Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold

I was initially negative about watching this, after reading the many negative reviews, but I was pleased to have watched it anyway, as a long time fan of one of the best shounen anime of all times, Saint Seiya.

This anime is essentially a spinoff featuring the Gold Saints of the original storyline. It's an excellent idea. The Gold saints were always badass characters, and I think it was always a secret wish to have them as heroes instead of the 5 bronze saints we got instead. So this story is essentially just an excuse to have the Gold Saints fight their own saga, and ... also give honor to the series in general.

I believe that the story was on par with something like the Asgard or Poseidon arc. In other words, a fairly cookie-cutter arc with good guys and villains, and a storyline just there for fights to happen. The story does retcon some things, and especially obvious is the fact that the Gold Saints seem a little cheapened compared to their glory days in Sanctuary. But then again, this was done already in the Hades arc. In addition, the personality of the saints is noticeably less "imposing" than they were in the sanctuary arc.

However, despite all this, the series is still pure enjoyment for the Saint Seiya fan. The original cast of actors is also there (except the ones in the afterlife, RIP), and although some sound very old, in this case its very enjoyable for obvious reasons (pure fanservice). We also have some saints which were just overlooked in previous sagas as evil (Cancer & Pisces) being redeemed here.

The art is on par with what had been seen in Hades arc, so acceptable modern style. The music is not on par with the beautiful original, but again also acceptable.

All in all, I would call this anime pure fanservice to the Saint Seiya fans of the Gold Saints. To be watched without serious thoughts about the impact on the canon storyline, and as a pure spinoff of the main series. Still, I found it enjoyable and give it a solid 7/10. I think this is on par with Asgard, Poseidon, and Hades arc. Nothing will ever equal the Sanctuary arc, and to many fans (including me), everything else is a spinoff. So watch this just as another spinoff arc.

Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold is a series that, obviously, is directed to a very specific public, but great, among the fans of Saint Seiya, of those fans who were very intrigued or who simply liked the golden knights, This series is supposed to give us a little more about the golden knights that many (including myself) love in Saint Seiya. If I'm honest I should say that this series or spin-off of the golden knights did not generate so much satisfaction or excitement to see it, because I found that the end they gave to the gold knights in the saga of Hades was ... sublime and that left as one of the best scenes of the whole manga (yes, I did not see the anime, I read the manga), I would like to clarify this I would like to review the review.

Oh, and this review contain spoilers of Saint Seiya and Soul of Gold.

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Story:

the history of this spin-off does not call me much the attention of first since having 13 chapters I thought it would be a series without much to offer and it would be very difficult to handle the 12 golden knights (later I will explain something very important that happens because the series only has 13 chapters), but when starting to see the series I must say that it did not start badly, some who only read the manga (like me) will be very disoriented about the fact that they are in Asgard (for some who do not know, the problem is that the saga of Asgard is stuffed anime, I had to see it before starting to see Soul of Gold and I must say that, despite being stuffed, is a more than acceptable saga) as this spin -off take it for granted that you already know what happened in the saga of Asgard, I would say that only for that reason the beginning can loosen, since they are introduced to the warrior gods of Asgard without much complexity limited to only a battle between Aioria against a God warrior of Asgard while Aioria fights to defe nder to a person who has just met (this to a certain extent is quite justifiable, since Aioria being a golden knight has as mission to defend people, besides that Aioria is among the kindest within the 12 knights of gold). In short, I would say that the beginning of this spin-off is quite disoriented for those who did consume the original work and there are many topics that are presented very simply and carelessly because of that.

