Hi everyone, today we are talking about a major manga/anime from the 1990's era called Saint Seiya. Saint Seiya is a Shonen kind of manga/anime that relates the story of 5 heroes/knights that are constantly fighting in battles to save humanity from evil. Now the scenario might sound like a classic but it is actually quite unique and interesting from some other shonen for many reasons. One of the reasons is because there is actually a lot of mythology in the story (Greek, Roman, Chinese, Egyptian etc ...). Saint Seiya was written and illustrated by Masami Kurumada, who also wrote other famous manga such as BT'X.
I) Saint Seiya's story
There is a legend that mentions that every 100 years, evil is trying to destroy the earth and in order to prevent that, a bunch of teenagers who are the reincarnation of knights would appear and protect the earth with their superpower. The legend also says that they will be directed by the reincarnation of the goddess Athena from the greek mythology.
The story begins when a very rich Japanese man, Mitsumasa Kido travels around in Greece. Specifically, he is not too far from the sanctuary (physical location for Athena's house and the 12 zodiac knight's houses, the gold saints). He then meets an almost dead man holding a crying baby girl, Saori Kido. Saori is the goddess Athena's reincarnation. The nearly dying man who happens to be a gold saint, Aiolos, tells the Mitsumasa that the sanctuary has been corrupted by a mysterious individual who pretends to be the Sanctuary's Grand Pope (Athena's right hand). But in fact the Pope has tried to kill Saori, pretending that she was not Athena's reincarnation but was caught just in time by Aiolos who is now thought by the other knight houses to be a traitor. In effect, the Pope lied to the other knights saying that Aiolos is the one who tried to kill the baby and that he should be executed as soon as possible. Aiolos then fled with the baby but was severely injured in the process because he had to defend himself against many gold saints.
Aiolos before dying warned Mitsumasa that something really bad is coming and that the sanctuary and the earth as a whole are in grave danger. Aiolos also gives his gold armor to Mitsumasa, instructing him to organize a fighting tournament in 13 years with the armor as the main prize. According to Aiolos, the 5 bronze knights who will be in charge of protecting Athena will show up at the event: Pegasus (Seiya), Phoenix (Ikki), Dragon (Shiryu), Aquarius (Hyoga) and Andromeda (Shun).
II) The main characters
1) Seiya (Pegasus Bronze knight)
He is the reincarnation of the bronze knight Pegasus. His armor is white and red, although he does inherit the Sagittarius gold armor/cloth later on. He went to Greece for his training. Just like the other Bronze knights, his powers and ability will significantly improve throughout the anime. To me, he is not the strongest out of the 5 bronze knights, but is definitely the leader and the main hero of the anime. So out of the 5 bronze knights he is the most versatile as he is strong, has very good leadership skills, he is quite courageous and definitely not afraid to take risks. As the same time he is not as radical as some other knights like Phoenix. In addition to be super loyal to Saori (the woman he has to protect), I think that he secretly has a crush on her.
Pegasus has two principal type of attacks: he can shoot meteoroids and a comet.
2) Ikki (Phoenix Bronze knight)
He is the reincarnation of the bronze knight Phoenix. He is Hyoga's brother. To me he is definitely the strongest and the best at combat out of the 5 Bronze knights by far. He is the one that went through the most painful type of training, in a volcanic island with a very very strict teacher, and this for many years. That completely changed his personality and during the first episodes he is even evil but changes back after a set of confrontations with the other knights. He is quite a loner and thus only appears when the other knights are loosing the battle or whenever his brother Hyoga is in grave danger. He has two major types of attacks: he can throw Phoenix flames or he can use the phoenix illusion on his opponents.
3) Shiryu ( Dragon)
He is the reincarnation of the bronze knight Dragon. He is probably the wisest out of all 5 knights. He went to train in China and his master was Doko, the legendary gold saint libra. That is probably why he is so wise. He is really good at combat and has a tattoo on his back that lights up whenever he is reaching his true potential. His armor/cloth is green. His main attack, the dragon fury is very powerful but has a weakness. In effect, whenever he uses it, for a split of a second his chest is at the mercy of his opponent. He also has a few other hidden techniques that Doko taught him. One of which is the ultimate dragon where basically he takes his opponent to die into space due to heat generated from the attack and the lack of oxygen. He inherited Doko's armor.
4) Hyoga (Aquarius)
He is the reincarnation of the bronze knight Aquarius. His armor is white and blue. He was trained in Siberia by the silver knight Crystal, who was trained by the Gold Saint Aquarius. Hyoga lost his mother during a boat trip in a place that is actually not very far from where he trained. Because of what happened to him he can be quite sentimental and that weakness is sometimes used by his opponents against him. Just like the others, he is a very loyal knight to Saori. He has many attacks but his main kind of technique is his ice dust technique. He inherited the aquarius Camus gold armor.
5) Shun (Andromeda)
He is the weakest of all 5 knights. He does not like combat or violence, and only joined the training to become a knight because his brother Ikki was going to become one. They lost their parents in a car accident at a very young age. He looks androgynous and during some episodes can be mistaken for a female (especially when he is wearing the Andromeda cloth). He uses his long chains to attack his opponents.
6) Saori (Athena)
She is Athena's reincarnation. She is originally from Greece. She has very strong powers and cares for the knights that protect her. Usually she gets kidnapped at the beginning of a war and is usually seen at the end of it. She is like Peach in Super Mario 64 XD lol.
III) What I think of Saint Seiya
Saint Seiya is a very good anime that I used to watch as a kid that made me be curious about many many things. Because I was watching Saint Seiya quite often I started developing an interest in cosmology for instance, because many times throughout the anime they would talk about constellations. I developed a strong interest in Greek and Roman mythology as well and wanted to know everything related to Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Hades etc ... I became interested into famous Greek mythology stories such as the Atlas story. All of it happened because I was watching Saint Seiya.
Throughout the anime the knights go from battle to battle and the plot is usually the same. Athena gets kidnapped and they have to fights the knights that kidnapped her to save her. So, unfortunately sometimes it may feel repetitive for some people. I like the fact that the 5 bronze knights are a real team and they really fight as a team during combat. They are never afraid of helping each other. So there are good values in the anime: friendship, loyalty, courage, self-confidence etc ... There are really a wide range of knights throughout the anime with different kinds of powers and attacks and that is quite good because there was really a significant background work from the author to include mythology and cultures from different civilizations.
I feel like there is some kind of irony though in the anime. Like the 5 bronze knights they have to protect Saori who is the reincarnation of Athena because that will bring "piece" to the earth or something. However, in the Greek mythology Athena is considered to be "the goddess of war"so I feel like as long as Saori remains Athena's reincarnation they will always have wars and be fighting in battles lol.
Ok that was it for today folks! Hope you guys enjoyed the post. See you soon!
Pictures
Picture 1 was taken from https://goo.gl/EPJkyx
Picture 2, 5,6,8 ,9 and 10 were taken from https://goo.gl/watf7W
Picture 3 was taken from https://goo.gl/fXN4TJ, and Part 1 of Picture 3 was taken from https://goo.gl/ZqUg9V
Picture 4 was taken from https://goo.gl/KshAF1
Picture 7 was taken from https://goo.gl/ZMKaxS
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