Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold

I was initially negative about watching this, after reading the many negative reviews, but I was pleased to have watched it anyway, as a long time fan of one of the best shounen anime of all times, Saint Seiya. This anime is essentially a spinoff featuring the Gold Saints of the original storyline. It's an excellent idea. The Gold saints were always badass characters, and I think it was always a secret wish to have them as heroes instead of the 5 bronze saints we got instead. So this story is essentially just an excuse to have the Gold Saints fight their own saga, andalso give honor to the series in general. I believe that the story was on par with something like the Asgard or Poseidon arc. In other words, a fairly cookie-cutter arc with good guys and villains, and a storyline just there for fights to happen. The story does retcon some things, and especially obvious is the fact that the Gold Saints seem a little cheapened compared to their glory days in Sanctuary. But then again, this was done already in the Hades arc. In addition, the personality of the saints is noticeably less "imposing" than they were in the sanctuary arc. However, despite all this, the series is still pure enjoyment for the Saint Seiya fan. The original cast of actors is also there (except the ones in the afterlife, RIP), and although some sound very old, in this case its very enjoyable for obvious reasons (pure fanservice). We also have some saints which were just overlooked in previous sagas as evil (Cancer & Pisces) being redeemed here. The art is on par with what had been seen in Hades arc, so acceptable modern style. The music is not on par with the beautiful original, but again also acceptable. All in all, I would call this anime pure fanservice to the Saint Seiya fans of the Gold Saints. To be watched without serious thoughts about the impact on the canon storyline, and as a pure spinoff of the main series. Still, I found it enjoyable and give it a solid 7/10. I think this is on par with Asgard, Poseidon, and Hades arc. Nothing will ever equal the Sanctuary arc, and to many fans (including me), everything else is a spinoff. So watch this just as another spinoff arc.

Saint Seiya: Ougon Tamashii Review Story (6/10) Fine I'm not going to sit here and give you a synopsis for the story that's not what I'm hear for just know that the story takes place during the time of the Eyslion Part in the cannon story and that the Gold Saints have been revived after sacrificing all their cosmo to destroy the wall of grief. This entire little non-cannon anime takes place and ends before they Gold Clothes make their way to Eylsion by Poseidon just to get destroyed by Thanatos. Now it was a 12 episode anime that is not created by Masami Kurumada and wascoming out bi-weekly. I did not really have an issue with the story, I did have an issue on where it took place which was back in Asgard. Sorry I was never a fan of any of the Asgard related stuff in the OG Toei 80s anime when they came out except for Odin Seiya which was cool but didn't really do anything himself anyway. I just want to throw this out there that time HAS TO be moving at a slower pace while in Elysion because even though you can use the excuse THIS IS NOT CANNON to get out of answering this question of "How does all of this occur and end while Seiya and his crew are in Elysion?" Because if you wanted all of the Hades Arc you know that as soon as that arrived they were fighting Thanatos and as far as we know that fight was not drawn out for take very long, honestly the entire fight all the way up to the time it took for the Golds Cloths to be announced that they were making their way to Elysion assist the MCs probably took about 15-30 minutes tops and when you take that into consideration this entire Soul of Gold shit happened in 30 minutes when we literally see them living their daily lives in Asgard thru the beginning episodes?! Like i said the only 2 possible excuse you can use the easy answer "It's not cannon so don't think about it too much" or the hard answer aka my answer I'm going with which is "When you travel thru the Hyperdemision tunnel to get to Elysion there time speeds obviously move at a different pace kind of like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber in DBZ" and it sort of makes in moving thru a hyperdimension could have that effect but even if that was the case they should have said something hear in the at the end of this anime because I can't believe the script board couldn't have seen this inconsistency. But that's really the only this that urked me by the time I finished the anime it wasn't good but, it wasn't average but it wasn't bad it was fine let's move on. Art/Animation (6/10) Fine This is Toei people.. what can you say. You know what you can say? That the budget for this anime was uhh weird? Obviously this isn't the animation section and hell if it's not a SS Movie of any sort don't expect good animation treatment for SS from Toei you have to know this but damn you would think for a 12 episode bi-weekly