Another point that I would like to silence about the story is how they want to rejoin the golden knights, their story ended, but now they will have to destroy the tree that could end all Asgard at some point, as I said before the series tells many things about abruptly because they think they all saw the Asgard saga, but the issue of Asgard's false prosperity is the issue that takes the longest to develop since that will eventually lead the knights to their final battle, but it seems that They concentrate so much on derassollar that theme that they forget the most important thing, the reason why the knights revived, later it is explained that it was Lyfia controlled by Loki that revived all the golden knights, and that because of that the tree absorbs every time more power, I do not know if I'll be the only one, but those issues were clarified so suddenly and so normal that I did not feel it as a major twist of the plot, it's true that a chapter before it was revealed So Lyfia was possessed and started to revive the dead and that, because of that, it would make sense that she has revived the others, I think that is true, this "size shift" and most of the series are quite Justifiable, but I felt very empty and without much depth in between, I do not like much that the biggest mystery of the series did not surprise me as much as I wanted, I must admit that, within what is possible, this "plot twist" "It is quite well built, but they were very unconcerned about this and the series was guided simply by" we were revived to destroy that tree ", but not how they were revived to find themselves in Asgard, many knights may question His reason for reviving within the series, but that is not enough to say that it was something that the series came to build in a very complex way, to summarize it would say that most of the explanations within the spin-off are simple, they lack something for you fill the gap and build them better, but it is acceptable because of the course of the series.

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Rhythm of the story:

The rhythm of the story throughout the story is ... quite problematic, with this I was referring to the principle with which I did not give good impression, 13 chapters is too little to try to develop a saga that involves the golden knights, even the saga of Asgard that was of filling took 26 chapter to be able to develop correctly. I already commented that the principle did not seem very correct to explain some issues, but in the end it is passable, now the development of events along spin-off leaves much to be desired, from chapter 4 onwards almost always a knight dies of gold even before they can do something remarkable or that they develop, many fights end with a dying gold knight, at least the fact that they die is justified because in Asgard there is a field that strengthens the warrior gods ( besides that they suck the cosmos), but the rhythm of history would say that it does not suit me, that almost every chapter someone dies without achieving an interesting background does not make me worthy of the golden knights (there are some exceptions, some gold knights if they were deepened in the original work, like Shaka, Shura, Aioria and Milo), hope that this would be an opportunity for the knights who went unnoticed in the original work, but the only one that left me satisfied was Death Mask, there are some battles that can be considered interesting, the others are very obsolete because the warrior gods at first do not generate a great danger, except for the first battle, and since I am talking Of that I would like to emphasize that the first battle was the most difficult, see in action in the first chapter to a golden armor divine gave me the idea of ​​how powerful they were and this way they would not take unjustified power ups just to excuse themselves (less evil this does not end up happening, even in the final battle they try to give a little explanation to the appearance of the divine golden armor of some knights), but the introductory battle was enough to prove that, it was a quite accomplished moment, I always take it importance to the first battle of a series to make a clear idea of ​​what the next battles will be like (even many of the following battles occur very much in accordance with the it was, except at the end where even with that power there are some gentlemen who are not "saved")

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Characters:

I had a lot of faith in how they would act and relate the characters in this spin-off and I would say that was what left me more satisfied, to see how they relate to each other I got to like too much, to see Aldebaran with Dokho, to Milo with Camus, to Aioria with, well, most of the golden knights, this is not the strongest point since many of these relationships between characters are only based on sharing battles, but in the end we must remember that this is still Saint Seiya, the relationship between combats is still very important, even thanks to that you can get to understand each other (Shura against Camus or Milo against Camus), these spaces are more careful than the focalization of the story since at the beginning it is shown to all the knights scattered by Asgard.

The fact that all the knights were scattered by Asgard called me a lot of attention, if I had to say it would be something like when in NNT they had to travel looking for all the deadly sins, this even helped characters like Death Mask, a character that I found that he was very ill-treated by Kuromada himself (creator of Saint Seiya) along with Aphrodite, both were portrayed in the worst way in the manga, even in the saga of Hades Radamantis mocks them and then send them to the underworld, what I found were the gentlemen who should highlight more here, luckily I'm not wrong, or at least not in my total, in this spin-off you can see a part of Death Mash and Aphrodite that could not be seen in the manga , we can see how Death Mask gets rid of everything he did before and now even dedicates money to a poor woman named Helena, many will say that the personality change is very excessive, but taking into account that now has no worries because he revived and his personality in the saga of Hades is very ambiguous because it is never clarified 100% if killing Athena was part of some plan of it, so I do not seem overdone or exaggerated change that was given, I would even say that makes the character much better, the Death Mask that is seen in this spin-off then ends up being very nice to see since you can appreciate an unknown facet.

