[algo448]

Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary
There are few franchises I love as much as Saint Seiya, it's the kind of thing that is huge over here, this post will be long and somewhat biased, you've been warned.
I watched this on the theater btw, and seeing the Toei logo in the big screen, with the triangle and the waves, boy was it amazing.

Legend of Sacntuary is a 93 minute film that adapts the story of Saint Seiya up to the 12 houses arc, 73 episodes, 93 minutes, this will be lovely.

The movie focuses on the godess Athena, reborn into a mortal baby in the mysterious Sanctuary where warriors are trained to portect her, known as Saints, they make their inner universe explode, the power of Cosmo, these warriors perform superhuman feats to defend love and peace across the earth.

However, the patriarch of the sanctuary puts his own machination at work, he attempts to murder the baby and sets up his own fake Athena to control the crowds, Sagittarius Aiolos one of the legendary Gold Saints risks his own life to save the young Athena, fatally wounded he entrusts his armor (known as Cloths) and the baby to a millionaire, who raises her as Saori Kido.

In her 16th birthday Saori finally learns her origins, the patriarch sends his Saints to murder her, but a group of Bronze Saints shows up to protect her, being raised and trained for this reason alone and knowing she is the true godess.

That's just the first 15min, and roughly the equivalent of 30 episodes, the mvoie is hyper compressed and that's probably it's main obstacle.

The show has a huge fanbase and the movie doesn't know what to change and what to keep to please the viewers, you have 18 fanfavorite characters, and everyone wants to see em.

As a whole I think the changes they made to shorten it work, skipping the Silver Saints and Galaxian Wars arc makes for a more streamlined origin and a more believable devotion to Athena from part of the Bronze Saints.

The characters all fare differently, Seiya is surprsingly good, he's more adorkable this timea round, and it works, Shyryu is the comically serious, Hyoga is the distant partner, and Shun is... I'm not really sure, guy doesn't do much, Ikki does even less, and he feels utterly pointless.

Saori is surprisngly good, she feels like the most compelte character, her role is increased from the original 12 Houses Arc and makes her a far more active and likeable character, she's the viewer surrogate, a girl who's got her life turned upside down and she comes across as likeable, fun and believably young.

The Gold Saints are dealt with in an interestign way, they got short roles, but the movie uses their houses to reflect their personality, the serene House of Aquarius, the simple House of Aries and the exuberant House of Taurus, they all help to showcase the personalities of their owners.
But whoever decided to turn Cancer DeathMask into a Disney musical needs to rethink his life.

To continue on the visual front, this iteraton of Saint Seiya has an unique visual identity, it's really detailed, the armors are icnredibly ornate, the Sanctuary is a floating citadel, amking it more otherwordly, and the Greek motif is combined with pre-columbian designs, it's simply stunning.
And there's a ton of attention put in it, the cloths break in essentially the same order they do in the anime and it all unmistakably feels like the Sanctuary yet it's a new place.

The locations are one of the movie high points, they are simply sttuning and incredibly made.

The way the attacks are reinvented is interesting, it's definitely eyecacthy and it looks spectacular, but it can also come across as generic or confusing, the action is good but painfully short, some battles play the way they do int he anime, other are changed, and once again the changes are interesting, except for frigging Cancer DeathMask.

The music is pretty good, I do find it interesting that despite the prominent use in trailers, Pegasus Fantasy doesn't play a big role in the movie, I didn't notice it's absence till I left the theater so it's not necessarily a big thing.

Is Legend of Sanctuary the best Saint Seiya movie ever?
Honestly, it might be, but that's in big part because all of them have been incredibly weak, this is definitely more of a Tenkai Hen than an Eris, so it's on the good side of the scale.

A lot of things are glossed over, others are never brought up, and the movie had room to drop more stuff for the sake of a more newcomer friendly movie, as it is, new people to the franchise might enjoy it, but see it as a somewhat generic flick.
For the old fans, as long as you aren't blinded by the nostalgia, you'll realize that this movie was made with a lot of love, it's a new tale, things will be changed, and it's not great by any stretch of the imagination.

But the people who made it, with all the details they put in it, it's fairly obvious that they love this franchise as much as the fans do.
It's not perfect, but neither the original was, don't be blinded by nostalgia, and let your cosmo burn once again.