English Dub Review: Saint Seiya: Battle for Sanctuary “The Twelve Houses” ; “The Seventh Sense”

Overview:

The Bronze Knights have to defeat the 12 Gold Knights and get to the grandmaster within 12 hours in order to save Athena. They begin with the Gold Knights of Aries and Taurus respectively.

Our Take:

Now that Athena has been struck with a goddess killing arrow, she only has 12 hours to live. That is, unless the Bronze Knights can defeat the 12 Gold Knights and reach the grandmaster in time.

Mu, the Gold Knight of Aries, doesn’t put up much of a fight as he’s the most opposed to the grandmaster’s plan to kill Athena. He even repairs the bronze Knights’ armor to help them with their journey.

The Gold Knight of Taurus, Aldebaran, puts up more of a fight. He immediately wipes out all of the Bronze Knights except Seiya. Seiya manages to harness the power of the seventh sense in order to defeat Aldebaran. They move on to the temple of Gemini, but get stuck in a loop.

I’m not the biggest Saint Seiya aficionado, so I treat this show as a separate entity rather than trying to compare it to the original. On it’s own, I’m not entirely gripped by the story here. The delivery just isn’t hitting me as much as I feel it should.

I also don’t like how the other Bronze Knights are ultimately useless in both of these fights. I know Seiya is the focal point, but it feels like the other knights might as well not even be there.

Plus, I’m still not sold on the CGI in this show. It does look a little better than it did in the first season, but I’m still not impressed. The scene in the temple looks remarkably bad with the strobing effects.

These two episodes aren’t a bad start to this season, but the show still has a ways to go before it can fully grip me.