Saint Seiya

**Saint Seiya** also known as **Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac** or Just **Knights of The Zodiac**, is a 1986 Anime that Ran from 1986 to 1989, by **Toei Animation** based on the **Manga by the Same Name**, It continued in the form of three **original video animation series** between 2002 and 2008. Four animated feature films that were shown in Japanese theaters from 1987 to 1989, with a fifth in 2004 and a sixth in 2014. The Story is about a an orphan named Seiya who is forced to go to the Sanctuary in Greece to obtain one of the "Cloths" the Bronze Cloth of the Pegasus constellation, a protective armor worn by the Greek goddess Athena's 88 warriors known as "Saints".

## Saint Seiya: Knights of The Zodiac (Anime)

### Directed by

Kōzō Morishita (Episodes 1 - 73), Kazuhito Kikuchi (Episodes 74- 114)

### Produced by

Chiaki Imada, Hiroshi Takeda, Kazuo Yokoyama, Masayoshi Kawata, Yoshifumi Hatano

## More Info

### Written by

Takao Koyama (Episodes 1 - 73), Yoshiyuki Suga (Episodes 74 - 114)

### English network

Cartoon Network (Australia & North America),Anime Network (North America), YTV (Canada)

## Plot

Saint Seiya is about a Boy Name Seiya who was a Orphan, Forced to go to Sanctuary in Greece and Obtain The Cloth of the Pegasus Constellation, He Trained to Become a Saint, and Become one of 88 Warriors who would Protect the Recreation of The Greek Goddess Athena The Goddess of War, Along with other Saints who were also Orphans were sent to train and Obtain Clothes, When Seiya Returns to Japan the Man Mitsumasa Kido as Died and his Granddaughter Saori Kido (Who is the Recantation of Athena), 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 Missing sister, But The tournament is interrupted by the revengeful Phoenix Bronze Saint, Ikki, who wishes to eliminate track from the people who forced him to 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.

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.

## Anime

An anime adaptation of *Saint Seiya* was first proposed in June 1986 three months before the first manga volume was published. After Toei Animation started a partnership with TV Asahi, they looked for sponsors. Bandai got interested in selling the Saint Cloths as merchandise so it began development. Masayoshi Kawata, producer of TV Asahi, thought *Saint Seiya* was the perfect fit for the "hero show" they were looking for. By July, scriptwriter Takao Koyama had written the first episode scheduled to be broadcast in October. Since an episode adapts several chapters the anime goes faster than the manga, which led the TV series staff to create some original stories to fill the gap. The anime adaptation was broadcast on TV Asahi from October 11, 1986, to 1989. It was directed first by Kōzō Morishita (episodes 1–73) and then by Kazuhito Kikuchi (episodes 74–114). The character designers and aesthetics were Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno, and Seiji Yokoyama composed the soundtracks. Following Kurumada's storylines from the manga closely, the chief scriptwriters were Takao Koyama (1-73) and Yoshiyuki Suga (74-114). The series has three main parts: *Sanctuary* (episodes 1–73), *Asgard*, which exists only in the anime adaptation (episodes 74–99), and *Poseidon* (episodes 100–114). The anime was cancelled and left unfinished in 1989, leaving one arc of the manga not animated, until finally being adapted into a series of OVAs in 2002.

There are three English dubs of the anime series, one of which is heavily edited, and the other two of which are uncensored. The first two dubs to be produced are incomplete. In North America, the edited dub premiered on Cartoon Network on August 30, 2003, with only the first 32 episodes airing on Cartoon Network and 40 on YTV before the series was cancelled. This dub, re-titled *Knights of the Zodiac*, was licensed by DIC Entertainment. The edits made to this dub included cutting overly violent scenes, adding in previously non-existent digital scene transitions, coloring all instances of blood blue and renaming it "magical energies," rewriting the scripts, renaming several characters, and replacing the opening theme, ending theme, background music, and sound effects.

ADV Films licensed the home video rights to the series and released the DIC-dubbed episodes. In addition to this, ADV also released a separate DVD series featuring the original, uncut Japanese version of the show with English subtitles, which also included a new, uncut dub (with a different voice cast than the one used by DIC). ADV's dub, in addition to being uncut, also kept all of the original music and featured dub scripts that were much closer to the original Japanese dialogue. The first 60 episodes were released in this way. In early 2009, the uncut version was reissued in two box sets, and ADV had expressed an interest in releasing the rest of the series uncut and completing their uncut dub. However, ADV shut down and ceased operations later that year.

A DVD set entitled "Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Classic Complete Collection" was released to DVD in the US on April 15, 2014, by New Video, containing the first 73 episodes in Japanese with English subtitles. On June 20, 2014, and September 2, 2014, two Blu-ray boxsets were released in Japan, containing all 114 episodes of the classic series, restored in high definition video and audio along with extra materials. Additionally, on April 1, 2015, TV Asahi in Japan began re-airing the original anime series to commemorate its 30th anniversary, as well as the 30th anniversary of the manga upon which it is based.

