History YMMV / SaintSeiya

* GainaxEnding: Because the Tenkai-Hen trilogy got scrapped after the first movie due to Kurumada taking issue with the corporate oversight on his story, the ending of ''Overture'' accidentally became this. A majority of its screentime is dedicated to setup (the Gold Saints being petrified in a stone pillar, introducing [[OurAngelsAreDifferent ancient greek heroes as enforcers of the gods]], not too mention finally touching upon the threat of Heaven towards Earth by Saga and Kanon during their {{Motive Rant}}s), resolving the aftermath of the Hades arc, and [[AlwaysABiggerFish introducing a new existential threat in the Olympians]]... only for the finale of the movie to end on Apollo having seemingly wiped everyone's memories as some sort of CruelMercy. The dissapointment and eternal blue-balling with no further Saint Seiya movies since then has permeated the community ever since.

* BadassDecay: Regardless of how powerful a Bronze Saint is, expect him to turn into an underdog in the next arc until they remember the 7th Sense.

* AmericansHateTingle: Despite the popularity of [[FightingSeries Nekketsu]] {{Shonen}} manga in English-speaking countries, the USA in particular; the series failed to replicate the success it obtained in Latin America and Europe. This is usually blamed on the fact that it took until ''2003'' to bring it over (the violent content made it difficult to import), [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny by which point any potential viewers were not hooked]] (partially due to other anime like ''Anime/RoninWarriors'' that were directly inspired by it having been dubbed into English several years earlier, resulting in people mistaking SS/KOTZ as a rip-off). Notably, even Discotek won't touch the series (or any other Kurumada anime) because their sub-only [=DVDs=] for the movies and ''The Lost Canvas'' bombed hard, even for their niche standards. However, there are quite a few dedicated English-speaking fans who consider the series to be underrated and bemoan its lack of popularity in the English-speaking Anime fandom.

** Shun, due to the anime (in the filler stories) and non-canon movies' trend to [[AdaptationalWimp make him weaker]] than in the manga and often need to be saved by his big brother Ikki.

** The secondary Bronze saints are often the target of mockery by the fandom, due their WeAreTeamCannonFodder role in the story. Jabu, in particular, is often compared to Yamcha from Manga/DragonBall.

* RecycledScript: The fandom sees Athena as repetitive DamselScrappy in every single arc. Shun is often need of helped from Ikki while is always somehow the one standing thanks teamups and or improved Clothes. If it wasn't enough, even the soundtrack is reused in both the Poseidon and twice in the Hades arc. Now ready all these cliches four times and we have four movies with the same content
* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: While Deathmask and Aphrodite were criticized for their poorly performance in the main series (specially during Hades Arc, where they got hit by TheWorfEffect twice in a row), they reception improved after pulling a HeelFaceTurn and helping the other Gold Saints to destroy the Wailing Wall; they were also better received in sequels, like ''Manga/SaintSeiyaEpisodeG'', ''[[Manga/SaintSeiyaEpisodeGAssassin G: Assassin]]'', ''[[Anime/SaintSeiyaSoulOfGold Soul of Gold]]'' and ''Manga/SaintiaSho'' thanks to a better characterization, and for faring better during fights.
* SeasonalRot: The anime started losing popularity during The Filler arc Asgard. It was a ToughActToFollow considering the previous arc received Sanctuary arc. The fact that Michi Himeno replaced Shingo Araki as character designer wasn't the problem. The issue was that most fights became quite longer and there was a lot of screen time focused on the enemies' backstories which would become pointless considering everybody dies in contrast to the Gold Saints who remained as mysterious yet popular characters with some of them still being prominent in later arcs
* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: While the series was pretty popular and influential in its heyday, overall many of the battle manga that have come since then have taken elements from it and improved upon them. As such, it's not uncommon for modern viewers coming to it for the first time to find it lacking and simplistic in comparison to modern battle manga in terms of storytelling, characterization and fights, not helped by Masami Kurumada's fairly dated art (the anime helps with the visuals, but does little to address other issues). This is also probably at least part of the reason why it never managed to get a foothold in the anglosphere, as the anime only made it to US shores in ''2003'' (airing on TV in a ''heavily'' censored version), more than 15 years after the series originally came out. In fact, one of the series directly inspired by Seiya- ''Anime/RoninWarriors'' had aired in the U.S. almost a full decade before Seiya did, originally airing in syndication in 1995 and then airing on Toonami in 1999 and getting high ratings, making it easy for casual viewers to dismiss ''Seiya'' as a rip-off.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Aioros could have been revived as a specter. The man barely shows up in ''Saint Seiya'' anyway besides flashbacks, and this would have been an excellent way to see him in action alongside the boy who eventually inherits his Gold Cloth. Hammering it home is the fact that ''Shion'', Mu's predecessor as the Aries Saint and the previous Sanctuary Pope before the Ares-possessed Saga usurped and murdered him (having therefore died before the story kicks off properly), appears in this exact capacity.

