SAINT SEIYA

DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

OVA AdventureSaint Seiya: Meiou Hades Juuni Kyuu-hen
OVA ActionSaint Seiya: Meiou Hades Meikai-hen
ANIME ActionSaint Seiya
OVA ActionSaint Seiya: Meiou Hades Elysion-hen
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya: Saintia Shou
ONA AdventureSaint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya: NEXT DIMENSION - Meiou Shinwa
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya: THE LOST CANVAS - Meiou Shinwa
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya Episode G
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya: Episode Zero
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya: Origin
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya: Meiou Iden Dark Wing
NOVEL ActionSaint Seiya: Gigantomachia
ONE SHOT ActionSaint Seiya Destiny
MANGA ActionKurumada Suikoden: HERO OF HEROES
ONA AdventureSaint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac Part 2
ONA ActionSaint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac Battle Sanctuary
MANGA ComedySaint Paradise
MOVIE ActionSaint Seiya: LEGEND of SANCTUARY
MANGA ActionSaint Seiya: Kaiou Saiki RERISE OF POSEIDON
ONA AdventureSaint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac Battle Sanctuary Part 2
MANGA AdventureSaint Mariya

REVIEWS

• 

  MasterCrash

  40/100
  W-What?! Uh! W-What? How? What?! W-w-w-What?!

  Saint Seiya, or The Knights of the Zodiac, is a classic manga from Shounen Jump, it was first released in 1986, and since then it had various sequels and anime adaptions, with the most recent Netflix series having a not so great reception.
  But that doesn't change the fact that the original manga and anime series have had a lot of success, being named frequently with the biggest franchises of the 80s. So, is the praise deserving? Lets look at what makes Saint Seiya, Saint Seiya.

  

  Before we dive into the actual manga we do need to understand that the scenario of battle manga in 1986 was a bit different from what we know today and this was more or less when that shift changed. With manga like the "Z" part of Dragon Ball, Jojo Part 3 and, of course, Saint Seiya.
  One of the things Saint Seiya does right off the bat is throw the muscular men fighting with fists and gives us much cuter roster of male characters, whose influence was so great that it actually was responsible for popularizing Yaoi.
  Thanks Saint Seiya.

  

  And the fact is that this manga has some decent ideas and innovations. The fights are much more influenced in powers and strategies rather than simply brute force, the cast was quite varied and the arc structure of it all was well organized. Things that are taken for granted now. But Saint Seiya doesn't really use these ideas to their full potential. And while one can just blame it on "its age", there are manga that have aged much better, like the previous examples.

  

  The very first problem this manga has is failing to explain the plot and character motivations for the entirety of the first arc. And sure, the story is simple enough that you can ASSUME more or less what is happening, but you're never really sure, until they explain it in mid-second arc. If you haven't dropped by now, with the plot finally explained the rest of the manga is an easier read... relatively speaking.

  

  The biggest flaw of this manga is its battles. While the second arc is its highest point, it gives us plot "twists" that are going to be used on every fight and arc from there on out. Yes, Andromeda is going to fight an ice or water based enemy. Yes, Dragon is gonna die, but not really, but kinda yeah, yes he's dead, what he isn't?!
  Our heroes are going to use a power. Won't do damage to the enemy. What? The enemy will now use a much stronger attack. Our characters will lose, but not really because of friendship, and also because of Cosmos.

  

  Now, Cosmos to Saint Seiya isn't really a unique concept, it's similar to Dragon Ball's Ki, or Naruto's Chakra, the more you have it, the stronger you get. The thing about Cosmos that completely ruins any impact the fights have is that Cosmos here dictates almost like "fate". Our heroes are fighting together for the good of the Gods, so even if they have less Cosmos than their opponents, Cosmos itself will make our heroes win. Because it's their destiny, since they are fighting for Good. And, well, if they are destined to win, even when they are the "underdog", it removes all the tension of the fight.

  

  And the fights in this manga are all about the tension. They are incredibly over the top, consisting of one character using a power, everyone looking shocked, it fails or wounds the opponent, regardless, everyone looks shocked, but then the other character pulls out something even more over the top that warrants an even more over the top reaction.
  Half the manga is people being surprised at everything.

  

  With this being a battle manga and the battles being the most important thing, that already hurts Saint Seiya a lot, but the plot itself isn't really something that's saving this manga, and the arcs past the second are just re-hashes of one another. The characters aren't really memorable either, leaving me wondering why would anyone read this.

