History Manga / SaintSeiya

* InconsistentSpelling: Shun's Master wins this hands down with seven different names. No wonder nobody remembers him.
** In the Manga: Daidaros, Daidalos, Didaros.
** In the Anime: Albiore, Alviore, Albione, Albion.

* AsYouKnow: In universe: the saints keep reminding their opponents that a technique [[ItOnlyWorksOnce will only work once on them]]

* BarrierMaiden: Saori often has to take the place or tasks of another God or make a life-risking BatmanGambit to buy time for her Saints to beat up the bad guys. Shun is also placed in that situation sometimes. Lampshaded in Shun's backstory since his armor is protected by the constellation of Andromeda, the one named after THE BarrierMaiden of Greek mythology.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Kido Family. Saori Kido turns out to be the Goddess Athena, Mitsumasa Kido in the manga [[spoiler: has 100 kids and then sends them to go become Saints.]] Let's not forget Hyoga and his Oedipus Complex with his dead mother.

** Shiryu lampshades this trope after he loses his sight. Thanks to this, he is not deceived by Saga's illusion in the Gemini temple when he and Seiya are trapped. He says he senses no obstacle and knows where the exit is. Shiryu grabs Seiya and runs off dragging him by force. Believing they would get killed, Seiya screams as they pass the Gold Saint of Gemini, and finally end up exiting the Temple of the Twins.
** Ikki of Phoenix uses this as well... to an extreme. [[spoiler:In order to defeat Shaka after being killed by the Gods-Knows-What-Number-th time by the Gold Saint (and suffering MindRape ''twice'' from Shaka's part), he lets Shaka disable each of his senses in order to augment his Cosmo beyond its normal limits, mimicking Shaka's own EnlightenmentSuperpowers, and reaching the Seventh Sense all on his own. Shaka himself is AWESTRUCK at the notion.]]

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: The walls of Cancer Deathmask's house [[AndIMustScream are decorated with the heads of people that he has killed... including little children]]. When an enraged Shiryu asks "Have you killed little children, even?" Deathmask ''smirks'', shrugs and replies "Who knows? Maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

* TheCameo: [[Anime/MagicalPrincessMinkyMomo Minky Momo]], of all people, appears in the audience at one point in episode 5 of the classic series.

* CanonForeigner: Several, including from anime (Docrates, Giste, Spartan, Arachne, etc) and movies.

* CavalryOfTheDead: In "Hades Arc", Hades brings back to life fallen Gold Saints of Athena, granting them 12 hours to bring him her head. If they do so, he may bring them back to life for good. [[spoiler: It turns out that they remained loyal to their Goddess nonetheless and only accepted Hades' deal to warn her about the upcoming Holy War while killing some members of Hades' army in the process. Once the 12 hours delay expired, they disappeared to return to the Underworld (where they join again with the still living Gold Saints to fire a super CombinedEnergyAttack).]]

The story in the manga and anime differs considerably following Ikki's defeat, but it centers in the Bronze Saints facing several other saints sent by the Sanctuary with orders to kill them (and in the anime only, recover the [[MacGuffin Sagittarius Cloth helmet]], the only part of the Cloth the good guys were able to keep). Midway through the battles against the Silver Saints, it is revealed that Saori is the reincarnation of Athena and leadership of Sanctuary is hers by right, which at the time is under control of the nefarious Pope (no, not [[UsefulNotes/ThePope that one]]), who wants her dead so he can claim her position as protector of the Earth. Eventually Saori and all the Bronze Saints decide to challenge the Pope directly, and [[StormingTheCastle travel to the Sanctuary]]. Due to some treachery, Athena/Saori is hit by an arrow powerful enough to fell a god in twelve hours... time which the Saints must use to [[BossRush defeat]] the other ''eleven'' Gold Saints and use the shield on the statue of Athena to save their goddess from death.

** This becomes certainly amusing when Shiryuu cuts through the Capricorn armor... with his bare hand, because he'd been stripped off his armor by his adversary. Rule of thumb: if the bronze saints' armors are still intact and in their normal shape, the fight's nowhere near over yet.