* GainaxEnding: Because the Tenkai-Hen trilogy got scrapped after the first movie due to Kuramada taking issue with the corporate oversight on his story, the ending of ''Overture'' accidentally became this. A majority of its screentime is dedicated to setup (the Gold Saints being petrified in a stone pillar, introducing [[OurAngelsAreDifferent ancient greek heroes as enforcers of the gods]], not too mention finally touching upon the threat of Heaven towards Earth by Saga and Kanon during their {{Motive Rant}}s), resolving the aftermath of the Hades arc, and [[AlwaysABiggerFish introducing a new existential threat in the Olympians]]... only for the finale of the movie to end on Apollo having seemingly wiped everyone's memories as some sort of CruelMercy. The dissapointment and eternal blue-balling with no further Saint Seiya movies since then has permeated the community ever since.

** Whenever Seiya or another character get their asses kickced, expect a flashback involving an overpowered technique or a tactic to beat the villain.
** Expect inconsesistence in the pass of time in the Twelve Temples. Some characters appear out of nowhere, meaning they somehow beat the guardians too.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lve1pua5QVM "Pegasus Fantasy"]], the first opening and most well-known song of the series with multiple versions.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJjw2gGvZG8 "Soldier Dream"]] is pretty awesome, too. It's also reused for ''Anime/SaintSeiyaSoulOfGold''.
** The whole OST is one of the greatest milestones of the anime music industry and arguably composer Seiji Yokoyama's magnum opus, jam-packed with everything from butt-rock insert songs to somber and majestic themes that are always timed ''just'' right to punch you in the heartstrings. To give an idea of its popularity in Japan, it was one of the first soundtracks to be released not with traditional J-Pop songs, ''just the background music''.
** The original English localization ''Knights of the Zodiac'' features a cover of "[[Music/AFlockOfSeagulls I Ran (So Far Away)]]" performed by Music/BowlingForSoup. Inexplicable? Probably. Kickass regardless? Absolutely.

* GainaxEnding: Because the Tenkai-Hen trilogy got scrapped after the first movie due to Kuramada taking issue with the corporate oversight on his story, the ending of ''Overture'' accidentally became this. A majority of it's screentime is dedicated to setup (the Gold Saints being petrified in a stone pillar, introducing [[OurAngelsAreDifferent ancient greek heroes as enforcers of the gods]], not too mention finally touching upon the threat of Heaven towards Earth by Saga and Kanon during their {{Motive Rant}}s), resolving the aftermath of the Hades arc, and [[AlwaysABiggerFish introducing a new existential threat in the Olympians]]... only for the finale of the movie to end on Apollo having seemingly wiped everyone's memories as some sort of CruelMercy. The dissapointment and eternal blue-balling with no further Saint Seiya movies since then has permeated the community ever since.

* Asspull:

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Most of the [[DudeLooksLikeALady dudes who look like ladies]], most notably [[GenderBlenderName Aphrodite, Misty]] (who even wear lipstick in the anime), Shun (whose [[RealMenWearPink pink armor]] doesn't help) and Sorrento (whose armor has a quite long skirt which doesn't help either). But there is an easy way to decide whether that character is male or female: Are they not wearing a mask? Are they wearing pants and shirt instead of LeotardOfPower and ChainmailBikini? Are they flat-chested instead of [[BoobsOfSteel well-endowed]]? Are they speaking in male voice? If all of your answers are "yes", congratulations, the character in question is a guy.

** Even the DiC dub had it's moments, for example originally when Ikki is being trained by Guilty and gets angry at his daughter Esmerelda for interfering, he attempts to goad Ikki into giving into his rage(which Esmerelda was discouraging him from doing much to Guilty's anger)and [[spoiler: ends up inadvertently killing her which finally makes Ikki snap and kill Guilty in rage]]. Whereas in the dub it's said [[spoiler: that she survived but was so horrified by Ikki giving into his anger that she ran off in terror, there's something tragically poetic about Ikki alienating someone he cared about through giving into his violent urges]].

