Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya The Beginning Review – well, that was more entertaining than I thought

I’ve been a long-time Seiya fan, and when the live action was announced, I was both worried and excited for it. Movie adaptations of manga usually doesn’t fare too well (take Dragon Ball Evolution or Ghost in the Shell, for example. Only Alita: Battle Angel did pretty well as far as I’m aware), but I’m excited to see Seiya hit theaters.

I was the only one in the theater for that showing, which was not strange since I’ve had that experience with Violet Evergarden before lol.

One thing I enjoy about Saint Seiya is how different authors come up with different interpretations of the story that Kurumada-sensei wrote, so I gave the movie a go. I went in with no expectations, and to be honest, I actually quite liked it.

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.

Basilisk: Ouka Ninpouchou (the Ouka Ninja Scrolls) – bonutzuu’s manga archive (manga vs anime?)

Let me start by saying this: I did not read or watch Kouga Ninpouchou. I did not know this manga was a sequel until I bought all the books and started reading, so I have no point of comparison lol. I could understand the story without reading the prequel.

Plot:

The Kouga and Iga ninja clans had been enemies since forever, but they made peace ten years ago. Kouga Hachirou and Iga Hibiki, a pair of twins born from the union between the Kouga and Iga clan, lived a seemingly peaceful life in a secluded ninja village. However, that all changed when the Joujinshu, a rising clan backed by the Jesuits, came to the village and slaughtered their family. Its leader Joujin dismembered Hibiki and turned her into a puppet, but Hachirou managed to grab his sister’s head and run away in time.

Xiaoli Feidao – Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword (Duoqing Jianke Wuqing Jian) – bonutzuu’s wuxia archive

[This post is half reminiscence and half praise of the book, just to give you a heads-up. Anyway, on with the post.]

[Just to note that I read the Thai translation, which transcribes all names and honorifics in Tae-chiew dialect. I will be using the Mandarin names in this post just for ease of the readers looking up more info, and I apologize in advance if I get any names mixed up.]

In my previous post on Cang Hai, I wrote about how I wasn’t that impressed by my gateway novel into wuxia. Although I enjoyed the books, I thought that maybe wuxia isn’t for me. It wasn’t until I found this one book that changed it completely.

That book is the first novel in the Xiaoli Feidao series, Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword.

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.

Mardock Scramble – let’s scramble some eggs! bonutzuu’s manga archive

I love when things go on sale. This was 70% off. It’s in eBook format, which means my mom won’t nag me for buying too many manga.

Mardock Scramble is a 7-volume manga adapted from Tow Ubukata’s novel of the same name. On my blog, I reviewed one of Ubukata-sensei’s previous works, Le Chevalier D’Eon, before. He writes great stories, so I had high expectations for Mardock Scramble, and it did deliver.

Mardock Scramble started with Rune Balot (Balot as in that food where you eat a fertilized egg with a developing embryo) getting murdered, then burned inside a locked car. She miraculously survived thanks to Dr. Easter and his partner Œufcoque (pronounced oof-cock). Rune is an important witness that can bring her murderer, Shell Septinos, to his punishment, and so the two convinced her to stand up and fight for justice.

Rune was revived under regulation Mardock Scramble 09, where experimental technologies can be used to save a witness’s life. Rune’s burnt skin was replaced with some kind of super-advanced metal fiber that gave her a lot of cool abilities, like interacting with electronics without touching them, or super human speed and perception. Œufcoque, a shapeshifting AI weapon that usually appears a yellow mouse, became her partner and help her adjust to her new life, and thwart Shell’s attempts to silence her.

My Girlfriend is a Girl from Russia (แฟนของผมเป็นเด็กสาวจากรัสเซีย) – bonutzuu’s light novel archive

I’ve talked a lot about light novels from Japan and wuxia novels, so I should also talk about light novels from Thailand, where I’m from.

I have mixed feelings about this book, and I’ll tell you why.

My Girlfriend from Russia (I don’t know what the official English title is so I’ll call it that) is a light novel published by Palo Publishing.

One day, Cha, a single romantic novelist received a phone call from his ex, asking him to meet up at her old house. There, he met Anastasia Yada Palov, a half-Thai-half-Russian elementary school girl who is his ex’s daughter. It turns out that his ex needed to go abroad to treat her illness, and asked Cha to take care of her daughter for the time being.

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.

Cang Hai (滄海) by Feng Ge – bonutzuu’s wuxia archive

I decided to start a new post category because of how much I have to say about this novel series.

Cang Hai is a 6-volume wuxia novel series by Feng Ge, and is part of a larger series which, from what I understand, includes another series called Kunlun and another series that is Kunlun’s prequel. I read Cang Hai in Thai, so I’m sorry if I make a mistake in any character or place names. Additionally, the Thai release splits the series into 8 volumes, so any reference I make about the volume number will be based on the Thai release version.

Cang Hai mainly follows the adventures of Lu Jian, a simple boy from a fisherman’s village who gets entangled with a bunch of weird people and the quest for the eight ancient scrolls that will shake the entire martial arts community.

For this review, I will talk about the overall plot and characters, then I will write my thoughts on the novel.