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Jun 16, 2012
Saint Seiya is an old school Shounen Jump manga that received a recent comeback in direct sequels, prequels and spin-offs. One of the most prominent of these recent works is Saint Seiya – Lost Canvas. Lost Canvas tells the story of the previous Holy War involving Athena's saints and the army of Hades, taking place in the 18th century. The story is told on the point of view of the former Pegasus saint Tenma.
Saint Seiya – Next Dimension is set in the same period and in the same context. Like in Lost Canvas, Pegasus Tenma, Libra Dohko and Aries Shion are also present. But
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Next Dimension represents a substantial change in the story told in Lost Canvas. Probably, it happens because Masami Kurumada has entire control of Next Dimension plot direction, unlike of Lost Canvas.
- some elucidations and minor spoilers ahead -
But, unfortunately, the first 13 chapters of Next Dimension are quite uninteresting. The manga tells briefly how Alone, Tenma's childhood friend, becomes Hades. Pegasus Tenma recklessly joins forces with Libra Dohko and Aries Shion to stop Alone's "transformation" into the malefic god. But in their foolish attempt, they are confronted by Garuda Suikyo, a strong former Athena saint that allied to Hades.
The story follows in this so-so approach until the chapter 14 starts right where the original manga have ended. So, at this point, it's strictly necessary that you have read Saint Seiya's first manga. If you have it, you can continue to read Next Dimension and this review too.
Starting on chapter 14, Pegasus Seiya is on a wheelchair, perishing by the curse from the sword of Hades. Saori Athena and Andromeda Shun decide to ask Chronos help to reverse the curse. Chronos send them back in time, so they can destroy the sword of Hades in the past and save Seiya (Understand? Neither do I lol).
But Chronos cheated Athena and turned her into a baby form, sending her to the same age where Pegasus Tenma is. Also arriving in the 18th century, Shun joins Tenma in order to protect Athena. They now have to cross the Twelve Temples to alert the not-so credulous Gold saints that Athena have reincarneted. Eventually, other known Bronze saints from 20th century also make their cameo.
Reading the chapter 14, things looked really promising and exciting. Every Saint Seiya fan was expecting the so dreamed "Heaven Chapter". Kurumada even presented Artemis, the same character that has make a cameo on Saint Seiya - Heaven Chapter Overture "filler" movie.
But Kurumada didn't delivered what fans were expecting. Once again, he repeats that overused Twelve Temple arc format. Once again, Pegasus and Andromeda have to cross the Twelve Temples. And once again the Gold saints have similar traits and roles to all their other incarnations, reinforcing the concept of fate and reincarnation presented on the series.
And, surprisingly enough, the same Bronze Saints that had fighted the 20th century Gold Saints, the Poseidon's Marina and the Hades' Specters shows an uncomfortable inexperience while battling in the 18th century.
Unfortunately, Saint Seiya should not live of reissues of old battles with some different elements and ideas here and there. It’s more of the same. And, in the slow rhythm Kurumada publishes his recent works, when the Bronze saints will finally cross all the Twelve Temples?
Nevertheless, Saint Seiya's old fans will enjoy this manga, just for the pleasure of seeing their beloved characters fighting once again. It is far from what we expected, but Next Dimension still has the same vibe and spirit of the original manga. Kurumada denies us the opportunity to read what we really wanted and needed, but he gives us the pleasure to feed our nostalgia with more of the same. And that's it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Feb 22, 2010
- edited 01-16-2021 -
Story
Saint Seiya is a shounen anime that features several elements of mythology (mostly Greek mythology) where the characters represent and are too protected by one of the 88 constellations.
The main characters, the Bronze Saints (or "Knights" in the Western version), are the ones responsible to protect the goddess Athena and the humanity against the 'evil' Greek gods.
The fighting is generally interesting to watch, since (almost) every character has an unique gimmick or superpower.
On the other hand, due to 'low budget' issues and a more old school approach (it's 80's, fellas), the character won't move much while fighting ...
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so this may not seem fit for a younger audience, used to a more fast paced animation.
Meanwhile, the plot itself is quite simple for the most part, and goes in a very monodimensional way, but not tedious, since all the gimmicks keep you coming for more.
The biggest mistake through the start of this series is the fillers. The fillers not only alters some events from the original manga, but also creates some new characters that appear and disappear for the sake of the convenience of the plot and, after all, for the sake of the expensive licensed toys (figures, if you like it better).
Although Saint Seiya was not meant to be a cheap excuse for Bandai earn some good money on licensed toys, the beautiful and very well done adaptation of the ugly and lifeless armors from the manga into the shining armor designs of the anime (courtesy of master Shingo Araki) would inevitable create a paramount market for high quality toys for boys and grown men alike.
Yes, I said the fillers messed up a lot of the series in the beggining, and some filler characters were obviously created for the solo porpouse of selling new figures.
But the anime production seemed to have learned from their own mistakes and later on, they developed an entire filler arc that not only gave Bandai some nice looking figures for selling but also created some good content and good filler characters that match the ones from the original source material, in the Asgard arc.
Talking about the arcs, if you ask a Saint Seiya fan, probably one will point the Twelve Zodiac Temples arc as the highlight memory of the anime.
The 'enemy of the week' formula applied here alongside with the (let's call) 'tower of combat' (like in the infamous 'Game of Death' of the late Bruce Lee) were a very clever concept put on by Masami Kurumada on his manga, and that was for sure perfected in the anime series.
Nevertheless, Kurumada has became so found of this formula that he shameless repeats it on later arcs, until there was nothing much left for the anime to going on.
As some of you may know, this 'Saint Seiya' anime is an incomplete adaptation, ending in the Poseidon arc, and having its sequel in Hades Chapter OVAs decades later - mostly for the avid Western (Latin) audience.
Animation and sound
Saint Seiya's overall OST is very, very good. From the chatchy 80's heavy metal-ish opening theme 'Pegasus Fantasy' by the now legendary Nubou Yamada to the sad instrumentals of the likes of 'Hyouga visits his mother's grave on the deep of the ocean', SS is remarkable for its music.
The quality of the animation, though, decreases a lot in some episodes and its more static and low budget than Dragon Ball, for example. On the other hand, the beatiful character design by Shingo Araki makes Saint Seiya a bliss to the eyes, with all those cool and colourful armors.
Characters
Though some people may criticize their lack of free will in them following Athena, I think the main characters of Saint Seiya stand out in their own merits and distinct traits.
Each one of them helped to create the stereotypes of the 'boy band' shounen team that would later influence the very conception of Gundam Wing's main cast.
The impulsive protagonist (Seiya), the prime rival with a cool mind (Shiryu), the 'ice guy' with a hidden melting heart (Hyouga), the sensitive anti-violence femboy (Shun) and the badass avenger (Ikki), they all seem fit and are nicely portraited through the series.
But other characters I must highlight here are the Gold Saints. Each Gold Saint represents one of the signs of the Zodiac, sometimes even in powers and personalities, which adds some very cool gimmicks for most of them. Special compliments for Aries, Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Aquarius, Capricorn (won't say much to not spoil anything).
Veredict
I am suspicious for praising Saint Seiya qualities, since it was my first anime, so it was very important to my childhood, and as Saint-Exupery once said, 'childhood is like my country'.
Still, I can highly recommend Saint Seiya to those into old-school anime, since it may be dated to younger viewers (probably if you are a Naruto ou Boku no Hero fan, Saint Seiya will not be your thing).
If you have time and want to further understand the story, I also recommend to read the manga. The art is worse for sure, but the plot works in a better (and even more consistent) way.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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