Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac) – overview, which to watch, and in what order?

Many of you Netflix people may have seen Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac. Maybe you’ve watched it, maybe you’re just curious. Or some of you may be here because of Saint Seiya: the Beginning AKA Knights of the Zodiac.

In this post, I will introduce the Saint Seiya series briefly, give an overview of the various spinoffs, and recommend the order to watch them. Note that I will not cover the ‘American’ version (Guardian of the Cosmos) as I could barely find any info.

Saint Seiya is a shounen action-fantasy manga written by Masami Kurumada, with various anime adaptations and manga spinoffs by various authors. The story centers around the Saints/Knights, warriors who wear super-armors called Cloths according to their guardian constellation, and fight alongside the goddess Athena to protect mankind from various threats.

If you like action-fantasy stories where characters in cool armors throw superpowers at each other with their cosmic energy and fight against gods, then you might be interested.

Overview

The ‘main’ or parent story of Saint Seiya is the manga written by Masami Kurumada. I will introduce the sequel and spinoffs with minimum spoilers, so feel free to read through.

Turn A Gundam Episode 1-15 Review : Loran on a Roll

The Witch of Mercury is the talk of the town right now, but before the Witch of Mercury, there was Turn A.

Here is the story on how I discovered this 1999 anime in 2022:

I was listening to Yoko Kanno on Spotify. Specifically, I was listening to her Ghost in the Shell SAC soundtrack albums. I was just listening to Hiroyuki Sawano the other day, so my Spotify recommendations were full of anime/mecha stuff. And then this popped up:

I was like: wow, this looks like a cover art for some futuristic fantasy anime like Last Exile or maybe Suisei no Gargantia! Then I read the album title: Turn a Gundam Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.

I was like: Ok it’s a Gundam series, but WTF does that even mean, turning a Gundam? What?

takt Op. Destiny Ep. 3-5 review – to New Orleans!

We got 3 solid episodes of Takt dissing everyone he came across.

In these three episodes, we follow Takt and co as they begin their journey to the New York, while defeating some D2 along the way. We get some fun interactions with ‘Destiny’ and Takt, where we see the beginning of the running gag where she bursts through walls and developed her addiction to calories. Watching Takt and Cosette gradually learn to work with each other was pretty interesting.

Black★★Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall – how did I even manage to finish this?

(Yes I had to copy paste the title because of the stars)

Warning: this is a post where I just write whatever comes to mind, so it will be quite disorganized.

Trigger warning: Dawn Fall contains scenes of sexualized lolis, which viewers who are sensitive to pedophilia and child grooming may find very uncomfortable. If you feel uncomfortable by such content, please avoid watching this series. Just a heads-up, I will mention those topics briefly in the review as well.

My Thoughts on Neon Genesis Evangelion

A great many people wrote about Evangelion, so I guess I’ll throw mine in too.

From its fame, I went into Evangelion expecting it to be this super entertaining, super intense, mind blowing philosophical emotional rollercoaster mecha anime about a boy nobody likes. Real Evangelion was different from what I was expecting, though. It’s a lot more… quiet and reflective, I think.

Saint Seiya Soul of Gold Review – let dead people stay dead, will you?

Saint Seiya Soul of Gold (abbr. SOG) is something that makes the fans go “What the heck, they made another one?!”

Warning: this is a rant post. Warning: Contains spoilers.

Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger Episode 11 – 12 Review

Sheesh, how long has it been since I last wrote a review for this series?

First off, I am sorry for misspelling the word “Ark” all along. Gosh, first it’s box, now it’s Ark, what is my problem with this…

The final two episodes of Tenrou wrapped up the story. Mikhail, under Yevgrav’s control, yanked the Ark away from Yuliy, and Tamara passed it on to Yevgrav. Yevgrav then killed Bishop and consumed the Ark, and transformed into a weird gargoyle. Because of his new strength, he no longer cared about curing rabies, causing Tamara to be disillusioned.

My Anime/Manga of 2021

I lived the NEET life for a few months this year and watched/read so many things. This post will contain everything I’ve started/finished this year.

Note; this post is very long.

Anime

Taisho Otome Otogibanashi Ep. 3-4 – life is a fairy tale

Okay, I need to get caught up. I’m lagging behind the releases. Ugh, exams…

It’s episode 3 of Taisho Otome Fairy Tale. Tamahiko continues to warm up to Yuzuki. Tamako appeared and kicked up a storm in their house.

Aw it’s so cute how these two are so shy around each other awwwwwwww

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish Movie – life is beautiful (the pandemic cannot stop me from watching this in theaters)

Note: this is not much of a review as it is a record of my experience watching this movie.

Bangkok is a crazy city. If you’ve been here once, you’ll get what I mean. And because it’s always so crazy crowded, the pandemic hit us hard and Josee got postponed twice before finally coming to the theaters at the beginning of November 2021.

Even though it’s during a pandemic… the department store that housed the cniema was practically overflowing with people. Especially with kids from the nearby school who were finished with their Saturday classes.

I was already burned out by wading through crowds of people (it’s like Black Friday crowd every single weekend, gosh) to the cinema to buy tickets. I almost shoved a bunch of highschool boys out of the way since they were crowded in front of the ticket machine. I brought my Asian mom with me because she was worried that I’d be in the only person in the theater like that time I was watching Violet Evergarden Movie in March, and she offered to pay for the tickets. So we got the premium couch at the back of the theater because she wanted to sleep throughout the show.

It was the last weekend before Josee left theaters, so the cinema already took all the posters down. I had to make do snapping a shot with my laptop screen instead lol

So we grabbed lunch and waited 30 minutes of advertisement before the movie finally started.