Anime Review: Saint Seiya: Hades Chapter
Quick recap: The Greek gods are real, in that they’re energy beings who periodically reincarnate in human bodies. Most of the gods are hostile to humanity, but Athena is its protector. Currently she inhabits the body of Saori Kiddo, an heiress who was raised in Japan. Saori/Athena is served by armored warriors called “Saints” who are named after the Greek/Roman constellations. The five who are the most prominent in this series are Pegasus Seiya, Draco Shiryuu, Cygnus Hyoga, Andromeda Shun and Phoenix Ikki.
Our young heroes barely survived the battle against Poseidon and gone to their respective safe places to recover and train. But a new threat is already rising. It’s discovered that the bodies of several dead Saints are missing from their graves, but who’d be stealing those? It quickly turns out that the deceased Gold Saints have been temporarily resurrected by the lord of the Underworld, Hades and sent to take Athena’s head.
Our primary quintet, who are technically Bronze Saints, the least powerful of Athena’s warriors, have been sent a message that they’re to stay away and not get involved in this battle. Evidently, they either didn’t get the message or the fact that several of them were attacked by reanimated enemies made staying home pointless, so Seiya and the gang show up at Sanctuary to help. (Except Ikki, who’s figured out some of what’s really going on and shows up just to say that he’s remaining “neutral.”)
Athena’s remaining Gold Saints (including a couple of surprises) battle against the traitors as they make their way through the temples of Sanctuary to reach the goddess. The attackers are “aided” by some of Hades’ actual servants, the 108 Specters, most of whom are insect or monster-themed. The Bronze Boys follow as best they can, trying to catch up.
And then it turns out the whole thing up to this point was a ruse by Athena to allow her blood to be shed so that she could enter the Underworld and activate some plot coupons. Now Seiya and the others must travel the paths of darkness to give Athena the power she needs to defeat Hades once and for all!
This animated series completes the adaptation of the original Saint Seiya manga by Masami Kurumada. While it follows the format of the 1980s TV series, it was primarily meant for home video release in the early 2000s. While Kurumada had plans for additional storylines where our heroes battled even more Greek gods, this is a good enough conclusion to the series as it escalated things considerably by the end and the sequels would really have no place to go.
Armor design has always been key in the various Seiya-related projects, and we get a whole bunch more of cool or interesting Cloths for the Saints and Surplices for the Specters. Mind, because there are 108 Specters and there’s a limited number of episodes, many of them get curbstomped in groups before they’re even named.
The mythology is a mishmash here. While the main focus is on Greek mythology, the landscape of the bad part of the Underworld borrows heavily from Dante’s Inferno, which is Christian fanfic. There’s also an important element of Buddhism, and one character is based on Egyptian mythology. Notably, the good part of the Underworld, Elysium where it is said those that the gods deem “good” go after death, is jarringly empty. The only beings we see there are Hypnos and Thanatos, the twin gods of sleep and death, Hades’ true form which has been sealed away for his ultimate victory, and a handful of pretty nymphs that serve them.
The one important female character on the villain side is Pandora, the sister of Hades’ current incarnation. She turns out to have an important part in Shun and Ikki’s backstory (as does Hades himself.) Persephone, Hades’ wife in the myths, doesn’t get mentioned at all, because part of Hades’ motivation for causing a permanent eclipse that will blot out the sun and turn Earth into a frozen wasteland is that he has never known love and therefore sees no reason why humanity should be allowed to continue to exist.
Unfortunately, if Kurumada has a weakness, it’s that he’s an old school Shonen Jump writer and isn’t good at writing female characters. Athena is supposed to be an inspiring leader that deserves the devotion of her Saints, but spends the vast majority of time offscreen, incapacitated or both, and when she is on screen, her personality is soppy. Pandora’s character revolves around her relationship and devotion to Hades (though she does get a couple of good mean girl moments.) The female Saints of Athena are stuck back at home base rooting for our heroes. Oh, and Seiya’s long lost sister Seika finally, finally shows up, having been located off-camera, but barely has dialogue and certainly no personality. (Plus the rather abrupt ending means we get no interaction between the siblings.)
On the philosophical side, it’s notable that most of the gods confuse themselves with God, if you follow me. Athena’s one really good speech of the story is when she critiques the idea of infinite punishment for finite crimes. Hades treats humanity’s sins as personal offenses against him, and thus retaliates forever, even though he’s just, you know, the landlord. Not the Creator. There’s also some uncomfortable implications that the Specters have simply erased the memories and personalities of the humans they’re inhabiting–especially since all of them end up dead.
The Saints have finally gotten a little better at teamwork, especially Shiryuu and Hyoga, but there is still a lot of one Saint dueling an individual opponent while the rest move past to the next fight, and the Specters are equally guilty of this.
If you’ve watched or read previous Saint Seiya material, this is a fitting climax to the series. But I can’t recommend it to anyone as their first exposure.