* AtlasPose: Dragon Shiryuu when the tunnel underneath the Sagittarius House collapses and he stays behind to support it as the others escape.

* DubNameChange: Most of the main characters' names are changed in the Italian dub, usually by giving them the name of their constellation (eg: Seiya becomes Pegasus, Shun becomes Andromeda and so on) or by giving them a totally different, non-japanese name (Shiryuu becomes Sirio, Hyoga Crystal, Shaina is Tisifone and Saori is Isabel).

** Phoenix Ikki also uses one at one point [[spoiler:in an attempt to defeat Virgo Shaka by [[HeroicSacrifice sending both him and Shaka there]]. [[DefeatMeansFriendship This gesture earns him Shaka's respect]], and he asks Mu to bring ''both'' Ikki and himself back.]].

** Anime-only god warrior Alpha Siegfried shares his Achilles' heel with his namesake from the ''Literature/{{Nibelungenlied}}''-- he slays a dragon and [[BloodBath bathes in its blood]], making himself immortal, but at that very moment a tiny leaf falls on his back (coincidentally over his heart), preventing that bit of skin from being touched by the blood, and therefore making that spot the only part of his body that can be dealt a mortal blow. This serves not just as an homage to the original Norse myth, but is also a CallBack to Shiryu's weak point, as Siegfried's God Warrior Cloth is based on another famous dragon, Fafnir, and it was Shiryu himself who recognized Siegfried's weak spot.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Shun's Master wins this hands down with seven different names. No wonder nobody remembers him.
** In the Manga: Daidaros, Daidalos, Didaros
** In the Anime: Albiore, Alviore, Albione, Albion

* FullFrontalAssault: Seiya and Saori/Athena in Tenkai Hen (5th movie) against [[spoiler: Apollo], albeit with BarbieDollAnatomy.

* DeathAsGameMechanics: The 3D games made by Creator/BandaiNamco and Dimps (''Chronicles'', ''Brave Soldiers'' and ''Soldiers' Soul'') have the option to revive for a last battle after being defeated, in which just like in the series, the fallen Saint is on the ground and the spirit of Goddess Athena (Saori Kiddo) as well someone loved by the Saint encourage him/her to get up and continue living, with the player smashing buttons to make energy to the Saint can get up. If the player achieves it, the Saint comes back to the battle with a portion of energy to finish the battle. But if it's beaten again, the mashing buttons would be harder in the next intent until the Saint can't get up again.

* FullFrontalAssault: Seiya and Saori/Athena in Tenkai Hen (5th movie) against [[spoiler: Apollo]].

The story of the original manga is continued by Kuramada in ''Manga/SaintSeiyaNextDimension'', which (thanks to TimeTravel) simultaneously acts as a sequel and prequel to the original story.

** Shiryu's Ultimate Dragon, which is basically a [[TakingYouDownWithMe suicide strike]] that flings himself and his opponent ''into space'' where they'll be burnt up by the atmosphere.

** In an interview in the Japanese magazine "June" Kurumada promised to create a character with the name of the magazine. Soon after, Chameleon June made her appearance.

* OedipusComplex: Cygnus Hyoga with his dead frozen mother Natasha. Who, for worse, died to ''save'' him when he was a little boy. He's had ShipTease with two girls on the anime and in the first movie, [[HasAType and both of them]] are blonde {{nice girl}}s like Natasha.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

** Seiya, Hyoga and Shiryu had quite different personalities in the first chapters of the manga: Seiya was more of a rebel and DeadpanSnarker, often talking back to Saori and even refusing to fight for her at first when she reveals to be Athena; Hyoga was meaner and more morally ambiguous, having actually been sent by the Sanctuary to kill the Bronze Saints. Notably, the Black Swan's reveal in the manga was played out as a suspense over whether it was Hyoga himself enacting his plan to kill the other Bronze Saints or another Saint with similar powers.

** Across most of the ''Saint Seiya'' media, the Pegasus Saint is treated mostly as Athena's personal protector and right hand.