A third English dub, also uncensored, was released on Netflix on October 15, 2019. This dub utilizes the same voice cast as that of *Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya*. As of October 18, 2019, 41 episodes have been dubbed. Episodes 42 to 73 were added in January 2020. Episodes 74 to 114 were added in April 2020, in effect making the Netflix dub the only complete English dub of the entire original series.

### Films

Four animated feature films were shown in Japanese theaters from 1987 to 1989. A fifth animated film came out in Japanese theaters in 2004, Heaven Chapter - Overture (天界編 序奏, *Tenkai Hen Josō*), which was supposed to follow the regular chronology right after the end of the manga (which finished being adapted on August 1, 2008) as a prologue to a new chapter. Toei Animation first announced that this new chapter would be a new animated series, but later Kurumada stated that he wanted the film to be part of a trilogy. Tōru Furuya revealed Kurumada's wishes for the series during a press conference. After Pegasus Seiya eventually defeats Zeus, he is to go on and face Chronos, the God of Time. Toru was not allowed to say anything more. With the serialization of *Saint Seiya: Next Dimension*, Kurumada removed *Overture* from the canon of the *Saint Seiya* universe, although some elements that appeared in it remain in the continuity.

Despite the first movie being released in 1987, none of the movies received an official English release in North America until it was announced by Discotek in 2012 that they had acquired the home video rights to the first four movies and intended to release them across two DVDs, each containing two movies. The DVDs contain Japanese audio with English subtitles.

In 2003, the French magazine AnimeLand published an interview with Masami Kurumada where the author revealed that a company in Hollywood had approached him some years prior with a fifteen-minute pilot of a live-action movie of *Saint Seiya*. The project was abandoned as Kurumada did not feel the essence of the series had been preserved. In a later interview published in 2005 the reporter was allowed to see the video and commented on how the names of the main characters were changed and noted that one of them, Andromeda Shun had been changed from male to female.

On June 21, 2014, *Legend of Sanctuary* was released. Animated in CGI, *Legend of Sanctuary* is based on the classic 1986 series. It was produced by Toei to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the franchise.

In 2017, a collaboration between Toei Animation and Hong Kong-based production company A Really Good Film Company was announced. In the press conference, plans for a live-action *Saint Seiya* movie were detailed, and Polish director Tomasz Bagiński was announced as being in charge of filming, based on the classic 1986 series, which was supposed to take place in Summer 2019. The official title for the movie is *Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac*. On September 21, 2021, *The Hollywood Reporter* revealed that the film will star Mackenyu as Seiya, Madison Iseman as Sienna, Sean Bean as Alman Kiddo and Diego Tinoco as a man hired to kill the vulnerable goddess. Famke Janssen, Nick Stahl and Mark Dacascos are also cast in the film. Production on film will be filmed in Hungary and Croatia.

### Original Video Animations

These are a series of original video animations (OVAs) that cover the last arc of the manga, which was not previously adapted into anime. The first 13 episodes were broadcast on Animax (a Japanese pay-per-view channel) from November 9, 2002, to April 12, 2003, and then released on DVD during the year 2003. These 13 episodes were named *Hades — Chapter Sanctuary* and adapt volumes 19 to 22 of the manga. This OVA series was directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi, still with animation character designs by Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno, while the scripts were adapted from the manga this time by Michiko Yokote, and the soundtrack was entirely taken from Yokoyama's work on the previous TV series.

Two years after the first part of the Hades saga, Chapter Sanctuary, a second part was produced in 2005. This second chapter was named *Hades — Chapter Inferno*and consists of six episodes, adapting volumes 23 to 25 of the manga. However, most of the original voice actors did not reprise their roles, aside from Hideyuki Tanaka as the narrator. Hirotaka Suzuoki, the original voice actor of Dragon Shiryū, died on August 6, 2006, due to lung cancer.

On the same Animax channel, Toei Animation released the first two OVAs on December 17, 2005, followed by the next two on January 21, 2006. The last pair were released on February 18, 2006. Shortly after their TV broadcasting, which lasted for 2 months, the episodes were released on DVD in 2006. This short OVA series was directed by Tomoharu Katsumata, but the other staff remained the same. Toei Animation officially announced the news on its website on July 18, 2006. Then, *Hades — Chapter Inferno - Part 2* , which contains 6 episodes in total, was released, adapting volumes 25 to 26 of the manga.

On June 28, Masami Kurumada announced on his personal blog that production on the *Hades — Chapter Elysion* OVAs had begun. It was thought that the release was to be in mid-December 2007, as of the last two years with the performance of the two Inferno chapters (Zenshō and Kōshō), but no preview or released images were available as of the end of October. In November 2007, Toei Animation announced that the official release of the Elysion Chapter would be in March 2008 and not December 2007 as originally planned The Elysion OVAs were released in March (episodes #26 and #27), May (#28 and #29), and August (#30 and #31), and adapted the final two volumes of the manga, 27 and 28.