  

  And well, there is ONE reason to read this.
  It's bad, but it's hilarious, it's incredibly over the top ridiculous, and with plot twists that make no sense at all. It's not self-aware at any point. But it did one thing, it made me laugh. It made me laugh and laugh and share pictures of stupid moments to my friends and angrily discuss a plot point about a guy behind beheaded. So I do recommend you reading it if you're looking for something like that, because at the end, I didn't really regret reading this.

  

  What?

  Continue on AniList
• 

  Gominha

  75/100
  An underrated gem of the battle shounen genre that's popular and yet still largely misunderstood and oversimplified.

  DISCLAIMER: My english is bad etc. I think it’s readable tho. Corrections are appreciated anyway.
  Most of the review can be understood without spoilers as most of them are just examples made to prove my points and such. Some mild spoilers are present however, as the spoiler format for anilist really breaks the text's fluidity.

  Saint Seiya is a 1986 battle shounen manga written by the influential Masami Kurumada and it might be the best one to represent his early career. While Saint Seiya was surely popular and it´s both loved and hated by a fair amount of people, most of it´s readers(more like watchers, actually) thoroughly ignore pretty much everything in the manga except maybe the character´s names and techniques. It´s a work treated as unraveled, but you never see anyone discussing it´s themes or story and almost no one seems to understand it even in the most basic level. I´m also guilty of this, as it´s the anime that got me into anime and I've known it for almost two decades, but still took me all of that time, two watches and three reads(one incomplete and two full) to truly grasp it.

  If you believe in everything I said until now you must be asking “Why is that? Is Saint Seiya truly such a complex work of art?” and the answer is: no, not really. I believe there´s two major explanations for this phenomenon. First, most of the people who consumed Saint Seiya did so trough the anime adaptation which is shaky at best and completely ruins the manga´s fluidity and cohesion. And second, the action in the manga is so frenetic and constant that´s easy to simply forget to scratch it beyond it´s surface, as there seems to be entertainment enough in it´s fights and it´s one-liners.

  There are three major points that makes Saint Seiya a unique and truly great manga and battle shounen. Two of these points call for longer explanations, but there´s one I can summarize in this one paragraph: character visibility. The only other battle shounen I can think were the main cast is so equally worked on is maybe Yu Yu Hakusho. I actually believe this to be one of the main reasons why Seiya is so hated on the fan base(besides the anime killing half of his personality). Saint Seiya is one of the few manga were it won´t really hurt you to hate the protagonist, as every character has their own spotlights in every arc and you can pick your own favorite from the main 5 with no fear. They will constantly have good fights and be worked on for the rest of the manga.

  Before going on the next two points, I’d like to clear some misconceptions about the manga. A lot of people disseminate that it’s a work riddled with blatant plot holes at every corner, and while that’s true, it’s something exclusive to it’s animated version. The anime writing changes several points that end up creating severe contradictions on the story(such as having 2 Popes, the Sagittarius Gold Cloth initially being presented as the only Gold Cloth, Hyoga’s master, Aldebaran losing to a weak specter without being deaf, Shura being loyal to Athena, eliminating Shaka’s and Aiolia’s first appearances and etc.) and the manga dialogues are so diluted in filler lines created to gain time that they actually become mostly incomprehensible and meaningless on the animated version. Not to mention terrible decisions such as making the main characters strangers rather than brothers, removing almost every dialogue with personality and a LOT of other things. The manga plot is actually heavily and adequately foreshadowed and it’s mostly consistent; characters also aren’t nearly as shallow as their anime counterparts.

  Another common complaint is that the arcs all follows the same formula. I don’t really think that’s a problem, as one-on-one fight corridors are the ideal format for a battle manga in my opinion, but even then that’s not really true. The Black Saints arc don’t have match-ups as well established as other arcs, the one-on-one sequence on Poseidon is interrupted at the arc’s climax and leads to a pretty interesting conclusion and Hades’(which is pretty much 1/3 of the manga) doesn’t resemble the formula in the slightest.