** An exception to the rule would be Phoenix Ikki, who is the first ever Phoenix Saint.

** The manga designs of the Saints' Cloths were initially markedly basic and boxy, this being the reason why the Cloths for the Bronze Saints (and not just the main five) were redesigned for the anime to be more sleeker and appealing to the eye, and hence more marketable. Albeit those barely look like armor, the cloths in the manga [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/saintseiya/images/0/09/Pegasus_Cloth1design.jpg didn't even have shanks or foot coverings.]]

* EightiesHair: Athena's Army. Half of the Golds have mullets (and the mullet Ikki sports in his initial appearance is ''breathtaking''). The Amazons and the [[DudeLooksLikeALady beautiful Saints]] have big hair.
** As the series got older, the EightiesHair became less prominent with Mariners and Specters sporting shorter hair cuts, and even the occasional crewcut (but they would still try to even out with a rat-tail, to varying success). The sequel ''Manga/SaintSeiyaNextDimension'' finally phased it out with straighter, shorter hair (for the new characters at least).

** Seiya and Hyoga had quite different personalities in the first chapters of the manga: Seiya was more of a rebel and DeadpanSnarker, often talking back to Saori and even refusing to fight for her at first when she reveals to be Athena, and Hyoga was meaner and more morally ambiguous, having actually been sent by the Sanctuary to kill the Bronze Saints. Notably, the Black Swan's reveal in the manga was played out as a suspense over whether it was Hyoga himself enacting his plan to kill the other Bronze Saints or another Saint with similar powers.

* ProductDeliveryOrdeal: During the Poseidon arc, Kiki travels all over the dominion of Poseidon while carring the heavy golden Pandora's Box on his back to deliver the parts of Libra's armor to the Bronze Saints, because these parts can be used as weapons to destroy the seven pillars. The delivery is not only very taxing for him (who is only 8 years old), but also makes him a vulnearble target for Poseidon's Generals, [[WouldHurtAChild including Kraken Isaac]].

*** Shun's master being killed by a Gold Saint actually appeared first in the anime. The manga author then borrowed the idea, except he changed Milo to Aphrodite. Since Shun seeking revenge against Aphrodite is important to the plot, the anime team was forced to create a convoluted explanation.

*** You could however give him some slack seeing that :
*** The Gold Saints seem to be stationed at the Temples during war times when expecting invaders (as per the Poseidon arc), and the rest of the time they are shown to not be wearing their Gold Cloth all the time (Aiolia himself being an example)
*** Sure, one might guess there could be a total of 12 Gold Saints, but not how many are active at a time. Case in point, Mu who left the Sanctuary and refused to answer summons, Saga who went AWOL 13 years ago and the Old Master, who is so long-lived his existence is shrouded in legend for the current generation.

* AdaptationalBadass: Centaurus Babel in the anime. In the manga, he faces Hyoga alone at the beach and is easily defeated. In the anime, he attacks all the Bronze Saints at the ruins of the Coliseum and gives them a hard time, and Hyoga only beats him with the help of the Steel Saints. [[spoiler:Oddly crosses into AdaptationalNiceGuy, as after the fight, Babel gets a kind-of "redemption" by accepting Saori as Athena, which does not happen in the manga.]]

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Hyoga was much meaner and arrogant in the manga (although he gradually mellows out towards the end of the Sanctuary Arc), and only entered the Galaxian Wars tournament to [[spoiler:kill the Bronze Saints by orders of the Sanctuary]]. A lot of his harshness was dialed down in the anime, and in there he enters the tournament for sport [[spoiler:and has no intention of murdering anyone]].

* AllMythsAreTrue[=/=]CrossoverCosmology: Saori/Athena and her fellow Greek Gods have various other mythological pantheons' heroes or figures as servants or rivals, and their followers are completely free to worship competing religions. For example...

* BandOfBrothers: The Bronze Saints in the Anime.

* BearsAreBadNews: Hyoga's harsh training. Every time you see him, he or Crystal Saint are out wrestling and testing moves with bears. ''Polar'' bears. (Though amusingly, the anime at one point shows him happily visiting the polar bears at a zoo, so apparently there were no hard feelings.)

