Saint Seiya= the shounen version of Sailor Moon

[PurpleWarrior13]

Let me put it this way, Saint Seiya is to Mexico what Dragon Ball Z is to us! The franchise has actually had MORE success in Latin America than it has anywhere else (including Japan).

Well, Saint Seiya fans generally approve of the ADV dub (other than the fact that it didn't finish), but there are very few people out there who enjoy the DiC dub (other than the theme song and the fact that it didn't finish).

Another similarity: Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon were both dubbed into French before any other language following the Japanese.

 

[NJ_]

Another similarity both shows (Seiya and Moon) have....they were given dubs by DIC. However, Seiya suffered more in this case.

I think in the end, both suffered equally. Yes, Saint Seiya's DiC dub was worse than Sailor Moon's, but Saint Seiya DID get a partial uncut dub from ADV Films. ADV could've redubbed the first 89 episodes of Sailor Moon if they wanted to, but they chose not to since Sailor Moon had been successful in it's dubbed format, and they saw no need to, so they distributed those episodes in sub-only and dub-only formats.

That didn't stop them from redubbing Macross & Gatchaman a few years later. My guess is because they didn't have enough time due to how long DiC's contract extension lasted for.

Their Saint Seiya dub lasted only 65(?) episodes, and it wasn't very good voice acting wise (I blame this on the direction and time constraints, I'm surprised ADV didn't farm this dub out to Monster Island in Austin, TX like most of their "cheap" dubs), but if you mostly watch dubs anyway, it should be at least "tolerable". I really wish Sentai would continue the dub and finish the franchise. I would wholeheartidly support it.

1. It was 60 episodes.

2. They would have to relicense it since DiC's rights expired back in 2009.

 

[Vilhem]

Saint Seiya is stupidly popular in all of Europe and in Latin America It first aired in the early 90s, shortly after France first began broadcasting it. France is the one that started the whole "Knights of the Zodiac" title (Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque), then Spain followed with "Los Caballeros del Zodiaco", which the Latin American dub used the same intro song. The intro song follows the beat of the French version, which is really bad, but at the same time, its the one most people remember.

I think part of the reason Saint Seiya failed here in the US is because it came too late. It's a dated show, and doesn't hold up to the newer shinier anime. That and the way it was marketed led to its demise. On the Cartoon Network version, the blood was painted green, and called spiritual energy or something like that. Thus they were bleeding gatorade L O L I have no idea how the uncut dub sounded, because honestly, I had little interest in watching it in English, since the Spanish dub is so engrained in my memory.

I also believe, had ADV released the dvds with the Spanish or French audio, it would have boosted sales substantially. A lot of my friends ended up buying the Saber Marionette J dvd releases because they had the Spanish audio on it, but passed on J to X because it was excluded (still don't know why). ADV did this in the past with the first Evangelion DVD release: they contained the French and Spanish language tracks.

And here I'll leave you all with a nice present a "music video" of the extended version of the French opening, as sung by Bernard Minet, who was a star on the variety show in which Les Chevaliers was shown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws5c7NiRSFs

Try not to drink anything while watching

 

[NJ_]

I think part of the reason Saint Seiya failed here in the US is because it came too late. It's a dated show, and doesn't hold up to the newer shinier anime. That and the way it was marketed led to its demise.

Yup, it pretty much suffered the same fate that Gundam 0079 did on TV after they finished airing the more popular Gundam Wing.

I would also add that it came to the US almost a decade after Ronin Warriors did but i'm not sure how that show did on TV or on DVD.

I also believe, had ADV released the dvds with the Spanish or French audio, it would have boosted sales substantially. A lot of my friends ended up buying the Saber Marionette J dvd releases because they had the Spanish audio on it, but passed on J to X because it was excluded (still don't know why). ADV did this in the past with the first Evangelion DVD release: they contained the French and Spanish language tracks.

It's probably because it costs more to use them plus it affects the video quality as well. I own their release of Blue Seed which also has the Spanish dub and the video quality on those discs were pretty bad.

