Anime 1255 Saint Seiya Shinku No Shounen Densetsu Suggestion

No review yet ? It's a shame...
This was the best thing ever produced related to Saint-Seiya. I'll be trying to explain you why as good as I can...

While the other Saint-Seiya movies were painfully formulaic, Legend of Crimson Youth was one of a kind. Granted, its story is rather basic: Phoebus Abel, a fallen God banished by Zeus and Apollo, resurfaced after a long absence. He's accompanied by his bodyguards, the corona saints, while showing to Saori Kidou, i.e. Athena his sister. He proposed her to join him to his final residence following World's end. Bronze saints sedition ensues.

In fact, what differs is art execution. ... For the era, displayed means were exceptional. Character design, animation, music, background art it has aged stunningly well, given that the title is 23 years old !
If one word can sum it up, it's poetry. There isn't a single moment of emotion falling flat if you pay attention, thanks to the strong, imaginative and yet simple mise-en-scene...
From Abel immersed in his cup's play of light while brooding over spooky memories to Seiya awkwardly stumbling on harbor surroundings, cut to a shot of some scrapped doll representing his state of misery.
Imagery never cease to be downright amazing, from start to last frame.

To be fair, characterization of some of the main cast needed to be worked more. That's why I rated it a 9 instead of 10.
Abel's the best villain of the serie ever created, next to the knight of Gemini. He's an extremely refined person who cherish beauty of art, while at the same time he can turn in the wink of an eye into a terrifying brute in order to defend his convictions. His relation with Athena is really interesting, too bad their common past was never used. In fact, I wouldn't mind watching an entire arc if it was to build his character at full potential.
Some says it borders to incest. I don't know, you can only speculate about it...
Even so, incest isn't shocking for a deity. Hera's Zeus sister and spouse after all, and examples abound in Greek mythology. I personally think it's fraternal passion formed when he was on his own against jealousy of major Gods.

I can hardly describe how much I love this movie. I saw it when I was a kid (sure, I wasn't supposed to watch a PG -13 but meh...) it literally blew my mind. I was totally receptive to its sensitiveness... Here probably originates my long time love for animes, as far as I can tell. Yet, I seldom rate 10 my overall reviews: I do it only for overwhelming stuff like studio Ghibli's...
I hope Legend of Crimson youth bring to you, reader, as much joy and fascination as it did to me back then...

Legend of Crimson Youth is the 3rd film of the Saint Seiya series which is the longest of the bunch, but sadly it's probably the worst of the features. Note: this movie takes place after the events of the Sanctuary arc. Episodes 1-73.

The story begins with Saori meeting her brother Abel along with his servants, The Corona Saints, & the revived Gold Saints. In short, Abel wants to rid of humanity as they are a vile & wicked species set on self-annihilation. To enforce his actions, Abel asks for the aid of his sister Saori to cleanse the planet of humanity and begin anew as ... messiahs. The moral of the film is to emphasize a divine figure whose solemn duty is to abolish the dangers of Earth with his sins being justified for the greater good. It is the duty of The Bronze Saints to rebel against this holy figure to prove his actions are wrong.

While the subject matter seems promising for a full length feature it doesn't hold up on very basic story principles being action and motivation. For starters, the film states right away what the story is but takes a slow pace towards it as the first 20 minutes is focused on a brooding Seiya due to Athena siding with Abel aka Apollo. This plot point quickly becomes irrelevant as Athena was only feigning her loyalty to Abel in order to assassinate him. The murder attempt fails and the story follows the same structure as the other plots of Saint Seiya being to rescue Athena from sort of act of self sacrifice. So the rest of the movie is what you can in Saint Seiya but delivers poorly.

While it may seem trivial to complain about the action in a film where the emphasis is the story; the fights are terrible. Being the first movie debut for the Gold Saints I expected more out of them but they are dispatched very quickly. The same can be said for every other battle as they end far too quick, eliminating the build up presented in the previous scenes. It gets to the point where the audience can call "bullshit" on the power scale presented in the action as most fights feel "fixed".

