Saint Seiya: Shinku no Shounen Densetsu

Esta review también está en español.

The third Saint Seiya movie. The longer, complex (yes, complex) and better of the original movies. This one was so badass that, in my country (and ton of others too), it actually was showed in cinemas. With this one, the anime road was paved definitely.
So, I hope you can understand my broken english, and learn about the Legend of Crimson Youth.

Story: Abel, the Sun God (banished in the past by Apollo, apparently) comes back to the world with the intentions of human annihilation, so the gods may rule the world one again. This is original in the way that Abel ... want to rule with Athena, his sister, instead of just kill her and take the world for him. And guess what: Athena agrees, and tell the bronze saints that she doesn't need them anymore, since Abel not only have the Corona saints (Carina Atlas, Coma Berenice Berenike and Lynx Jaow), but the fallen golden saints too. Of course, Seiya doesn't take this calmly, but since Atlas clean the stairs with his head (a colorful way of kicking ass), Athena orders the four bronze saints to leave. Crushed with the decision of their goddess of... well, firing them, Seiya and co. eventually learn the truth: Athena didn't betrayed humanity, her plan was to beat Abel herself, since she doesn't want a fight between the saints and a powerful god (she apparently forgot that the saints are supposed to fight gods every now and then, specially Hades, since he come regularly). Athena obviously fails, and her soul is send straight to the Elysion. And that people, is the trigger for a battle between the bronze saints and the golden saints loyal to Athena vs. the Corona saints and the golden saints loyal to Abel.
Enjoy the rest!

Animation: Well, this time there is an improvement. Not mind blowing, but very significant. The environments (the temple look really nice, but I really like the little prairie were Abel and Athena first met), the attacks (flashier than ever, specially Atlas and Berenike's attacks), the animation (a bit more fluid) and the characters, everything is better done (comparing to the TV series and the other movies).

Sound: the music is not only good, as usual... this time, they created and ending song!. You Are My Reason To Be (english lyrics, people!) isn't the best ballad ever, but is pretty nice, and is a good closure to a movie with tons of fights.
The japanese voice acting is great, like always (you never get tired of the "Saori-saaan" scream over and over xD).

Verdict: The best Saint Seiya movie so far. There's not only and improvement in the visuals, the story is better told, and the most important thing: we have more and better fights. The enemies this time are more satisfactory, the corona saints are really strong (and vile, their treacherous attacks are hilarious), and the golden saints are an excellent add (they aren't the more popular characters for nothing). And a few other things I can't comment for the spoiler thing.
Oh, and I almost forgot, for crying loud sake, this one is 70 min long! This one qualifies as a real movie! (Truth to be told, the others are closer to OVAs)
So, all in all, this is one of the best things with the Saint Seiya name on it. This is the way an anime movie should be done.
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Amigos hispanoparlantes, ¿se acuerdan del primer opening que vimos de Saint Seiya? No Pegasus Fantasy, si no ese de “Los guardianes del uuuuuuuuuniverso al triunfar el maaaaaaaaaaaaal”? Bueno, ese tenía escenas (y spoilers masivos) de esta película. Esta es la número 3, la que vimos en cine los que tenemos más de 20 (la primera película de Anime que yo recuerdo...), y una de las responsables de cementar el fenómeno anime por estos lares, abriendo paso más tarde, al menos en Argentina, a futuras incursiones como Dragon Ball...
Señores, señoras, con ustedes, Los Caballeros del Zodiaco Contraatacan (Latinoamérica) o La leyenda de los jóvenes escarlata (España... este nombre me gusta más. Bien por los españoles).

Historia: Abel, Dios del Sol (o al menos uno de los dioses del sol, dado que en el pasado fue vencido y desterrado por Apolo), regresa al mundo de los humanos con la intención de eliminar a la humanidad y empezar una nueva época donde los dioses dominen la tierra. Esto es ciertamente original, dado que Abel quiere reinar el mundo junto a su hermana Athena, en lugar de simplemente borrarla del mapa y regir solo. Y acá esta el giro: Athena acepta, y releva a los santos de bronce de sus puestos, dado que Abel no solo cuenta con sus santos de la corona (Atlas del signo de Carina, Jaō del signo de Lince y Belenger del signo de Coma Berenices), sino que también revivió a los santos de oro caídos. Obvio que Seiya no toma esto muy bien, pero después de que Atlas le diera una paliza, Athena ordena a los cuatro caballeros de bronce presentes que se retiren. Devastados por haber sido abandonados por su diosa, Seiya y compañía terminan descubriendo la verdad: Athena no estaba realmente dispuesta a abandonar a la humanidad, pero no quería que sus caballeros lucharan contra algo tan poderoso como un dios (se ve que no le llego el memo de que se supone que los santos SI pelean contra los dioses, especialmente contra Hades, que viene cada 242 años aproximadamente), por lo que se enfrenta a su hermano, obviamente perdiendo, y siendo su alma enviada a los campos Eliseos. Así es como se desata la batalla entre los santos de bronce y los de oro leales a Athena vs los santos de la corona y los santos de oro leales a Abel.

