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So, what makes Saint seiya: The Lost Canvas a decent shounen manga? Maybe not his plot, or the manly tears running on the cheeks of a bunch of male characters. What makes it a decent shounen manga is the feeling that other new ones have lost, maybe.

Story

The Lost Canvas, as a prequel to the original manga, follows Tenma and his vow as a Saint of Athena to fight against Hades- once his childhood friend Alone- along with the gold saints and protect humanity. At the same time he wants to protect the promise they gave as children, so one day he will be able to ... be, once again, together with Sasha and Alone; even if that means that he will have to face his friend at the end.

Maybe 'The Lost Canvas' doesn’t sound very original when it comes to plot. Of course, two friends facing each other isn’t something that a mediocre manga or anime fan cannot meet frequently either. Power-ups are still there too along with the old, godd theme of accepting your fate or not, which is always appealing to the readers.

However, through the manly talks, the bromance and the battles in the name of humanity the readers can actually sympathize and root for the characters they like. That’s because almost every character has a background, a personal reason to fight for. The theme “fight for your family, your friends and the future” is still there; it’s a shonen mannga after all. But, characters actually die in this manga. Not all of them, but many of them die; that's what makes their reason special. How can you protect your family, your friends and the whole world without people dieing in the battlefield? And since when it's nice to see the character makings a miraculous recovery after taking a fatal blow every single time? Saint Seiya, despite his shounen genre can be realistic through its unrealistic nature when it comes to this.

Characters

Though their development is not always smooth and you can find the characters being very typical at times, especially Tenma, the establishment of the bonds between the characters, through flashbacks or fighting alongside, or their relationships with the opponents they face are taken in high consideration. Whether it’s a main character or villain, the mangaka tries to sketch out the character’s feelings and way of thinking, adding their backstories when it’s essential to make the reader closer to them, which is actually one of the best elements of this story.

Art

Definitely not something you won’t see again. Also some character designs may look way too similarar, but I have to compliment the work on the Surplices. It’s very detailed.

Enjoyment:

If you are a fan of shounen manga, you have no reason to hate The Lost Canvas, you will have a good share of fights and definitely a good share of speeches about friendship accompanied by a story with good enough turn of events to keep you hooked with it.

When I ran into this title, I foolishly set my expectations really high because the opening was fun and catchy and it made me look forward to meet the characters. However, it disappointed me completely to the point that at times it was really painful to watch; so painful that a couple of times I fell asleep.

Mamotte starts as your average anime, it introduces its characters, gives you an idea of what is to follow and leaves you with an impression that you will watch a mediocre at least school-life comedy. Well, in the beginning, at least. After that what follows is a bunch of ... formulaic standalone episodes which pretty much follow the same pattern; something triggers a random event, Ruan makes the matter worse - usually while trying to get Tasuke’s attention- Tasuke gets in trouble and the kind Shaorin comes to save the day.

As the story progresses, the only change is that Tasuke’s and Shaorin’s feelings for one another become clearer. But that doesn't necessarily mean that is actually a good thing as it can get annoying at times; the cheesy inside monologues and pointless melodramatic scenes do not really help.

But it's not just Tasuke and Shaorin who want to express their love, everyone loves them, what every single character wants is either to gain Tasuke’s or Shaorin’s love or just to be there to support them, they have no other purpose and no development, a cast full of dry stereotypes. Even though there were a bunch of likeable side characters they were left in the shadows due to the poor storyline.

I tried hard to enjoyed it as much as I could, with no results, it was with all honestly, a completely waste of time. I would not recommend this to anyone over 13-14 years old. In the end maybe I should have just watched the opening.