anime they would have enough time to make everything look crisp you know? Not the case now like I said this is Toei and when Toei REALLY wants to try we know they can to amazing things in both artsyle and animation. When the God Gold Cloths were introduced would can obviously tell that Toei pushed budget into making them look beyond gorgeous but majority of everything else was decent and there was indeed scenes that looked hideous at some points but like i said it's Toei now these days if it's not a movie and you hear that Toei is making it you just have to hope for the best but DEFINITELY expect the worse so my expectations for this was quite confused since I think "THERE'S NO WAY TOEI CAN MAKE A 12 EPISODE BI-WEEKLY SHOW NOT LOOK AMAZING IN THE ARTSYLE AND ANIMATION DEPARTMENT 100% OF THE TIME!" I stand corrected. The only reason the isn't rated lower is because the things that they did make looks amazing like the God Gold Cloths are probably the best looking thing I've seen drawn this entire anime season and probably this anime year of 2015. Sound (9/10) Great Now like I usually say in my reviews in the category you can fuck everything up but you really can't fuck up the sound category. Soul of Gold had a great little remix version of the second opening of the OG SS anime which I love and the sound effects, and voice actors all sound authentic and consistent to the original which I guess can be considered more of a good thing than bad. I'm not giving this a 10 because nothing was outstanding but it definitely lived up to what I was expecting. It was acceptable and since I'm a big Saint Seiya fan I enjoyed the BGM, Voice Actors, Signature moves being shouted out and sound effects. Character (9/10) Great Since these are existing characters from Saint Seiya I've always like majority of them and their personality stayed consistent to the original and the dialogue between characters that haven't seen each other in a while was enjoyable also like Aiolos and Saga. It's not a 10 because the actually new filler characters where not good enough to give it that extra point they were all just average (not bad because if they were it would have reduced the overall score they are just average aka neutral they didn't help increase it nor decrease it). I could give them points for Loki's bad ass character design and maybe the character designs on the Gold God Cloth but this is more of a character personality section vs appearance. Appearance I guess would be under art. Enjoyment (7/10) My enjoyment is siting at a solid 7, do I wish it were more? FUCK YES? But it's Toei and this is the best I'm going to get unfortunately. Honestly the only time I found myself smiling and actually/genuinely enjoying myself during the time I press play during episodes of Soul of Gold is 1) During the opening when I'm singing along 2) During signature attacks when and shouting along 3) During dialogue of Gold Saints talking with each other about laid back things 4) And during the outro music Even though during a regular anime your enjoyment mostly should be on the story or the fight scenes (especially if it's a shonen anime you are watching) As you can tell mine were else where and we already know Toei knows how to make good Opening, Endings and BGMs (I even enjoyed it in Omega) so I know I was going to enjoy that and they would have had to completely change the Gold Saints' personality in order for me not to enjoy them either so they didn't have to do much. BUT if there fight scenes, animation and story were actually above average which they weren't it the score could have been higher but since they weren't I'm sitting at a 7 with it. Overall (7/10) Good More Specifically (7.40/10) Honestly (and I say this almost every time I remember Toei owns the animation rights to SS) I wish Toei was just release the license of Saint Seiya already. We know that the only reason the anime exist is because it's required by Toei to create something Saint Seiya animation related in order to maintain the animation rights (and if you didn't know that now you know). So you can expect another non-cannon anime related Saint Seiya thing from Toei in the next year in a half unfortunately. If this anime went on any longer it probably most likely would have been a lot worse. (We saw would happen to the second half of SS Omega if you want an example). I'm not going to rant about how Toei needs to loose the license for Saint Seiya because all SS fans do it and I'm literally tired of ranting about and now instead of sitting here waiting I'm just enjoying other manga/anime. I'll stop by and see what they are doing with Saint Seiya because I'm a fan of the franchise at the end of the day but this Franchise could be SO MUCH MORE if it wasn't in the hands of Toei.. it's the Toriko effect people just get over it and move on with your life maybe one day they'll release the license. Anyway even though we now know why Soul of Gold existence at least it wasn't terrible (at least not to me that is but like I said this franchise deserves a HxH2011/FMAB treatment by a Madhouse, Trigger or Production IG.)

Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold is a series that, obviously, is directed to a very specific public, but great, among the fans of Saint Seiya, of those fans who were very intrigued or who simply liked the golden knights, This series is supposed to give us a little more about the golden knights that many (including myself) love in Saint Seiya. If I'm honest I should say that this series or spin-off of the golden knights did not generate so much satisfaction or excitement to see it, because I found that the end they gave to the gold knights in the saga of Hades wassublime and that left as one of the best scenes of the whole manga (yes, I did not see the anime, I read the manga), I would like to clarify this I would like to review the review. Oh, and this review contain spoilers of Saint Seiya and Soul of Gold. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Story: the history of this spin-off does not call me much the attention of first since having 13 chapters I thought it would be a series without much to offer and it would be very difficult to handle the 12 golden knights (later I will explain something very important that happens because the series only has 13 chapters), but when starting to see the series I must say that it did not start badly, some who only read the manga (like me) will be very disoriented about the fact that they are in Asgard (for some who do not know, the problem is that the saga of Asgard is stuffed anime, I had to see it before starting to see Soul of Gold and I must say that, despite being stuffed, is a more than acceptable saga) as this spin -off take it for granted that you already know what happened in the saga of Asgard, I would say that only for that reason the beginning can loosen, since they are introduced to the warrior gods of Asgard without much complexity limited to only a battle between Aioria against a God warrior of Asgard while Aioria fights to defe nder to a person who has just met (this to a certain extent is quite justifiable, since Aioria being a golden knight has as mission to defend people, besides that Aioria is among the kindest within the 12 knights of gold). In short, I would say that the beginning of this spin-off is quite disoriented for those who did consume the original work and there are many topics that are presented very simply and carelessly because of that. Another point that I would like to silence about the story is how they want to rejoin the golden knights, their story ended, but now they will have to destroy the tree that could end all Asgard at some point, as I said before the series tells many things about abruptly because they think they all saw the Asgard saga, but the issue of Asgard's false prosperity is the issue that takes the longest to develop since that will eventually lead the knights to their final battle, but it seems that They concentrate so much on derassollar that theme that they forget the most important thing, the reason why the knights revived, later it is explained that it was Lyfia controlled by Loki that revived all the golden knights, and that because of that the tree absorbs every time more power, I do not know if I'll be the only one, but those issues were clarified so suddenly and so normal that I did not feel it as a major twist of the plot, it's true that a chapter before it was revealed So Lyfia was possessed and started to revive the dead and that, because of that, it would make sense that she has revived the others, I think that is true, this "size shift" and most of the series are quite Justifiable, but I felt very empty and without much depth in between, I do not like much that the biggest mystery of the series did not surprise me as much as I wanted, I must admit that, within what is possible, this "plot twist" "It is quite well built, but they were very unconcerned about this and the series was guided simply by" we were revived to destroy that tree ", but not how they were revived to find themselves in Asgard, many knights may question His reason for reviving within the series, but that is not enough to say that it was something that the series came to build in a very complex way, to summarize it would say that most of the explanations within the spin-off are simple, they lack something for you fill the gap and build them better, but it is acceptable because of the course of the series. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rhythm of the story: The rhythm of the story throughout the story is ... quite problematic, with this I was referring to the principle with which I did not give good impression, 13 chapters is too little to try to develop a saga that involves the golden knights, even the saga of Asgard that was of filling took 26 chapter to be able to develop correctly. I already commented that the principle did not seem very correct to explain some issues, but in the end it is passable, now the development of events along spin-off leaves much to be desired, from chapter 4 onwards almost always a knight dies of gold even before they can do something remarkable or that they develop, many fights end with a dying gold knight, at least the fact that they die is justified because in Asgard there is a field that strengthens the warrior gods ( besides that they suck the cosmos), but the rhythm of history would say that it does not suit me, that almost every chapter someone dies without achieving an interesting background does not make me worthy of the golden knights (there are some exceptions, some gold knights if they were deepened in the original work, like Shaka, Shura, Aioria and Milo), hope that this would be an opportunity for the knights who went unnoticed in the original work, but the only one that left me satisfied was Death Mask, there are some battles that can be considered interesting, the others are very obsolete because the warrior gods at first do not generate a great danger, except for the first battle, and since I am talking Of that I would like to emphasize that the first battle was the most difficult, see in