Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac

Jokes on you Netflix I finally watched the whole thing, even if it was painful. This is going to be a hate critique I don't find any qualities in this thing. In my opinion this adaptation just takes a dump on the original Saint Seiya. I'm a fan of Saint Seiya and I'm someone who likes omega. So with that in mind let's get started. The story : I don't understand what they were going for here, there is so much that doesn't make sense. First issue, the technology of the cloth, why ? I mean they never explained how the cosmos and everything works scientificallyand that's alright because it doesn't need to be explained with science. Athena has kinghts and they have a thing called cosmos that gives them powers, it's like a mystic thing. So why creating a new character tarnishing the sacred part of cloth ? So the changes doesn't makes sense and are not fitted to be in Saint Seiya, but that's still my opinion. Some people might disagree and it's okay. But one thing we cannot discuss are inconsistencies. While watching the show I noticed it and that told me no one watched Saint Seiya. It's in a flashback scene, when the pope was choosing his next successor. What's wrong you might ask, we see Saga and Aiolos in front of the pope so what ? The pope is in his "evil" state, which may I remind you IS Saga, not Shion since he has a different appearance. So in a scene we see Saga and Aiolos in front of evil Saga. Nice. The art : As someone who like cgi animation I hated this one. It's slow and the effects are bad. The show just looks so cheap. Again it's an opinon but just look at the attacks. Not only they re-use animation so many times, again and again but they also represents them badly. Which makes me think they haven't watched Saint Seiya. In litteraly the first like 2 episodes Jabu or someone else states that the Pegasus Ryûsei Ken are just big punches at an amazing speed. But in this version they are magical round things that act like projectiles. How can you miss something that important seriously Sound : For info I watched the french dub (just like the original saint seiya, the hades part and omega) so that mostly what I will talk about. I cannot express my disappointement in the french dub. Even in the 90' they were doing a better job. Yes I call the 90' version a better dub that this one, even if Shun and Mu had girl voices during some episodes, even if Seiya's name is Seiyar and even if I still don't know who they were calling Aior / Ayor. This new dub is souless, it has no punch, the only one who tries is Saori's and it's because It's the same as before but now she sounds too old for the character. I don't remember the ost and can't say much about it (I'm not rewatching it) But I do remember the awful opening song. Even the generic french version sung by Bernard Minet is better. Just the chorus seems dead, it's makes the whole song less dynamic. Character : This might be the largest part my bad Seiya : He is annoying and not charming kind. I know he has an ego and sometimes does stupid things but he always have a good-willed personality. Here he just seems like an ass Shiryuu : So we discovered a thing with a friend, he always says things that a chinese cliche character would say. Other than that he also seems stupid. During the fight with Persée he becomes blind to win the fight. Here, he decides to be blind in not even 5 minutes, coming off as a irrational choice. Hyoga : My boy was butchered. First they did a mix up of sources, Hyoga wanting to kill Athena due to his master's orders. Yes it's true but he changed his mind very quickly, making him look dumb. Thank you horrible pacing. Shun : Okay I'm not joking anymore, I hate her. Not only what she represents but also what she acts like. First Shun was turned into a female because they needed a female character in Saint Seiya, so they tured the girly man into one, because aparently if you have manners as a boy and have a more pacifist approach to conflicts, you're a girl. Another problem is that now Shun is a cliche, because she's a girl that acts girly and is pacifist, so people finding about Saint Seiya with this version will think she was put in here just to have a girl in the team and that she's weak. And they may be right since she doesn't do anything, she's useless. She just throw her chain while screaming and still fails to do something. Ikki : Nothing wrong with the character itself but again inconsistency time. During a flashback, on his island, we see Ikki while training with a scar on his face. He gets it when his master kills his friend, so when he gets out of his island, done with training. I- Saori : She's even more annoying and doesn't have this badass aura anymore, make her looks like a damsel in distress. I think it was Vander (?) : If you add a character make sure he makes sense. He wants to kill Athena so he could prove that humanity doesn't need deities. Alright, how your weak ass knights and military army could even think of winning against Hades ? They needed in the arc divine cloth to just beat his two guards. And just going to Elysion needed them to have cloths with the blood of Athena. And why kill Athena ? She just wants to protect the Earth, you could ask Athena to let them do their jobs as humans and defend the Earth. Why spending time to kill a friendly godess and not searching for the possible new Poseidon and Hades ? Some gold Saint can fly too, awesome Enjoyment : It was one of the first anime that made me that mad, that gave me headaches and was just painful overall. So you might think it was a horrible time. Overall : It's bad, really bad. If it didn't had so many bad elements it may be just a passable take on Saint Seiya but no. Why add helicopters, gun fights and science ? Why transform Shun into a girl ? Why did I noticed so many inconsistencies, have you watched Saint Seiya ? Why doing a bad Pegasus Fantasy version, look at how Omega did it, it's a beautiful opening, soft and strong with a more recent vibe. It shouldn't exist. It's offensive to fans and was since the trailers. Just to say how bad it is, the most popular french anime website that rates very gently shows gave it overall 3.5/10. Don't watch it, please never do