Animación: Bueno, esta vez realmente se nota un esfuerzo por parte de los animadores. No voy a decir que fue un salto gigantesco en la calidad, pero tanto el entorno (especialmente al principio de la película, cuando Athena y Abel se encuentran en ese campo floreado tan bonito), los ataques (aplauso para los ataques de Atlas y Belenger!), la animación y los personajes están mejor hechos que en la serie o en las otras películas. Será porque está realmente es una película (podríamos decir que las otras tres eran más bien OVAS).

Sonido: La música no solo es buena, si no que esta vez, crearon un ending para la película!. You Are My Reason To Be (cantada en ingles) no será la balada más brillante del mundo, pero es agradable y da un buen cierre a una película donde llovieron golpes por todos lados. En cuanto al doblaje... la versión latina (al menos la que yo vi, porque apostaría que hay una versión mas) contaba con un cambio total en las voces. Excepto por la de Shun, que sonaba medio rara, todas eran correctas (especialmente la de Seiya, que tenía que competir con alguien como Jesús Barrero). También, hay alguna que otra cosa peculiar, como que al caballero de Acuario le digan Camil en lugar de Camus, y que al ataque ofensivo de Ikki le hayan metido la palabra fantasma (el puño fantasma del fénix es el que destruía cerebros, no el que destruía huesos), pero nada grave (ahora que me acuerdo bien, varios ataques tenían cambios menores de nombre).

Veredicto: Esta es la mejor película de Saint Seiya hasta el momento. No solo hay un aumento en calidad técnica, la historia está mejor planteada (sin salirse de lo tradicional), y lo más importante de todo: más y mejores peleas. Los enemigos esta vez son mucho más satisfactorios, los santos de la corona dan mucha batalla (y son rastreros como pocos, atacando por la espalda a diestra y siniestra), y la inclusión de los caballeros de oro fue genial (no por nada son los personajes más populares de la serie... aunque, por alguna razón, los que estaban vivos no aparecieron). Además de muchas cosas más que no puedo comentar por cuestiones de spoilers. En resumen, esto es de lo mejor que hay con el nombre de Saint Seiya. Así es como deberían ser las películas de un anime.

Legend of Crimson Youth is the 3rd film of the Saint Seiya series which is the longest of the bunch, but sadly it's probably the worst of the features. Note: this movie takes place after the events of the Sanctuary arc. Episodes 1-73.

The story begins with Saori meeting her brother Abel along with his servants, The Corona Saints, & the revived Gold Saints. In short, Abel wants to rid of humanity as they are a vile & wicked species set on self-annihilation. To enforce his actions, Abel asks for the aid of his sister Saori to cleanse the planet of humanity and begin anew as ... messiahs. The moral of the film is to emphasize a divine figure whose solemn duty is to abolish the dangers of Earth with his sins being justified for the greater good. It is the duty of The Bronze Saints to rebel against this holy figure to prove his actions are wrong.

While the subject matter seems promising for a full length feature it doesn't hold up on very basic story principles being action and motivation. For starters, the film states right away what the story is but takes a slow pace towards it as the first 20 minutes is focused on a brooding Seiya due to Athena siding with Abel aka Apollo. This plot point quickly becomes irrelevant as Athena was only feigning her loyalty to Abel in order to assassinate him. The murder attempt fails and the story follows the same structure as the other plots of Saint Seiya being to rescue Athena from sort of act of self sacrifice. So the rest of the movie is what you can in Saint Seiya but delivers poorly.

While it may seem trivial to complain about the action in a film where the emphasis is the story; the fights are terrible. Being the first movie debut for the Gold Saints I expected more out of them but they are dispatched very quickly. The same can be said for every other battle as they end far too quick, eliminating the build up presented in the previous scenes. It gets to the point where the audience can call "bullshit" on the power scale presented in the action as most fights feel "fixed".

