I actually still recall watching it. I really liked the dub at the time, not knowing how bad it actually was, when it got cancelled, I was very disappointed back then.

Time Past and I would hear about this show from time to time, this series along with Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Fist of the North Star I would hear was better than Dragon Ball Z a lot. And while I disagree with the latter two shows better than DBZ, I do think this show ... is good in it's own right and is enjoyable. I recently watched Netflix's Blood of Zeus and played the God of War games so a Greek mythos shonen sounded intriguing to me.

Alright, intro is out of the way, this show is a pretty well made fighting shonen that does a good job at ticking all the boxes of what I want out of an action story. It has constant looming of danger, the bad guys feel like a constant threat, and the characters are interesting enough to make me want to go through the next episode.

The interesting themes of survival of the fittest does make this show for me stand out from other shonen. The knights go through some tough and very rigorous training as children but it doesn't end there, many characters of the series have to prove their worth in order to prove that they are worthy of being what they are. It's themes of friendship while can be corny to many is more interesting here due to its themes of the survival of the fittest. The show's characters have to earn each other's trust through doing thing no normal person even with superpowers would even want to do. This makes the show's themes of friendship more endearing rather than corny. The Gold Knights later in the Sanutary arc have to be proven that the Bronze Knights are worthy of Athena's honor. Every character in the story has to go through some very tough trial and tribulations to prove themselves to each other which helps gives it's themes of friendship more weight.

Now here are my gripes, while the show's story is engaging, the fights are rather dull, this is something DBZ and Naruto are much better than this series at, the fights in Seiya are rather boring. There is no actual back and forth between any of the characters and a lot of the fights consist of characters doing the same signature moves over and over. They often feel like battle in a turn based RPG rather than an actual throwdown of fists. As a result the fights can reptitive rather quickly.

Another issue is how Seiya himself while not the worst main character in a shonen, is the least interesting of the main cast. All the other characters around Seiya are a lot more interesting than he is. Shiryuu goes through absolute hell to accomplish his goals, Shun is a gentle hearted kind soul who doesn't want to hurt anyone and fights in self defense, Ikki is a lone wolf who prefers not to be overly attached to anyone and Hyoga is someone to driven by emotion and attachment, Seiya doesn't really stand out compare to the rest of them.

Ikki's resurrection ability can be rather confusing and weirdly defined too. He seemed to get brought back from almost anything super powerful attack that enemies can throw at him, which can get silly and can lower the stakes because of how undefined the rules for this ability is. Ikki seems to can revive himself from almost if not everything.

The final problem I have is that there is rough transition from the Sanutary arc to Posedian. This seems to be a problem in the manga too. When the villain Saga gets defeated, it just has a weird timeskip and then suddenly Posedian shows up. I know the anime had an original story with Asguard but I skipped that mainly because it was just there so the manga author can write more material, but the whole transition was rather strange and abrupt too.

Also, this isn't so much a flaw, but I know the anime got cancelled and it's weird how stand alone the anime's ending here knowing that there is still more content to come with the Hades OVAs.

These sound like major issues but I say the show is still worth watching for an older fighting shonen than got hyped for so many years by it's cult following it has, I actually enjoyed it.

I'm sure that if you have been into anime or video games long enough, you have heard the name Saint Seiya. It is a behemoth legacy series that has inspired many of the following generations' works.

○ You can see similar designs to Saint Seiya in CLAMP, especially in CLAMP's human proportions, and Rumiko Takahashi's works, as well as similarities in sister shows such as: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Ronin Warriors, and the infamous Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Saint Seiya also became an important staple for fujoshi culture and a benchmark for the shounen fighting genre.

• Something that prevented Saint Seiya from becoming a bigger ... show to a Western audience, and what I found really interesting about the series is the use of title ancestry. If you don't know what I'm referring to, an example is the main Saint: Pegasus Seiya. His name is Seiya and his title is Pegasus, before him there was a previous Pegasus Saint named Pegasus Tenma.

○ Also there are other parallels to prequels and sequels such as: Athena Sasha and Athena Saori, Aries Mu and Aries Shion, Virgo Shaka and Virgo Shijima, Pisces Aphrodite and Pisces Albafica, ETC. I'm not including all of the generations and descendants in the examples, but there's an awesome chart of the them on the Saint Seiya Wiki, if you're interested.

• The people who inherit the title or name of the Gods or Goddesses, such as Athena, Poseidon, and Hades all get their own Saints to fight for them. So, a Saint Seiya show may contain a large cast.

○ Each of them has an army of Gold Saints (one class out of the three Gold being the strongest and taking the names of astrological signs), as well as the two other classes, Silver and Bronze Saints. So, at minimum, if two Gods are fighting, then they at the very least have twice the amount of astrological signed Golds in their artillery, that would be the twelve signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces) times two.