  Now to the first major point. Saint Seiya is great at working it’s themes and keeping loyal to them. You have a pretty big number of them since there are a lot of more allegoric fights made to send a point across(Seiya vs Misty, Hyoga vs Camus, every Shiryu fight, you name it), but the two main ones are Brotherly Love and Self-Sacrifice. The main 5 characters are orphans who grew up in an abusive environment and were sent to face death-threatening training in isolated parts of the world, spending all of their young years with barely any warmth and human company. However, by becoming Saints they truly form family bonds and find the happiness of loving and being loved, even a midst their harsh trials and deadly fights. From the point the main 5 finally become a family, their dialogues when reunited are always touching and wholesome and really makes you understand the value they put in their relationship(and again, that’s something absent in the animated version), there also quite a few one-to-one dialogues in key moments that makes wonders to show the bond they share, especially Ikki whose character pretty much resolves around being the rigid yet caring big brother for the group. The second major theme is the most important, but also the most silent of them all, as rather then being constantly shouted, it’s demonstrated trough actions and character progression. As the name implies, the Saint’s journey is a journey to become Saints. They gradually go from characters with personal motivations to nearly inhuman warriors of selflessness, as that’s the destiny they chose to accept. Saint Seiya(and Kurumada in general) is heavily influenced by Buddhism and Christianity and that really shows in their characters. Aiolos and Saga can easily be compared to Jesus Christ and Judas, and while Saga may be a bit more far fetched, the figure Aioros represents in the story is truly that of a holy martyr, he is even purposefully presented as an eminent figure even while being the brother of an important and live character and remains immaculate even when all the other dead gold saints are somewhat dishonored. That’s the general idea, but I’ll develop it a little more with spoilers next.

  We learn almost every character’s motivations pretty early on. Seiya became a Saint in order to get help to find this lost sister, Hyoga wanted to be strong enough to visit his mother’s icy grave, Shun and Ikki wanted to be reunited, and Shiryu wanted to become strong as consequence of the poor and violent lifestyle he led as an infant. It’s good to start talking about this trough Shiryu because he is the greatest exception in the main group. He actually found a family trough his training, he has a close father figure and a romantic interest. He also has grown to be honored and humbler thanks to his master. But the first thing this master tests as soon as Shiryu becomes a Saint, is his willingness to sacrifice him. Similarly, Hyoga’s master Camus sinks his mother grave beyond his reach so he get over this attachment. These are both acts that show us very early what is to be a true saint. It’s not that Saints must be heartless, but they should always be prepared to abandon what they love for the greater good. All the five intially reject that notion actually, all they want is to live peaceful lives and reach their goals. There are quite a few moments that contribute as turning points to that attitude, but the main factor is exactly the relationship they develop. By founding out they are brothers and are not alone, even sharing the sames hardships and fights, they find happiness in their destiny as Saints. By learning the warmth of a loving family, they finally can appreciate how precious that is, and that’s why they are willing to sacrifice anything, even themselves or the happiness they finally found in order to protect the lives of every human on earth. Hyoga is the greatest embodiment of the self-sacrifice theme: he has to abandon his mother, kill his master and brother disciple with his own hands and even put to risk his last family in the world in bloody battles. Seiya, on the other hand, has the greatest progression. He is the most rebellious at first, but learn that maybe Athena is worth protecting while risking their lives together against Jamian. He then sees the willingness of his old rival to sacrifice himself for the woman he loved at the Leo Temple and in the confront with Saga he finally encounters his resolve to fight to the very last consequences, the ultimate abandon and selflessness. That’s why by the end of the manga Seiya looks so peaceful even as he takes a fatal blow from Hades, knowing he’ll never see the sister he searched for so much. At that moment Seiya becomes a true Saint. I could keep listing moments of self sacrifice on this manga endlessly, but I believe this point is already obvious enough.

  The third major quality in Saint Seiya is the fights, and all that they encompass. There are essentially two types of fight in the manga: a) fights there are simply power comparisons. Usually for show-off purposes. These are especially common from the Galaxian Wars arc up until the Silver Saints Arcs, but also show up at the beginning of Poseidon and Hades’ arcs. These can still be quite fun and they do a great job at establishing power levels; b) fights were the tension or conclusion originates from external factors rather then the result of a simple power clash. The arc of the 12 Temples is the prime example, since all of it’s fights are this type. There’s no doubt that every Gold Saint is generally far stronger then the main cast, except for Shun(and even he draws in his last fight). Rather then powering up and straight up defeating every opponent, the fights are resolved with suicide strategies, moral victories and other sorts of uncommon solutions. That doesn’t mean, however, that these fights are boring in any way. It’s quite the opposite, actually. It’s an arc with nothing but memorable fights and antagonists. These fights also occur on the pattern that the main character is stronger than the opponent, but is somehow handicapped physically or emotionally, such as Seiya vs Moses, Hyoga vs Izaak, Shaka vs Saga, Shura and Camus and etc. These “b)” types of fight are were Saint Seiya truly shines. Not only they make a great job of preserving a consistent power level from the beginning to the end of the series, but they also show Kurumada’s ability to understand what makes a fight entertaining and to write battles that go far beyond simply battling. Creative conflicts, character diversity, aesthetic techniques, and an endless archive of one-liners make the experience of Saint Seiya’s battles one of the best in all battle shounen.