You can rest assured, this is an analysis by the technical side, without revealing the plot of the story. Anyone who knows Saint Seiya in the manga knows that his story is more coherent than his anime version. Here the screenwriter tried to make the story shorter and with adaptations for our current era. In some ways it was interesting, but it took away the emotion of the dramatic moments, here it is understood that the screenwriter wanted to make this version more childish and light, something that nostalgic people will not enjoy. We don't know if the budget for the series went down, butthe characters' hair textures are just mediocre. Making them look like clay dolls. The fact that they make the story shorter makes it less sentimental than its first version. It had the potential to be something bigger and better, but it seems that the other characters are mere ornaments. Everything revolves around Saori and Seiya. Anyway very weak compared to its first version.

I'm going to write this review from a slightly different perspective - of someone who wanted to get into Saint Seiya but the 80's anime is a hard pill to swallow. TL;DR - this is a great entry point to those that aren't ready to invest a lot of time and effort into learning how to swallow some of the quirks and age of the original anime and a stepping stone into enjoying some of the more faithful media of the Saint Seiya universe. Story: 3/10 This series reboot changes some things from the original, including new bad guys, excluding some series lore, and tweaking a lotat it. The story of Saint Seiya was always a pretty simple premise, and a lot of the reasoning behind anything the characters do is silly and fun at its best. The new enemy faction included in this series is a pretty poor inclusion, but it is cool seeing the Saints fight missiles, and that's what we're here for, right? Unfortunately, a lot of the intrigue and backstories get lost as they made so many changes - it's a real downgrade from a story and character motive standpoint. As we went along, I would explain what was changed from the original anime and my partner would say "WTF that's dumb why'd they change it" every time. Art: 7/10 The 3D animation is pretty solid and faithful to the original art style, keeping the 80's flair while mostly making it looks nice and modern (except you, Lizard Misty's hair). The fights are flashy and have stunning effects when they pull off their special moves. There is repitition each time they perform these moves, and it can be quite glaring at times, but overall the anime is quite attractive to watch. That being said, there was the interesting choice of the first 6 episodes having no blood, but the final six of this season the Saints learned to bleed. :) Sound: 8/10 The OP and ED are quite nice - the OP in particular being super nostalgic for me. The Japanese voice cast did an excellent job, and my partner said the English dub was also quite good. OST as per usual slaps. Character: 6/10 So, this anime adaptation decided to go down an interesting route of making Shun a girl. Personally, I think this is in poor taste, as it was refreshing to see a kind, empathetic male character shown in a strong light, but this show basically defined these traits as feminine. On the other hand, Seiya is no longer a misogynist. It kind of evens out. Unfortunately, since this compiles so many episodes into such a short run time, a lot of the depth and detail gets cut out, and important points of characters are completely diminished for the sake of making it fit. Shuurei who? Enjoyment: 8/10 The show is fun, exciting, and it made me so happy seeing my partner not only enjoy the world and characters I have loved for a long time, but also get invested. Even with the changes, this is a fun, nostalgic series that captures the excitement of the battles, the badassery of the Saints, and leaves you wanting for more, especially with that cliffhanger. After watching this, since we had so much fun, we immediately moved into watching other media from the series - so it did its job! Overall: 7/10 This is either for someone who wants to get into Saint Seiya, or hasn't seen the original two first arcs in so long they want a short synopsis. For diehard fans - this ain't for you. The changes to the lore and characters for the most part are genuinely just bad moves, but the art is eye-catching, the fights are fun (albeit very concise), and if you go into it with the right mindset, this is a super fun ride that makes you want to see more flashy battles and silly antics they call tactics.

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