 

[Yen]

I see more resemblance between Sailor Moon and Yoroiden Samurai Troopers than Saint Seiya or DBZ

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

I think part of the reason Saint Seiya failed here in the US is because it came too late. It's a dated show, and doesn't hold up to the newer shinier anime. That and the way it was marketed led to its demise.

Yup, it pretty much suffered the same fate that Gundam 0079 did on TV after they finished airing the more popular Gundam Wing.

That's too bad, because story-wise, 0079 is way better than Wing.

 

[PurpleWarrior13]

I guess the fact that ADV only had the rights to 89 episodes was a contributing factor, that, and Pioneer had eps. 90-165 and all three movies. Yes, we would've had an uncut dub across most SM media (at least visually), but the voice cast would've likely been completely different between the two halves. I guess ADV could've had one produced in Toronto in association with DiC, but would've likely meant we would've had Linda Ballantyne and Liza Balkan voicing Moon and Mercury in 165 episodes! :eeklez:

ADV did release two new and cheap box sets of Saint Seiya in 2009 right before their rights expired. They planned on outright licensing the series after DiC's license expired, and dub more episodes, but their financial situation put those plans to an abrupt end.

I think Knights of the Zodiac flopped in America because of poor marketing. There were very few commercials on TV about it, and the toys and CCG were a little harder to find. If Cartoon Network had put it on TOONAMI, maybe we could've joined Latin America and Europe. It would've also helped if they placed the ADV dub on Toonami... the American TV run did last 36 episodes, so it wasn't HORRIBLE, but it was definitely lackluster. I don't think age played much of a factor either. Saint Seiya is a newer series than Dragon Ball, and that series was a hit on Toonami in 2001-2004, even though it was actually from 1985-1989! Though I do remember hearing kids at school talking about how much they liked Knights of the Zodiac, but acknowledged that it was "old".

Foreign languages could've helped some. FUNimation put the Spanish dub on the Ultimate Uncut Dragon Ball Z DVDs! They also released a line of Latin American DVD singles with the remastered footage with Spanish and Japanese audio with Spanish subtitles. I don't think they were too successful though, because they didn't cover much of the series.

Ronin Warriors wasn't too successful when it was in syndication in the 1990s, but it did find an audience when it reappeared on Toonami in the early 2000s. It was a "modest success".

 

[NJ_]

I guess the fact that ADV only had the rights to 89 episodes was a contributing factor, that, and Pioneer had eps. 90-165 and all three movies. Yes, we would've had an uncut dub across most SM media (at least visually), but the voice cast would've likely been completely different between the two halves.

Correction: Episodes 90-166. Sailor Stars started at 167.

ADV did release two new and cheap box sets of Saint Seiya in 2009 right before their rights expired.

Oh yes and this was one of their first re-releases to use the godawful STACKpak packaging.

I think Knights of the Zodiac flopped in America because of poor marketing. There were very few commercials on TV about it, and the toys and CCG were a little harder to find. If Cartoon Network had put it on TOONAMI, maybe we could've joined Latin America and Europe.

It WAS on Toonami and it did horribly in the ratings which is why it didn't last long on there.

I don't think age played much of a factor either. Saint Seiya is a newer series than Dragon Ball, and that series was a hit on Toonami in 2001-2004, even though it was actually from 1985-1989!

I don't know about that since it has always been said that Dragon Ball Z was a bigger hit then Dragon Ball was on Toonami.

Foreign languages could've helped some. FUNimation put the Spanish dub on the Ultimate Uncut Dragon Ball Z DVDs! They also released a line of Latin American DVD singles with the remastered footage with Spanish and Japanese audio with Spanish subtitles. I don't think they were too successful though, because they didn't cover much of the series.

They also released the Spanish dub on their original DVD release of the 5th movie Cooler's Revenge. I used to own that disc and it was actually fun to watch especially since they actually made a 3rd subtitle track specifically for that dub.

As for the series, the Ultimate Uncut DVDs were dropped after 9 volumes (27 episodes) while the widescreen Spanish dub DVDs were dropped after 10 volumes (30 episodes) so they had to have done badly.

Ronin Warriors wasn't too successful when it was in syndication in the 1990s, but it did find an audience when it reappeared on Toonami in the early 2000s. It was a "modest success".