○ Which would be a cast of twenty-four, other than the two Gods themselves and the plethora of Silver and Bronze Saints! That's a HUGE cast! That's like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones territory!

□ Thinking of how many characters are in Saint Seiya reminds me how daunting it is when I see those enormous crossover pictures for the Precure series that are reminiscent of a Where's Waldo portrait. Disclaimer: Saint Seiya may not be for you if you don't want to research hundreds of years of character history. That's why I'm not into superhero comics, I already have decades worth of anime to catch up with! I mean, just look at the X-Men relationship charts…

• Like many of you could have guessed, even with the 114 episode bulk of the series, the characters are still fairly episodic and rarely get very much screen time. I was disappointed at this, seeing as some of the characters that I really liked, such as, Pisces Aphrodite, Mime, and Siren Sorento, only got one episode or an episode and a half of screen time at most. But, who knows, maybe it's best that their screen time was short-lived, after all the main characters are almost caricature like in generic anime protagonist behavior. More on that coming up!

○ While I didn't particularly like this aspect, I understood that the ambition of the series was more a long the lines of, "Let's see how many cool magical attacks and fight scenes we can fit into this show." Essentially, the original series was very similar to Yu Yu Hakasho, but with less character emphasis and more of a focus on the atmosphere and stylistic aspects.

• Things I LOVED about Saint Seiya:

○ The designs are really unique. My introduction to Saint Seiya was randomly going to a Mexican thrift store with my Grandma and picking up a OOP booster pack that they were selling for fifty cents. I got a holographic card of Dragon Shiryu, though I had no clue who he was at the time, and loved the design of the armor! I particularly am a fan of the Gold Saints' designs.

○ The attacks are really cool. Seeing the reveal of the powers easily made the Gold Saints arc the best. Though, from watching and at least sampling every Saint Seiya series, the author really seems to like powers that deprive senses to awaken the sixth sense.

□ It seemed weird and rather frightening to me that that was so commonly used as a power, but Eastern culture does have a connection with Third Eye and Zen mythology, so of course it wouldn't make as much sense to my overly Westernized mind. The episodes with Virgo Shaka versus Phoenix Ikki in the original series are AMAZING episodes, if you don't want to make the commitment to watch the whole series, you at least NEED to watch THOSE episodes.

• Things I DIDN'T LIKE in Saint Seiya:

○ Main characters. Much like Inuyasha, or any other long running show, it's not that you particularly like the main cast, but more like you're Stockholm-ed into liking them. I feel that way about the Bronze Saints in the original series, oh, do I feel it. Those little fuckers will grow on you spores until their chubby, effeminate faces will somehow seem endearing.

□ It's like if you're trapped in an elevator with an obnoxious guy who coughs every three minutes and mumbles, "consternation," in a really weird and creepy inflection. Well, let's just say that you're trapped with said guy in the elevator for a few weeks, and suddenly, you start thinking that annoying quirk was somehow… endearing.

• You have:

□ A frog-faced maiden that you might find pretty sometimes.

□ A generic main character that wears ripped, red skinny jeans and shouts randomly.

□ A generic dragon guy who's trained by a generic, Chinese prune man.

□ An anti-hero big brother, who acts like an asshole, but actually loves his younger brother.

□ A girl-boy with magical galaxy chains, who's reserved but secretly powerful.

□ And, a whiny, emo Oedipus motherfucker who flaps his arms like a swan.

□ These little abominations grow on you like fungus on your mother's ninety year old pear tree or your grandmother’s retainers. Also, I am aware that the ones that I called generic weren't necessarily generic in their day. You see, I AM a millennial. Seiya is infinitely generic though, no one can deny that. The show is named after the most uninteresting character? Yay? I don't know. His characterization is like a sunburn on a person’s penis.

○ I don't know if I'm too young or too old to be comparing characterization to penis burns. Let me preface my next point by saying, yes, I binge watched Saint Seiya. Is it a good idea? No. Long before we had Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Kiss Anime to watch things at our leisure, things were actually aired weekly on television. The original Saint Seiya started airing in 1986.

□ So, as you probably would expect, the episodes aren't paced to be ingested in large consumption. Weekly television episode pacing means that they are often a) excruciatingly repetitive and b) shounen-style formulaic. I recommend that you watch this show a couple of episodes at a time for more enjoyment.

□ Think about it this way, are you going to enjoy One Piece more if you watch all thousand or something episodes in one month, or will get more out of it if you watch a few episodes a week for a year?

□ An example of this is I love Detective Conan, but I'm only on episode one hundred forty-two, because 1) I'm really busy with life, and 2) I actually want to enjoy it, one murder mystery at a time. If I watch several hundred episodes of something in a week, I'll feel like killing myself, no matter how much I enjoy something, I'm not going to die over it.