While the action is poor the same goes for the story as Abel never elaborates why he must be rid of humans or what classifies them as evil. This is where the movie starts to fall flat in its ethics as it never goes into detail of the sins man has committed. From what has been presented in the series, Earth is currently a peaceful place so there is no need to wipe out humanity. If anything, all the conflict came from Gemini Saga. Ironically, Saga is the saving grace of the movie as he motivates Seiya to rescue Athena as a way to atone for his past sins. I certainly wished he played a bigger role in the story as Abel's current actions reflect his own during his time as Pope Ayres.

To sum this up, Legend of Crimson Youth basically repeats the villain characterization of Gemini Saga offering very little action & a story that isn't as complicated as it claims. The only highlights to the movie are the animation, a rematch between Shiryu & Cancer Deathmask, and the brief inclusion of The Gold Saints. Saint Seiya Movie 3 just felt like recycled material in an updated look. While the art remains gorgeous as ever, the pacing & structure needed improvement.

The third Saint Seiya film, Legend of Crimson Youth, manages to at least be an improvement over the cashgrabs that were its feature-length predecessors in both premise and execution. Much like the previous film was just a poor blueprint for the far better Asgard Arc though, so too was this film a poor man's blueprint for the better Hades Arc that was to come in the manga.

Obviously, that comparison requires some minor and major spoilers for both this film and the Hades Arc of the anime/manga, so there's the pre-warning for later parts of the review. To start off though, the film has an interesting ... premise with the threat being an original character with some new lore to hype him up as well as Athena's unwillingness to have her Saints be involved in fighting him being a fair bit different from the norm. This bait and switch on Athena's part as well as the revival of the dead Gold Saints can quite obviously be compared to the plot of the Hades Arc's first act and are a breath of fresh air for the films which had ignored any Gold Saint that wasn't Seiya in a Sagittarius Cloth, though it also shows the difference in writing quality for the series when Kurumada isn't on board and that the Asgard Arc was an exception and not the rule. Athena's plan to kill Abel herself makes no sense when the film tells us that he's on par with Zeus and required several Olympians to take him down, nor does her close approach when the Nike staff is what saved her from conflicts with Zeus in the past as implied by the end of the Sanctuary Arc. With the exception of Saga, the revived Gold Saints are also quickly killed off either by the Bronze Saints or the new Corona Saints serving Abel rather than serving any narrative purpose and all the unique aspects of the opening act go down the drain pretty quickly with it returning to the same formula as the previous films (see my reviews on them for what that is and why it failed).
With that, you can guess the finale is indeed Seiya saving the day against a God, though this case is more egregious than the prior two films due to the hype given to Abel in being far above Athena and comparable to Zeus, yet he can eventually be matched by a Seiya who at that point could barely do anything to a Poseidon nowhere near his full power or close to Athena's true power. It really makes it more apparent how little tension there is in the film continuity when the Sagittarius Cloth is reduced to a pure deus ex machina.

Despite these complaints of the film, I'd still say it has more saving graces than those that came before it aside from the premise simply being better. Saga is by far the best part of the film both in service to the fans and the narrative. We get to see the good side of Saga that we only had glimpses of in the Sanctuary Arc and see the onscreen debut of the Galaxian Explosion that the anime unfortunately couldn't add, as well as him serving his role well in acting as an opponent and mentor to Seiya. It's also interesting that the end of his fight with Jao is likely the inspiration behind his brother Kanon finishing the fight with Rhadamanthys in the Hades Arc. Even though it wasn't good how the Gold Saints were shafted, their deaths at least help showcase the henchmen as a genuine threat unlike the previous two films. Athena's "death" is also a double-edged sword. Her and the Nike staff being removed from the plot is good for tension in the main cast logically being less plot armoured...except the execution is hollow as they're more plot armoured than ever by the finale of the film.

As far as the superifical elements of art and animation goes, it's the same as the previous films; a stunning and fitting adaptation of Kurumada's great style and evidence digitally produced anime can't hold a candle to an 80s anime film with a decent budget, but still not awe-inspiring enough to mask how paper-thin its plot is.

Like the previous film, it's a poor first draft of a far better Saint Seiya story, but at least this one had some decent ideas behind it.