Yeah but did it sell on DVD? Bandai had the license of the show for a short time and it expired sometime after their first (& only) box set was released and they didn't bother to renew it which is a shame since they released the series in the best way possible (and i hate flipper discs) & they even dubbed the OVAs themselves with most of the TV cast.

 

[PurpleWarrior13]

Sorry! I wasn't sure which episode was the cutoff!

Oh, yes... I hate STACKPacks. The discs get scratched REALLY easily... imagine that with double-sided discs...

Actually, Knights of the Zodiac was on Cartoon Network's (short-lived) Saturday Night Action Block. I have a video tape to prove it!

Yeah, but Dragon Ball has also been unusually successful for an anime property. At one point, all of Toonami was Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. FUNimation has even stated that all three Dragon Ball series sell much better than most of their titles.

Yeah, I have the first Ultimate Uncut volume, and listening to the Spanish audio track is fun (it's one of the reasons I've kept that DVD aside from the 30 minute documentary). Though that release didn't have Spanish subtitles.

To be fair, I don't think FUNi marketed those Spanish DVDs very well (if at all).

I'm not sure how the Ronin Warriors DVDs sold. I know Bandai licensed the series for broadcast, and released the complete series to DVD with both versions, and dubbed the OVAs. I guess they were either done with the series, unable to renew it, or decided not to for whatever reason.

 

[Roman55]

Surprisingly, there are still people who look down on Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers as nothing more than the Spear Counterpart (same characters/show, different gender. That's the abridged description.) to Sailor Moon. ST debuted four years before the the manga of of Sailor Moon started. It really doesn't help that when Cartoon Network got their hands on the series for Toonami they pretty much promoted the show as such, sometimes airing episodes of each series back-to-back and creating promos that almost looked like a crossover between the two. (which as a kid, I wanted to see.)

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

Surprisingly, there are still people who look down on Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers as nothing more than the Spear Counterpart (same characters/show, different gender. That's the abridged description.) to Sailor Moon. ST debuted four years before the the manga of of Sailor Moon started. It really doesn't help that when Cartoon Network got their hands on the series for Toonami they pretty much promoted the show as such, sometimes airing episodes of each series back-to-back and creating promos that almost looked like a crossover between the two. (which as a kid, I wanted to see.)

Well, Sailor Moon itself is said to be an imitator of Wedding Peach.

 

[Trami0501]

Saint Seiya is the boy version of Sailor Moon or else Sailor Moon is the girl version of Saint Seiya I don't think so.

 

[Roman55]

Saint Seiya is the boy version of Sailor Moon or else Sailor Moon is the girl version of Saint Seiya I don't think so.

Oh look I've gone cross eyed....

 

[Sakuranbo]

I notice that some people think that Sailor Moon is like the girl version of Dragon Ball Z, but it's more like the girl version of Saint Seiya since Sailor Moon has a lot more similarities to Saint Seiya than Dragon Ball Z. To be honest, it would be nice to see more Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon crossovers since there's so many Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon crossovers already. What's really amazing is that Toru Furuya voiced both Mamoru and Pegasus Seiya in the Japanese versions of Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya.

 

[ChampionOfNuggets]

I n. What's really amazing is that Toru Furuya voiced both Mamoru and Pegasus Seiya in the Japanese versions of Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya.

He also voiced Yamcha in Dragon Ball.

 

[Sakuranbo]

He also voiced Yamcha in Dragon Ball.

Yeah that's true.

 

[litacan]

i think it's similar in astrology theme but it's more violent than sailor moon, maybe because the target audience is boys mostly.

i'm not into shounen much, what i know is a friend told me

 

[Slowpokeking]

I think Saint Seiya didn't characterize the main 5 heroes well enough since too much focus was shifted to the Gold Saints in later stage.

Also their personal struggle at the beginning was discarded too quickly. It also lacks of daily life friendship.

 

[JunoDX]

So who is harumichi in Saint Seiya?

 

[Slowpokeking]

So who is harumichi in Saint Seiya?

In the original there was no gay/les relationship.

If you talk about the most well written love, I think it's Ikki and Esmeralda.

I also like Siegfried and Hilda's relationship while it's not very clear written..