Seinto Seiya: Shinku no shônen densetsu
Tags: violence

Plot synopsis:
The story focuses on an orphan named Seiya who was forced to go to the Sanctuary in Greece to obtain the Bronze Cloth of the Pegasus constellation, a protective armor worn by the Greek goddess Athena's 88 warriors known as Saints. Upon awakening his Cosmos, the power of the Saints which is an inner spiritual essence originated in the Big Bang, Seiya quickly becomes the Pegasus Saint and returns to Japan to find his older sister. Because his sister disappeared the same day Seiya went to the Sanctuary, Saori Kido, the granddaughter of Mitsumasa Kido (the person who sent all the orphans to train) makes a deal with him to go to fight in a tournament called the Galaxian Wars. In this tournament, all the orphans who survived and became Bronze Saints must fight to win the most powerful Cloth: The Sagittarius Gold Cloth. If Seiya goes to compete there and wins, Saori would start a search to find Seiya's sister.
The tournament is interrupted by the revengeful Phoenix Bronze Saint, Ikki, who wishes to eliminate track from the people who forced him undergo his training. He steals parts from the Sagittarius Cloth and eventually fights against the remaining Bronze Saints: Seiya, Shun (Ikki's brother), Shiryū, and Hyōga, to complete it. Upon Ikki's defeat, the Bronze Saints are attacked by the Silver Saints sent by the Sanctuary's Pope to eliminate them. When they remain victorious, the Bronze Saints learn that Saori is Athena's reincarnation and that the Pope once tried to kill her as a baby. The Sagittarius Gold Saint Aiolos saved Saori but was killed shortly afterwards and gave Saori to her adopted grandfather, Mitsumasa Kido. Deciding to join forces with Saori, the Bronze Saints go to the Sanctuary to defeat the Pope, but upon their arrival, Saori is severely wounded by a gold arrow from a Silver Saint. Believing the Pope may be able to heal her, the Bronze Saints go to find him. To do so, they have to go through 12 temples, each one guarded by one Gold Saint (the most powerful Saints of Athena). Following several battles, Seiya gets to the Pope's temple and learns that he is the Gold Saint Gemini Saga, who in his madness killed the real Pope to obtain more power. With help from his friends' Cosmos, Seiya is able to knock out Saga and use the shield from Athena's statue to heal Saori. Shortly afterwards, Saga, having come to his senses, commits suicide as a self-punishment.
In the second story arc, the Greek god Poseidon reincarnates within the body of Julian Solo, the heir to a rich and powerful family, who follows his will of flooding the Earth. Saori goes to his Temple, where Julian offers her to reduce the flooding by absorbing the water inside the Oceans' Central Pillar. Following Saori, Seiya, Hyōga, Shun and Shiryū go to Poseidon's underwater Temple and are confronted by his underlings, the Marines. As Seiya, Hyōga, and Shiryū make their way to Julian, Ikki learns that the mastermind behind this war is Saga's twin, Gemini Kanon, who is manipulating Poseidon. During the final battle, Poseidon's spirit awakes within Julian and manages to defeat his opponents. Saved by the Saints from the Pillar, Saori seals Poseidon's soul within her amphora.
The third and last arc follows how Hades, the Underworld god, is freed from his seal and revives the deceased Gold Saints and the Pope Aries Shion, and alongside some of his 108 Specters, sends them to the Sanctuary to kill Athena. The remaining Gold Saints serving Athena are able to subdue the enemies, but Saori then commits suicide. This act is instead meant to directly send her to the Underworld to face Hades, and the Bronze Saints follow her. Shion reveals that the revived Gold Saints' true intentions were of giving Saori her own Cloth, and gives it to Seiya's group before dying once again. In the Underworld, as the Saints fight Hades' Specters, Shun is possessed by Hades. Saori reaches Hades and expels his soul from Shun's body. Hades then takes Saori to Elysium, and the five Bronze Saints follow them. In the final fight against Hades and his two followers, Hypnos and Thanatos, the Saints gain the strongest God Cloths and use them to aid Saori in defeating Hades. However, Seiya also sacrifices himself by receiving one of Hades' attacks, and the Saints return to Earth with his body.

Review: Beautiful movie.. Not much to say. I love the movie.If you haven't seen Saint Seiya, then off course u'll find this movie annoying and will make no sense at all.But if you have seen the series (at least till Seiya and his friends come back from Asgard) this movie will touch you forever.Following the line of the sagas, and just using couple of characters from the anime Shigeyasu Yamauchi makes this art piece from nowhere, which by the way, every time i see it, i have a flashback to my childhood...Sweet times, beautiful times and a beautiful movie.. Disappointing and predictable. This is the only Saint Seiya movie I've watched so far. It's basically the classic "Saori/Athena is the damsel in distress, race against time" plot condensed in a single movie. Fights that would usually last at least two episodes only last five minutes in this movie.What sparked my interest in this movie, and I bet there are other fans who felt the same, was the return of the dead gold saints. Will they fight different opponents? Will they have their revenge against the bronze saints who killed them? My interest was crushed during the movie. Shura and Camus have almost cameo-like appearances. Deathmask looks more like the kind of villain I expect to see in American cartoons.Aphrodite actually shows he learned with his death and was quite ready for Shun. Unfortunately, just like in the Hades saga, Aphrodite is demoted from one of the strongest gold saints to a second class villain.I would recommend this movie to Gemini Saga's fans, however. Nevertheless, it seems that these five saints were put in the movie simply to make people watch it.What annoys me the most is this: if you watched the Poseidon saga, the last 20 minutes of the movie will be boring for you. In fact, they will make you feel like you wasted your time by watching it.Some positives. The animation is clearly better than in the series. Very good acting from Taichirô Hirokawa, Keiko Han and Tôru Furuya (although I bet he didn't like saying "Saori-San!" so many times). Overall, you can live without this movie. And maybe you should watch this before the Poseidon saga. At least you'll have Shaina in the series to make it better.. I'm feeling nostalgic. This was the first "Saint Seiya" movie that I've watched in my life: In some ways it was slightly different than the other movies, but in many ways, it was practically more of the same usual stuff: A new enemy appears, the new enemy kidnaps the goddess Athena/Saori; Seiya and company went to fight against this new enemy and they battle separately the minions of this new enemy, and at the last moment, when everything seems lost, Seiya uses the Sagittarius Gold Cloth to defeat the new enemy, and Athena and the World are saved.But despite that, I still enjoyed this movie a bit more than the others, since it had a slightly more complex story and a better character development. Sure, at the end, this sticks to the classic formula which I described above, but unlike the other movies, this was more entertaining to watch, and had some interesting and beautiful scenes.The animation and the designs were pretty good, being on of the most impressive works ever done by the great Shingo Araki: The fighting scenes were impressive and cool, and the music composed by the great Seiji Yokoyama is wonderful as always, giving this film a truly epic feeling despite of the predictability of the plot.The last scene was very beautiful, being, in my opinion one of the most memorable moments in the entire "Saint Seiya" history.