action in the first chapter to a golden armor divine gave me the idea of ​​how powerful they were and this way they would not take unjustified power ups just to excuse themselves (less evil this does not end up happening, even in the final battle they try to give a little explanation to the appearance of the divine golden armor of some knights), but the introductory battle was enough to prove that, it was a quite accomplished moment, I always take it importance to the first battle of a series to make a clear idea of ​​what the next battles will be like (even many of the following battles occur very much in accordance with the it was, except at the end where even with that power there are some gentlemen who are not "saved") ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Characters: I had a lot of faith in how they would act and relate the characters in this spin-off and I would say that was what left me more satisfied, to see how they relate to each other I got to like too much, to see Aldebaran with Dokho, to Milo with Camus, to Aioria with, well, most of the golden knights, this is not the strongest point since many of these relationships between characters are only based on sharing battles, but in the end we must remember that this is still Saint Seiya, the relationship between combats is still very important, even thanks to that you can get to understand each other (Shura against Camus or Milo against Camus), these spaces are more careful than the focalization of the story since at the beginning it is shown to all the knights scattered by Asgard. The fact that all the knights were scattered by Asgard called me a lot of attention, if I had to say it would be something like when in NNT they had to travel looking for all the deadly sins, this even helped characters like Death Mask, a character that I found that he was very ill-treated by Kuromada himself (creator of Saint Seiya) along with Aphrodite, both were portrayed in the worst way in the manga, even in the saga of Hades Radamantis mocks them and then send them to the underworld, what I found were the gentlemen who should highlight more here, luckily I'm not wrong, or at least not in my total, in this spin-off you can see a part of Death Mash and Aphrodite that could not be seen in the manga , we can see how Death Mask gets rid of everything he did before and now even dedicates money to a poor woman named Helena, many will say that the personality change is very excessive, but taking into account that now has no worries because he revived and his personality in the saga of Hades is very ambiguous because it is never clarified 100% if killing Athena was part of some plan of it, so I do not seem overdone or exaggerated change that was given, I would even say that makes the character much better, the Death Mask that is seen in this spin-off then ends up being very nice to see since you can appreciate an unknown facet. Death Mask was an example of how we can appreciate the facet of other characters, another that could be classified as Aphrodite could be, the benefit they got was much less than that they took out Death Mask, but something undeniable is that the power they showed Aphrodite was better, literally thanks to him could all be saved, so it could be said that the fact that "died" in chapter 4 helped the whole plot, so it is marked as an event that lasted throughout the remaining plot, not only for being the first "death" of the series (although it is not at all impressive, not by far, like the other deaths of characters, ironically the most significant deaths are of the characters who are not golden knights and that help the development), if not for being the one that helped that everything went well, it is as if they tried to compensate all the useless that Aphrodite was in other adaptations, movies or in the same original series (even Shun it derr Autumn with a blow, but that's another issue), the simple fact that they wanted to amend everything abused that left this character makes me deserve the approval, I would also like to say that for me the fact that Aphrodite had The power not to fall into the trap of the tree, for me is not something illogical, you just have to take into account that your power specializes in plants, loves plants and the fact of being the smartest, with that note already the possibility that Aphrodite had that power for some time. On the other hand there are also characters that are very forgotten or that do not achieve sufficient prominence as I would wish; Milo, Shura or even Dokho can not do enough, it is true that they help to break one of the crystals, but they can not have very good dialogues with their colleagues to denote something interesting or startling, the only thing that compensates for this a little is that in the original work these were the most worked knights and with more influence even until the end of the manga. This case occurs with all the other characters except Aiolos and Saga, of which, I must say, I was very disappointed in their participation, while Aiolos did the only thing that guided the knights towards their goal, Aiolos in the play original was always portrayed as one of the most powerful, noble and incredible knights of the entire sanctuary, but in this spin-off is only used as a motivational resource and in the final fight not long ago against God Loki, expect to see many more things about him, he could not even get to know much about him or show much his personality, so it is very poor and little careful compared to others, if the spin-off had more chapters could have been created to a great character. On the other hand, Saga de Geminis had much more potential than just struggling, he was even the enemy of one of the best sagas in all of Saint Seiya, but in the spin-off only consists of doing the same as he did in the original work, not I know if it was because of the limitations, but I leave quite dissatisfied with the simple fact of not making or impact as much as at the beginning, at least I can say that it is still as intimidating and