□ You either risk your sanity or your credibility as a nerd/ability to discuss something in a forum. To me, my health is more important. But, if you're young and fuck it about life then sure!

○ Since I mentioned the accursed shounen formula, I might as well explain what I didn't like about it. I understand that this series has an excuse for characters not being permanently dead, because of the Greek mythology lore and Cancer Deathmask's ability, but I still abhor becoming completely apathetic about the Saint Seiya’s characters deaths.

○ I DID like the brutality and spontaneity of how some characters died though, like Hunter x Hunter, it added a sense of realism to their world. Not every death should be romanticized, especially if they're mythical men who fight to the death. I mean, you don't read an Arthurian legend and expect any of them to be resurrected, do you? Actually, Fate/stay night is a thing. Never mind!

□ Oh, what? Character A died, don't worry, their soul is just in the realm of the dead, which is pretty much a place where you can choose to restart the game or recover lost team members.

□ I have a crazy conspiracy theory: what if Saint Seiya really just meant to be a video game all along? I wonder. Speaking of video game logic, Athena Saori gets kidnapped as much as Princess Peach, if not more. This is why Athena Sasha from Lost Canvas definitely best girl; she’s powerful, enigmatic, and is voiced by Aya Hirano…

□ Among other reasons. *LOUD COUGHING* best girl *LOUD COUGHING* Saint Seiya was the progenitor to Sailor Moon, you can see such similarities as… the main characters having repetitive attack animation and shouting their moves out-loud, I think that's one of the reasons that I didn't care for the Bronze Saints as much as the Gold Saints.

□ That and one of the main Bronze Saints has what looks like a child's training potty on his head and his has a necrophile thing for his mommy. Shun Andromeda is pretty amazing though, even though he also has a weird incest thing for his… older brother. God, if he says Nee-san one more time… on second thought, he might be like that crazy little sister from Mahouka. "Onii-sama… Onii-sama… Oniisama..." I often hear that voice in my dreams.

○ As far as the other series go:

□ I didn't like the Hades Chapter, it was boring and the directing was choppy. The only reason for watching the first season is for nostalgia and Virgo Shaka gets a lot of screen time because he's amazing.

□ I dropped Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold after the first episode because it seemed like an empty cash grab. I really wanted to be invested, too. As I've stated previously, I love the Gold Saints, they are really interesting!

□ Saint Seiya Omega is bad, it's pretty (in some parts, others look like an elementary schooler drew and animated) and I love the version Pegasus Fantasy that they use for the OP. It gets you pumped. Too bad the show is nonsensical, and in my opinion, shouldn't be considered canonical. I dropped it after seven episodes.

□ Saint Seiya: Lost Canvas is really good. If you're a fan of the original, it's interesting to see the previous generation of Saints. The second cour wasn't as good, but I still enjoyed it. The designs are solid, the animation is pretty, there is a good amount character development, and there's interesting additions to the Saint mythos.

□ Overall, I enjoyed Lost Canvas more than the original series and it is my favorite Saint Seiya thus far. You don't have to watch the original series to get it either, so if you're interested, Lost Canvas may be an ideal introductory series.

○ These are my tier list of arcs from the original series, so you know what the best parts are or if you want to skip around:

i. Sanctuary (Ep. 1-73): This is the best arc, especially the last part with "the Pope" (no spoilers), the clocktower, and the Bronze Saints fighting with the Gold Saints in their houses.

□ There's a stupid subplot with "Steel Saints", which are glorified filler characters, that only have the purpose of making the Saints question, "Are they good guys or bad guys?" The answer is: "Nobody cares!" That was the worst part of the first arc, other than the beginning, which was rocky.

□ In fact, I first started watching Saint Seiya nine years ago, and dropped it because I couldn't get into it at first, BUT I finally finished it this year and now, I'm really obsessed. I would say, if you read this review and you're still not interested then don't try. But, if this has piqued your curiosity, give the series a grace period or skip to the introduction of the Gold Saints.

ii. Poseidon (Ep. 100-114): This arc was more climactic and less sluggish than the previous Asgard arc. The ending of the series wasn't anything special, but there were a couple of cool fight scenes.

iii. Asgard (Ep. 74-99): There is a reason that this arc is bad, well, because this arc is really just filler. It is not in the manga, and is an anime-only thing. Things we didn't need in a Saint Seiya Series, a seahorse saint and other side characters that no one cares about.

□ Well, I did really like Mime and Fenrir, but all of the other Saints backstories seemed pointless and anti-climactic. I didn't think Hilda was the worst character ever, but there was really no point in having her.

○ The original series has its pros and cons, I personally think that it's a good series if you watch it a little at a time and, especially, if you're interested in Greek mythology or want to see one of the most iconic action series. Saint Seiya (1986) gets a 6/10.