While the action is poor the same goes for the story as Abel never elaborates why he must be rid of humans or what classifies them as evil. This is where the movie starts to fall flat in its ethics as it never goes into detail of the sins man has committed. From what has been presented in the series, Earth is currently a peaceful place so there is no need to wipe out humanity. If anything, all the conflict came from Gemini Saga. Ironically, Saga is the saving grace of the movie as he motivates Seiya to rescue Athena as a way to atone for his past sins. I certainly wished he played a bigger role in the story as Abel's current actions reflect his own during his time as Pope Ayres.

To sum this up, Legend of Crimson Youth basically repeats the villain characterization of Gemini Saga offering very little action & a story that isn't as complicated as it claims. The only highlights to the movie are the animation, a rematch between Shiryu & Cancer Deathmask, and the brief inclusion of The Gold Saints. Saint Seiya Movie 3 just felt like recycled material in an updated look. While the art remains gorgeous as ever, the pacing & structure needed improvement.

The third Saint Seiya film, Legend of Crimson Youth, manages to at least be an improvement over the cashgrabs that were its feature-length predecessors in both premise and execution. Much like the previous film was just a poor blueprint for the far better Asgard Arc though, so too was this film a poor man's blueprint for the better Hades Arc that was to come in the manga.

Obviously, that comparison requires some minor and major spoilers for both this film and the Hades Arc of the anime/manga, so there's the pre-warning for later parts of the review. To start off though, the film has an interesting ... premise with the threat being an original character with some new lore to hype him up as well as Athena's unwillingness to have her Saints be involved in fighting him being a fair bit different from the norm. This bait and switch on Athena's part as well as the revival of the dead Gold Saints can quite obviously be compared to the plot of the Hades Arc's first act and are a breath of fresh air for the films which had ignored any Gold Saint that wasn't Seiya in a Sagittarius Cloth, though it also shows the difference in writing quality for the series when Kurumada isn't on board and that the Asgard Arc was an exception and not the rule. Athena's plan to kill Abel herself makes no sense when the film tells us that he's on par with Zeus and required several Olympians to take him down, nor does her close approach when the Nike staff is what saved her from conflicts with Zeus in the past as implied by the end of the Sanctuary Arc. With the exception of Saga, the revived Gold Saints are also quickly killed off either by the Bronze Saints or the new Corona Saints serving Abel rather than serving any narrative purpose and all the unique aspects of the opening act go down the drain pretty quickly with it returning to the same formula as the previous films (see my reviews on them for what that is and why it failed).
With that, you can guess the finale is indeed Seiya saving the day against a God, though this case is more egregious than the prior two films due to the hype given to Abel in being far above Athena and comparable to Zeus, yet he can eventually be matched by a Seiya who at that point could barely do anything to a Poseidon nowhere near his full power or close to Athena's true power. It really makes it more apparent how little tension there is in the film continuity when the Sagittarius Cloth is reduced to a pure deus ex machina.

Despite these complaints of the film, I'd still say it has more saving graces than those that came before it aside from the premise simply being better. Saga is by far the best part of the film both in service to the fans and the narrative. We get to see the good side of Saga that we only had glimpses of in the Sanctuary Arc and see the onscreen debut of the Galaxian Explosion that the anime unfortunately couldn't add, as well as him serving his role well in acting as an opponent and mentor to Seiya. It's also interesting that the end of his fight with Jao is likely the inspiration behind his brother Kanon finishing the fight with Rhadamanthys in the Hades Arc. Even though it wasn't good how the Gold Saints were shafted, their deaths at least help showcase the henchmen as a genuine threat unlike the previous two films. Athena's "death" is also a double-edged sword. Her and the Nike staff being removed from the plot is good for tension in the main cast logically being less plot armoured...except the execution is hollow as they're more plot armoured than ever by the finale of the film.

As far as the superifical elements of art and animation goes, it's the same as the previous films; a stunning and fitting adaptation of Kurumada's great style and evidence digitally produced anime can't hold a candle to an 80s anime film with a decent budget, but still not awe-inspiring enough to mask how paper-thin its plot is.

Like the previous film, it's a poor first draft of a far better Saint Seiya story, but at least this one had some decent ideas behind it.