respectable as in the original work, that is what generates that aura of Saga. Apart from that the other characters remain the same as always, I do not have any notable impact on their actions in the spin-off. I would also like to dedicate a space to Camus's flashback on how he kills his friend's sister unintentionally, this also had the potential to create an evolution in Camus, but even the flash back turned out to be quite rushed, not to mention that it does not fit very well in the plot, it is as if he had suddenly remembered his friend, but it must be said that this served to give more variety of thought to the knights and thus generate battles between them, not so bad the back flash of Camus for the conflict that ends up developing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Art: The technical sections of this spin-off would say that they are quite mediocre, the attacks are too simplistic, it's not just that you see cliche, it's that they do not look like the mythical attacks they were, the Mu Stardust Revolution for example they look like any type of attack of Dragon Ball Z, did not even put an effect so that it had the illusion of being a Saint Seiya own attack, this is repeated with many other attacks, those of Camus only look like blue rays, with which they would have put an effect of cold or a little ice around would have conformed me, since the essence of the attack would still be there but they did not make any effort, and that happens with most of the attacks throughout the series, the original work was trying to make attacks that differ between the characters, but this spin-off seems not to respect that. The characters look great and the divine golden armor does not disappoint in terms of design, even contributing things that are very good with their zodiac sign, the enemies turn out to have a different design among them, so that aspect is very good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Music, environment and scenarios: The scenarios in are not the big deal either, the fact that the events happen in Asgard helps a bit in the variety since Asgard was not a very explored place in the series since it was filler, here they also make more emphasis to the winter extravagant , being practically that the cause of the problem besides the tree, if that is complemented with the spoken thing in the saga of Asgard creates an atmosphere that makes that the events are credible, like the action of the people towards the illusion of the tree, by what I am ambito I think well (adeamas stress that all the rooms in which are the stones are very different from each other). Music is not the great thing either, many melodies of the old series follow, which pleases me, but they are not so well placed, some are placed in bad moments or they are very desacordes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ending: The ending is epic, I will summarize it because that is the representation of what is Saint Seiya, epic, they managed to defeat a God all knights with unlimited power, literally after Kuromada confirmed that they have the power to destroy planets or even galaxies with that armor, see the team work resulting from all the golden knights I find it great, it's like the combination between characters that everyone wanted to see, the enemy is not the big thing, I know, Loki could serve, but in the ancient shonen, but as I said before, Saint Seiya always distinguished himself by being more epic than the other Shonens, not by his well-achieved moments (although there are some very good ones), but by the fact that they defeat mythological enemies, defeat gods and here also happened what Loki could be too simplistic, but in the end, for a few moments, thanks to the feeling of Saint Seiya's episity, I value that more than anything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In the end I would only like to clarify that this spin-off left me satisfied, it can be a lot of trouble, I even saved it from putting a 5 because I always wanted to know or see a moment dedicated to the golden knights, recommended for those who loved the golden gentlemen like me, despite all the negative criticism that has, I must say that I do not regret to see it, it was very fun.

Forget the negative reviews, Saint Seiya Soul of Gold is a great story set in the equally great setting of Asgard with the return of the fan-favorite Gold Saints. With a mix like that, it isn't surprising that any fan of the series would at the very least be intrigued. Asgard was an anime-only location featuring an excellent filler arc (those are rare but its popularity is the reason why this came back). Therefore in terms of canonicity, this entry is anime-canon but not manga-canon. To fully enjoy this series, you would at least need to be familiar with the original series (including theHades arc). This is a spoiler-free review hence some story details are intentionally vague. The Gold Saints are finally front and center and the mystery of their return ties into events in Asgard as an epic battle unfolds between them and a new generation of God Warriors (Asgardian Knights basically - some with ties to the original arc). The melodrama, over-the-top dialogue and action the series is known far are all present and accounted for. The Gold Saints finally have time to be developed as characters and their armors also evolve to the next level (no spoilers but you know what ultimate level means if you finished the original series). The relationships between them as they return are also explored well (given their complicated history, it makes for fun situations) and all of their character arcs are fully resolved. The action and twists are solid and use established lore well. The series does not overstay its welcome and has a satisfying ending. The music is epic and nostalgic and complements the action well. This series is for the fans very clearly and it does a fantastic job at it. It definitely deserves a much higher average score than it has been given on this site, give it a shot if you like Saint Seiya!