Death Mask was an example of how we can appreciate the facet of other characters, another that could be classified as Aphrodite could be, the benefit they got was much less than that they took out Death Mask, but something undeniable is that the power they showed Aphrodite was better, literally thanks to him could all be saved, so it could be said that the fact that "died" in chapter 4 helped the whole plot, so it is marked as an event that lasted throughout the remaining plot, not only for being the first "death" of the series (although it is not at all impressive, not by far, like the other deaths of characters, ironically the most significant deaths are of the characters who are not golden knights and that help the development), if not for being the one that helped that everything went well, it is as if they tried to compensate all the useless that Aphrodite was in other adaptations, movies or in the same original series (even Shun it derr Autumn with a blow, but that's another issue), the simple fact that they wanted to amend everything abused that left this character makes me deserve the approval, I would also like to say that for me the fact that Aphrodite had The power not to fall into the trap of the tree, for me is not something illogical, you just have to take into account that your power specializes in plants, loves plants and the fact of being the smartest, with that note already the possibility that Aphrodite had that power for some time.

On the other hand there are also characters that are very forgotten or that do not achieve sufficient prominence as I would wish; Milo, Shura or even Dokho can not do enough, it is true that they help to break one of the crystals, but they can not have very good dialogues with their colleagues to denote something interesting or startling, the only thing that compensates for this a little is that in the original work these were the most worked knights and with more influence even until the end of the manga. This case occurs with all the other characters except Aiolos and Saga, of which, I must say, I was very disappointed in their participation, while Aiolos did the only thing that guided the knights towards their goal, Aiolos in the play original was always portrayed as one of the most powerful, noble and incredible knights of the entire sanctuary, but in this spin-off is only used as a motivational resource and in the final fight not long ago against God Loki, expect to see many more things about him, he could not even get to know much about him or show much his personality, so it is very poor and little careful compared to others, if the spin-off had more chapters could have been created to a great character. On the other hand, Saga de Geminis had much more potential than just struggling, he was even the enemy of one of the best sagas in all of Saint Seiya, but in the spin-off only consists of doing the same as he did in the original work, not I know if it was because of the limitations, but I leave quite dissatisfied with the simple fact of not making or impact as much as at the beginning, at least I can say that it is still as intimidating and respectable as in the original work, that is what generates that aura of Saga. Apart from that the other characters remain the same as always, I do not have any notable impact on their actions in the spin-off.

I would also like to dedicate a space to Camus's flashback on how he kills his friend's sister unintentionally, this also had the potential to create an evolution in Camus, but even the flash back turned out to be quite rushed, not to mention that it does not fit very well in the plot, it is as if he had suddenly remembered his friend, but it must be said that this served to give more variety of thought to the knights and thus generate battles between them, not so bad the back flash of Camus for the conflict that ends up developing.

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Art:

The technical sections of this spin-off would say that they are quite mediocre, the attacks are too simplistic, it's not just that you see cliche, it's that they do not look like the mythical attacks they were, the Mu Stardust Revolution for example they look like any type of attack of Dragon Ball Z, did not even put an effect so that it had the illusion of being a Saint Seiya own attack, this is repeated with many other attacks, those of Camus only look like blue rays, with which they would have put an effect of cold or a little ice around would have conformed me, since the essence of the attack would still be there but they did not make any effort, and that happens with most of the attacks throughout the series, the original work was trying to make attacks that differ between the characters, but this spin-off seems not to respect that.