  The most divisive point in SS and Kurumada’s works in general is the art, without doubt. And while a lot of people dislike his character design(which is fine, I suppose. It does take some using to), I believe is undeniable that his backgrounds, techniques back drops, use of particles and armor design are all really good and can be universally appreciated. So while I can’t say the art is incredibly good, I can say with confidence that is not bad and it’s perfectly readable.

  That is not to say Saint Seiya is perfect. The storytelling has a fair amount of flaws, such as important characters being abruptly introduced(such as Kanon and Izaak), the rushed Sanctuary arc conclusion and the really cool but a quite confusing concept of “the same technique never works twice against at a Saint!”. Even so, there is no doubt it’s a criminally underrated manga and anyone who says it’s bad almost infallible fall in one of three categories:
  -people who only watched the bad anime adaptation
  -people who don’t like the art
  -people who weren’t willing to do the most basic text interpretation
  So yeah, Saint Seiya is pretty good and if you enjoy battle shounen and have never read you’re missing on one of the most satisfying and fun experiences in the genre.

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• 

  WhatAGoodShow

  96/100
  The manga that inspired mangas. How did it earn its place in the cosmos?

  As one of the earliest fighting shonen, Saint Seiya inspired many authors that would produce some of the most popular manga in the industry. In terms of story structure, it resembles Bleach. It has a golden power up that might have inspired many other ones in series such as Dragon Ball or Gundam. It created side characters with depth enough to challenge the popularity of the very main character who suppose to bring the victory home.

  As the name suggest, the lead character is a saint called Seiya. Tho he is the main character, he isn't the sole focus of the series. It is about the goddess of war Athena and her knights, referred as saints, who fight for love and justice of the earth. Enemies ranging from saints that abused their powers for evil or enemies that work for gods who want to take over the earth.
  As Athena is always reborn in a body of a human, she has to earn her trust of the saints that suppose to fight for her. These include the character who is the namesake of the manga, Seiya, who was forced to become a saint in order to be able to see his sister again. Over the course of the story, the people who became saints by circumstances learn to put their selfish desires behind and get new reasons to fight.
  The story also plays with the concept of faith and how those who are saints have to fight against it. Fighting against their believes. Fighting against the loved ones. Earning the respect of others.
  One example being that a character who fights as an enemy, believes the person for whom he is fighting is just, as he can tell his true intention. Tho over the course of the story, he would learn that even through the power he has, there was more he could not uncover about that person originally and his eyes opened after seeing the dedication of his opponent.

  Like in many fighting shonen, Saint Seiya has a power system. In this case it 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.

  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.

  On the topic of brotherhood, the other elderly brother figures would be the Gold Saints. Besides serving as mentors and role models, they would often pass on the baton sacrificing themselves to protect the younger generation as one day these Bronze Saints could become their successor as newer Gold Saints and do the same for those that come after them.

  Being a manga from the 80th, the artstyle starts of rather underwhelming by today's standards. However, as it goes, it not only improves but even challenges many manga in terms of quality from today. The amount of detail on the characters and their armor is impressive and usually I do not credit art in my review. Each volume ends with a full design of the armors in their unworn state that takes the form of what it symbolizes, like the Pegasus Cloth looking like a pegasus, and how it looks like when someone wears them with detailed explanation which parts of the armor is on what part of the body. For people who care about these details, it gives a great satisfaction and makes these armors realism. As if they were to exist in real life, they could function like that.

  A criticism I have is that the manga concluded but like Bleach it did left a lot of questions open. There were a few continuity as well as one character is claimed to have died and later explained that he survived in a weird way which is hard to explain here without spoiling. And one of the most hyped up fights concluding in a not very satisfactory way.

  However, even with these criticisms, doesn't take away the fact all the great things that happened to that point. Not to mention, the story has an ongoing sequel that attempts to solve these issues. Whether if they will or not, that remains to be seen.

  If you are a fan of Bleach especially, I highly recommend you to read Saint Seiya. You will not be disappointed.

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