* CainAndAbel: It looked like Ikki and Shun would become this, and they ''were'' in the beginning, but ultimately Ikki pulled a HeelFaceTurn and subverted this. Kanon and Saga (and in the anime, [[spoiler: Sid and Bud]]), on the other hand... [[spoiler:However, Kanon eventually inherits (with Saga's blessing) the Gemini Cloth, and wears it in his brother's name and for his own redemption.]]

* CastFullOfPrettyBoys: ... Come ON.
** Well, there are some {{Gonk}}s here and there to counterbalance...

* ClothingDamage: Constantly done in the manga to visually demonstrate the heroes' struggle and the enemies' defeat -- the anime does it to a much lesser extent, since its MerchandiseDriven nature means that the closer the main characters stay faithful to their toys, the better. In pretty much every manga battle, the heroes' clothing will end up dirty, bloodied and/or slashed to go with their bruises... However, in the rare cases that it doesn't happen, it's an obvious indicator of the enemy's [[{{Mooks}} absolute pushover]] status.

* DisabilitySuperPower: Whenever Shiryu becomes blind, he learns to compensate for it but gets no extra powers out of the deal. In the manga, however, Dohko mentions that Shiryu's cosmos is stronger due to his blindness when he strikes Deathmask in their first bout; in their second encounter, Shiryu awakening (briefly) to the Seventh Sense while in the Underworld is what allows him to restore his eyesight when he returns to the land of the living.
** DisabilityImmunity: On the other hand, it granted him protection from certain techniques. [[InvokedTrope When he blinded himself]] during his duel with Algol, it was to avoid [[TakenForGranite getting petrified by his Medusa's Shield]]. And later on, he avoided being fooled by Gemini Temple's illusion, allowing him and Seiya to find the exit of it.

* DoomsdayClock: Standing close to the Twelve Zodiac Houses is a tower whose clock has blue flames where the numbers would normally be. When Athena gets hit by a cursed arrow, [[ExactTimeToFailure the flames tell how many hours remain until the arrow pierces the heart of the wounded goddess]]. Once every hour, one flame is extinguished, so the main characters have only twelve hours to travel through the twelve houses, defeat the Gold Saints patrolling said houses, and convince the head honcho to remove the arrow from Athena's chest. In the end, [[spoiler:all twelve flames in the clock disappear, but Seiya manages to point Athena's Shield in her direction, lifting the curse and the arrow - in the manga it even makes Saga's evil side leave his body like it was some kind of ghostly possession]].

* GenreSavvy: In the Hades Chapter Inferno anime, Orpheus brings a giant box of flowers to Hades. Pandora is suspicious enough to stab them six or seven times to make sure no one is inside. [[spoiler:She's right, but Shun and Seiya manage not to be badly hurt and don't react to the attack. We are also told afterwards that Shun covered for Seiya with his body, as we see Pandora tend to Hades' body once he possesses Shun.]]

* InTheEndYouAreOnYourOwn: Usually, Seiya's closest allies spend themselves unto death opening the path for him to reach the final baddie. At best, they [[TakeUpMySword send their combined Cosmo to him]] to provide a much-needed power boost when ''he'' almost croaks against the enemy, but by then they're already too battered and beaten to physically join the fight, and Seiya must deal with it alone.
** An exception happens in the Poseidon Arc, where Shiryu and Hyoga are still strong enough to physically toss Seiya into the Main Breadwinner and end Poseidon's plot, so the climactic event was an honest team effort. Dealing with the god himself, though, was still Athena's duty all on her lonesome.
* IntimateHealing: After Hyoga is released from an ice coffin but is nearly dead from the cold, so Shun burns his [[LifeEnergy cosmo]] while lying with Hyouga in his arms in order to revive him. Cue to LOTS of HoYay-tinted squealing coming from the EstrogenBrigade (can't fully blame them, though).
** This level of intimacy happens only in the anime (where the animators made sure to slide in an AlmostKiss as [[http://eltigris.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/shun-hyoga.jpg Shun lays down in the floor with Hyoga]]). In the manga, Shun just kneels beside Hyoga and [[http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6wok7KHlf1r8rwe9o1_250.jpg lifts him up]].
* ItOnlyWorksOnce: Supposedly, an attack won't work again on a saint (and on a god warrior, a mariner, a specter and...) by a second time. It's less a fact and more like a saint and variants getting used to the opponent's power.
** Hypothetically, each saint can adapt to any other saint's attack and defend against it. ''However;'' quite a few {{pride}}ful antagonists would show off their entire repertoire at [[IAmNotLeftHanded low power]] and act shocked, ''shocked!'' that the bronzies had found a way to defend against or exploit it. Most villains paired it with an AdaptiveAbility. It's worth noting that in later arcs some attacks had little or no defense, and enemies could use them repeatedly against each other.