The characters look great and the divine golden armor does not disappoint in terms of design, even contributing things that are very good with their zodiac sign, the enemies turn out to have a different design among them, so that aspect is very good.

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Music, environment and scenarios:

The scenarios in are not the big deal either, the fact that the events happen in Asgard helps a bit in the variety since Asgard was not a very explored place in the series since it was filler, here they also make more emphasis to the winter extravagant , being practically that the cause of the problem besides the tree, if that is complemented with the spoken thing in the saga of Asgard creates an atmosphere that makes that the events are credible, like the action of the people towards the illusion of the tree, by what I am ambito I think well (adeamas stress that all the rooms in which are the stones are very different from each other). Music is not the great thing either, many melodies of the old series follow, which pleases me, but they are not so well placed, some are placed in bad moments or they are very desacordes.

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Ending:

The ending is epic, I will summarize it because that is the representation of what is Saint Seiya, epic, they managed to defeat a God all knights with unlimited power, literally after Kuromada confirmed that they have the power to destroy planets or even galaxies with that armor, see the team work resulting from all the golden knights I find it great, it's like the combination between characters that everyone wanted to see, the enemy is not the big thing, I know, Loki could serve, but in the ancient shonen, but as I said before, Saint Seiya always distinguished himself by being more epic than the other Shonens, not by his well-achieved moments (although there are some very good ones), but by the fact that they defeat mythological enemies, defeat gods and here also happened what Loki could be too simplistic, but in the end, for a few moments, thanks to the feeling of Saint Seiya's episity, I value that more than anything.

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In the end I would only like to clarify that this spin-off left me satisfied, it can be a lot of trouble, I even saved it from putting a 5 because I always wanted to know or see a moment dedicated to the golden knights, recommended for those who loved the golden gentlemen like me, despite all the negative criticism that has, I must say that I do not regret to see it, it was very fun.

This is my first review and after seen how awful this anime is and that inexcusable 7+ rate I felt that a review was needed to tell everyone the truth: THIS SHOW IS AWFUL!
Seriously, I can't understand how many people can be touched by the poisonous hand of nostalgia and give anything above 3 to Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold, so let's get started.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD (but you shouldn't care since the show is crap anyway)

Story 3/10: Although this show starts interesting with the mystery of how and why the Gold Saints were revived, you'll soon notice that this script is just an recycle from ... the Sanctuary chapter of the first Saint Seiya. They didn't bother to even make an average story. Don't expect ANYTHING new, really.

Art 2/10: It goes down with each episode you watch. If you don't believe me then just watch and pay attention especially with the long lasting static scenes (which happens pretty often after epi 5 or 6, can't remember well).

Sound 1/10: The story wasn't shit enough. No! Toei needed to make it extra shitty with the HORRIBLE voice acting. Almost all characters lack emotion when they're [s]talking[/s] screaming and the dialogues are extremely superficial and cliché. You can predict every word that any character will say. EVERY MOTHERF***ING WORD!
If it wasn't for the Soldier Dream song in the opening I would give a solid 0 to this.

Character 2/10: For anyone who watched the Hades saga (I won't even talk about the glorious Lost Canvas) this show will be a really disappointment. The Gold Saints are mostly dumb and lost, nothing compared with the respected warriors we saw in Hades.
Well, let's be honest: the new personality of Deathmask was a nice and refreshing change. On the other hand we have Milo, Aphrodite, Camus and some others doing stupid things or dying in stupid ways. I'll need 12 hands (one for each saint) to properly facepalm when this show finally ends.

Enjoyment 3/10: At first I was really enjoying this show but as I said before, it goes worse and worse after each episode. At the time of episode 8 I kept watching just to see the end of this shit. I came a long road to drop the bomb now.

Overall 2/10: If you're not a fan of Saint Seiya, stay away. If you're a fan, you should stay away too and spend your time with better anime.