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Meanderings
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Wednesday, 04 April 2012 20:22 |
When evil forces threaten the world, heroes appear - golden saints, enrobed in the cloth of the constellations. Kouga has been training for some time to become a Saint, but his tutor Shaina has been giving him a hard time - physically and otherwise - and wants proof now that he's capable of walking the walk as well as talking the talk. But, for all that he knows the mythology of the Saints, he's having a hard time believing that any of it is actually true - but he's about to get first-hand evidence that it is. And that Destiny has decreed he'll have a role to play in the coming war...
So, this is the first Saint Seiya TV series in 20-odd years, apparently. Which means nothing to me, as I never saw the original. The recent Lost Canvas OVA, though, I did see, and it raised in me certain expectations of a highly-cheesy adventure story, pitting the forces of the Gods against the forces of Hades. That's a pretty epic scale, if you do it right. Omega starts off with a fairly impressive scene of Seiya saving Athena from an attack by Mars (suitably warlike), before rolling the opening credits and dropping us into the story of Kouga - who at this point is far from a true believer in the Saints and Athena. And doubters do tend to get their arses kicked.
One of the defining points of Lost Canvas was its cheesiness - from the OP song right through, it was over-the-top cheesiness, and frankly that was what made it so enjoyable. Omega initially appeared to be a bit more restrained, to take itself a bit more seriously - and then Kouga got his tranformation sequence and knocked that idea on the head. I can tell I'm going to like this, at least until the novelty wears off. Being stuck in a 6:30am slot in Japan, it's clearly aimed primarily at the kids, and I worry it'll become repetitive monster-of-the-week fodder, but we'll see.
THE GOOD: Defined by its cheesiness. Looks pretty.
THE BAD: Not really feeling much love for Kouga yet. Character designs have a very Casshern Sins feel to them, and aren't the easiest on the eye.
But yeah, I enjoyed this when I wasn't really expecting to, and I'll keep watching for a while yet. If it follows in Lost Canvas' footsteps, it'll do nicely.
Saint Seiya Omega is simulcast by Crunchyroll.
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Backbites 