An original net animation series titled *Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold* began streaming in 2015.

## Reception

The series was considered one of the biggest phenomenons of the 1980s. It would become the inspiration for future series, including several Gundam series such as *Mobile Suit Gundam Wing* and *Mobile Fighter G Gundam*, *Legend of Heavenly Sphere Shurato*, *Ronin Warriors*, *Wild Knights Gulkeeva*, and Kurumada's later work *B't X*. In *The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917*, Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy praises the series' complex plot and felt that animation designers' Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno had worked "magic" with both the anime series and the films. They also praised the grand soundtrack and director Shigeyasu Yamauchi's ability to stretch out the tension and chose the perfect places to stop an episode to keep audiences waiting for the next one. Clements and McCarthy did, however, find the series disturbing in that its main emotional impact comes from the audience seeing "older boys and men fighting brave but naive teenagers" and through victories earning more weapons. Jason Thompson describes the series as being "almost pure battle".

Yaoi dōjinshi based on *Saint Seiya* popularized the term "yaoi" in 1987. *Saint Seiya* was particularly popular as a subject in yaoi as it had a large cast which was predominantly male. This allowed "an incredible number" of pairings, although Andromeda Shun was one of the more popular characters to create yaoi for.

Tite Kubo, the author of the manga series *Bleach*, considers *Saint Seiya* to be one of his biggest inspirations for the designs of the different types of weapons that his characters use in the story as well as the battle scenes.

In the NHK ranking "Best Anime 100", celebrating a century of Japanese Animation, the Japanese voted the "Classic Anime Saint Seiya (1986–1990)", making it the 123rd place among the more than 5,000 Japanese animations produced in the first century, resulting the 123rd Anime of all time preferred by Japanese fans, also "Anime Classic of Saint Seiya" is the animated product of Saint Seiya preferred by fans of the Japan.

## List of Episodes

### Sanctuary Arc Seasons 1 to 4

* **Season 1: 15 Episodes, October 11th 1986 to January 31st 1987, Opening: Pegasus Fantasy By Make-Up, Ending: Blue Forever By Make Up**
* **Season 2: 16 Episodes, February 7th 1987 to May 30th 1987, Opening: Pegasus Fantasy By Make-Up, Ending: Blue Forever By Make Up**
* **Season 3: 10 Episodes, June 6th 1987 to August 8th 1987, Opening: Pegasus Fantasy By Make-Up, Ending: Blue Forever By Make Up**
* **Season 4: 32 Episodes, August 15th 1987 to April 16th 1988, Opening: Pegasus Fantasy By Make-Up, Ending: Blue Forever By Make Up**

### Asgard Arc Season 5

* **Season 5: 26 Episodes, April 23rd 1988 to November 12th 1988, Opening: Soldier's Dream By Hironobu Kageyama, Ending: Blue Dream By Hironobu Kageyama**

### Poseidon Arc Season 6

* **Season 6: 15 Episodes, November 19th 1988 to April 1st 1989, Opening: Soldier's Dream By Hironobu Kageyama, Ending: Blue Dream By Hironobu Kageyama**

## Cast of Saint Seiya

* **Tôru Furuya** As Pegasus Seiya, **Illich Guardiola** (English Dub)
* **Ryō Horikawa** As Andromeda Shun, **Chris Patton** (English Dub)
* **Kōichi Hashimoto** As Cygnus Hyoga, **Jason Douglas** (English Dub)
* **Hirotaka Suzuoki** As Dragon Shiryu, **Jay Hickman** (English Dub)
* **Keiko Han** As Saori Kido (Athena), **Leticia Quinto** (English Dub)
* **Hideyuki Hori** As Phoenix Ikki, **Mike MacRae** (English Dub)
* **Hiroko Emori** As Kiki, **Julie Lemieux** (English Dub)
* **Yukitoshi Hori** As Tatsumi, **Ty Mahany** (English Dub)
* **Hideyuki Tanaka** As Narrator, **Andy McAvin** (English Dub)

## See Also

* **Saint Seiya (Manga)**
* **Saint Seiya: Hades**
* **Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas**
* **Saint Seiya Omega**
* **Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold**

## Reviews

* I got into Saint Seiya Because The News on Event Crossover of Symphogear in it's Mobile Game (Symphogear XD Unlimited), I found out it was on Netflix and Gave it a watch, and The Anime is Great, the English Acting was fun too so was the Japanese Voice Acting, The Story was Great and so hype up with excitement, (*Review By **Rebekah Rodriguez**, October 18th 2021)*

## Videos

Pegasus Fantasy - Saint Seiya - original japanese opening - subtitledOpening Season 1 to 4Saint seiya OP - Soldier Dream HDOpening Season 5 and 6Saint Seiya trailer 1986Saint Seiya Trailer