** Saori with the five Saints. However, Seiya was the most vehement in his devotion to her and had the most BodyguardCrush ovetones as well, while the others's bonds to her [[PlatonicLifePartners were more platonic/brotherly than anything.]] The saints were actually named "knights" in a lot of Westerner dubbing.
*** In the anime, Jabu wants to be Athena's personal "Knight" ''badly'' due to having a BodyguardCrush on her ever since they were kids. Sadly, this isn't touched upon later.

* LimitedWardrobe: The Bronze Saints have three base outfits - civvies, civvies minus shirt, and civvies plus Bronze Cloth. Saori spends most of her time in the same dress.

* LonelyRichKid: When she grew up, Saori became one of these before she turned out to be a MessianicArchetype. Also, Julian Solo [[spoiler: until Poseidon took over him.]]

** Shiryu always claims that the Dragon Shield is indestructible; [[TheWorfEffect yet it tends to break constantly]] (not in every fight, but still...) Though it was able to resist Excalibur. Once. Nothing else can even hope to do something like that.
* LukeIAmYourFather: Subverted: [[spoiler: No, Seiya, Marin is NOT your long-lost older sister. Her brother Touma is one of your enemies and your true sister grew up into a WaifProphet.]]

** [[spoiler:It's probable that Mr. Kido was a frequent sperm donor, and arranged for the women to be impregnated with the kids at ''just'' the right time.]] Contrived? Yeah, but at least it makes a semblance of sense... at least way more than the guy, who was already old, marathonically porking for a year and a half ''at least''.

* PunchClockVillain: While some are evil or have personal reasons, most of the Saints sent by the Sanctuary to kill Saori and her group are only aware that they revealed the existence of the Sanctuary to the world and her Saints broke the Sanctuary's law when they wielded their Cloths for personal reasons in the Galaxian Wars. Notably, in the manga the first assassin was ''Hyoga'', who had been sent before Saga found out what he was really dealing with.

** Libra Dohko: an old man of more than 250 years old that walks using a stick (and that's actually an {{expy}} of StarWars Yoda), can be even more badass than any of the younger Saints. Not to mention that [[spoiler:he actually hides his young shape intact, shelled inside his old body, ready to use if it becomes necessary. That GodzillaThreshold is reached in the Hades chapter.]]

** Not to mention the Gold Saints, who all looked to be in their Mid 20s at least, yet when their ages were revealed only a few of them are past 20, with the oldest among them (Saga) being 28, in particular Aioros who looks to be in his 30s, and has one of the [[BadassBaritone deepest voices]] you'll hear was only 14 [[spoiler:when he died]], and [[BigGuy Big Guy]] Aldebaran being only 20, despite looking to be in his Late 30s-40s. This was most likely due to the author [[DidntThinkThisThrough not thinking that much]] about it given the discrepancies caused to certain plot points.

* WhipItGood: Chameleon June, with a dominatrix-styled Cloth to go with it, though her BrokenBird personality isn't the usual type for this type.
** Balrog Lune and his signature "Fire Whip".

* WhatAnIdiot: Invoked in-universe by Ikki during the Poseidon Arc. Lyumnades Kaza had the power of ShapeShifting into people and he shapeshifted into Shun... Ikki punched a hole through his chest and when Kaza wondered why he didn't fall for it, Ikki explains:
-->''What an idiot. The real Shun is right here in front of my eyes. You picked the wrong person to morph.''

* StarPower: It's built on this early on, with both heroes and villains taking their powers from a constellation (From Pegasus Seiya to Gemini Saga). Later enemies have other sources for their powers, though.

* SociallyUnnacceptableCollection: Cancer Deathmask has the walls and the floor of his temple full with the heads of the people he killed, including children. Shiryu decides to put an end on that when Seiya describes the place for him.

Wishing to repeat their success with ''Anime/SailorMoon'', the series was licensed and dubbed in English as ''Knights of the Zodiac'' (which is actually the name the series has in most of the world outside Japan) by Creator/DICEntertainment and shown on Creator/CartoonNetwork, but the plot and characters [[{{Macekre}} didn't receive very good treatment]]. It wasn't very popular, and only 32 of the 40 dubbed episodes aired. Creator/ADVFilms would later re-release the series on DVD with a new, much more faithful dub (note the page image), but they only had the license up to episode 60 due to it being the last episode that [=DiC=] had sub-licensed to them. In 2014, New Video Group released the complete Sanctuary arc in its subbed form, but even ''that'' flopped as well. Eventually, in October 2019, Netflix began streaming the series with subs and a new English dub produced by Creator/SentaiFilmworks, featuring cast members from [[Anime/SaintSeiyaKnightsOfTheZodiac the 2019 CGI reboot series]]. This dub finally reached the end of the series in 2020. However, the series was permanently [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes removed from the service]] on December 14, 2021. In the lead up to [[Film/KnightsOfTheZodiac the live-action Hollywood film adaptation of the series]], the Sentai dub reappeared on Crunchyroll on April 21, 2023, misleadingly promoted as a "remastered" dub.

* '''Cygnus Hyoga''' ''[[AnIcePerson (Ice)]]'': Despite being a more-or-less devout Christian, he wholeheartedly helped Athena... yeah, good thing the setting was into CrossoverCosmology. He's also recognized by WordOfGod to be the smartest Bronze Saint. Notorious for his Oedipus complex.

Wishing to repeat their success with ''Anime/SailorMoon'', the series was licensed and dubbed in English as ''Knights of the Zodiac'' (which is actually the name the series has in most of the world outside Japan) by Creator/DICEntertainment and shown on Creator/CartoonNetwork, but the plot and characters [[{{Macekre}} didn't receive very good treatment]]. It wasn't very popular, and only 32 of the 40 dubbed episodes aired. Creator/ADVFilms would later re-release the series on DVD with a new, much more faithful dub (note the page image), but they only had the license up to episode 60 due to it being the last episode that [=DiC=] had sub-licensed to them. In 2014, New Video Group released the complete Sanctuary arc in its subbed form, but even ''that'' flopped as well. Eventually, in October 2019, Netflix began streaming the series with subs and a new English dub produced by Creator/SentaiFilmworks, featuring cast members from [[Anime/SaintSeiyaKnightsOfTheZodiac the 2019 CGI reboot series]]. This dub finally reached the end of the series in 2020. However, the series was permanently [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes removed from the service]] on December 14, 2021. In the lead up to [[Film/KnightsOfTheZodiac the live-action Hollywood adaptation of the series]], the Sentai dub reappeared on Crunchyroll on April 21, 2023, misleadingly promoted as a "remastered" dub.

Wishing to repeat their success with ''Anime/SailorMoon'', the series was licensed and dubbed in English as ''Knights of the Zodiac'' (which is actually the name the series has in most of the world outside Japan) by Creator/DICEntertainment and shown on Creator/CartoonNetwork, but the plot and characters [[{{Macekre}} didn't receive very good treatment]]. It wasn't very popular, and only 32 of the 40 dubbed episodes aired. Creator/ADVFilms would later re-release the series on DVD with a new, much more faithful dub (note the page image), but they only had the license up to episode 60 due to it being the last episode that [=DiC=] had sub-licensed to them. In 2014, New Video Group released the complete Sanctuary arc in its subbed form, but even ''that'' flopped as well. Eventually, in October 2019, Netflix began streaming the series with a new English dub produced by Creator/SentaiFilmworks. This dub finally reached the end of the series in 2020. However, the series was permanently [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes removed from the service]] on December 14, 2021.