* EstrogenBrigade: ''Saint Seiya'' is the ''original'' {{Bishounen}} [[FightingSeries battle shounen]]. The amount of [[YaoiFangirl fujoshi]] doujin written for it is absolutely immesurable.

* FriendlyFandoms: In the late 2010's/early 2020's, ''Saint Seiya'' grew a minor overlap with ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', thanks to the characters from that franchise having an 80's flair in their designs (Most noticeably with the Judgral characters) and the designs of the armor in ''Saint Seiya'' not looking too out of place in ''Fire Emblem'', as well as both franchises also drawing inspiration from various European mythologies, most notably Norse Mythos.

* GainaxEnding: Because the Tenkai-Hen trilogy got scrapped after the first movie due to Kuramada taking issue with the corporate oversight on his story, the ending of ''Overture'' accidentally became this. A majority of it's screentime is dedicated to setup, resolving the aftermath of the Hades arc, and [[AlwaysABiggerFish introducing a new existential threat in the Olympians]]... only for the finale of the movie to end on Apollo having seemingly wiped everyone's memories as some sort of CruelMercy. The dissapointment and eternal blue-balling with no further Saint Seiya movies since then has permeated the community ever since.

** ''Saint Sea Hat''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjteR9DEMOA]], courtesy of the one and only Buffalax. This resulted in an ''expanded'' version with WebAnimation/{{animutation}}-like visuals by Jezero[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppXvvEL2A_Q]] and a French version called ''C'est une Creator/{{Sega}}!''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWghZ-Vg4pY]]

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Kurumada was on a tight schedule, and had trouble finding ideas for his manga's next chapter. Worst examples? In the manga, after Hyoga kills Babel, the serialized chapter has him say "We will keep on fighting... even if we have to take down Athena!". Next chapter? Saori introduced as Athena. The compiled volume replaces it with "...until our flame burns out".

** Also in the anime, Saori wakes up more or less unharmed in the middle of the canyon [[spoiler: that she and Seiya threw themselves into in a SuicidalGotcha]] and sees Seiya lying unconscious not too far from her. Then she goes to him, which is okay... except that there's a cheesy J-Pop ballad by Creator/MitsukoHorie as BackgroundMusic.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Seriously, Julian? Are you leaving the amphora right next to Saori? Wasn't there a better place to hide like [[SarcasmMode under your pillow?]]
** At the end of the Sanctuary arc, when Seiya finally makes it to the Pope's temple, he sees that the Pope is begging Seiya to hurry on ahead to Athena's temple to get her shield.
*** You'd Expect: For Seiya to listen to him and go. As Athena has less than an hour to live and with everyone else incapacitated, he's the only hope she has of living.
*** Instead: He just stands in place, despite the Pope ''begging him to ignore him and go''.
*** Even Worse: Once he finally decides to get going, he walks as slowly as he can.
*** As A Result: [[spoiler: the Pope undergoes his SplitPersonalityTakeover and very nearly kills Seiya]].
** And yet again during the Asgard Arc, Seiya has the Balmung sword and is in a prime position to get the Nibelung Ring off of Hilda
*** You'd Expect: For him to try and cut the ring off of her finger, or do anything to get it off of her. With Athena's Cosmo almost completely run dry, he has no time to waste.
*** Instead: Urgent isn't anywhere ''close'' to being in Seiya's vocabulary as he suddenly becomes hung up on accidentally hurting her or killing her, despite him literally aknowledging that Athena's Cosmo is almost out.
*** As A Result: [[spoiler: Hilda lands a near fatal blow on Seiya. This leads to Athena's Cosmo running out, resulting in her death, and the world starts to end. It's only through Hilda's brainwashing being broken that the world is narrowly saved]].

* GainaxEnding: Because the Tenkai-Hen trilogy got scrapped after the first movie due to Kuramada taking issue with the corporate oversight on his story, the ending of ''Overture'' accidentally became this. A majority of it's screentime is dedicated to setup, resolving the aftermath of the Hades arc, and [[AlwaysABiggerFish introducing a new existential threat in the Olympians]]... only for the finale of the movie to end on Apollo having seemingly wiped everyone's memories as some sort of CruelMercy. The dissapointment and eternal blue-balling with no further Saint Seiya movies since then has permeated the community ever since.

** Wyvern Rhadamanthys is perhaps the most powerful of Hades three Judges of the [[Characters/SaintSeiyaSpectres Underworld]]. [[ProperlyParanoid Distrusting]] the revived Gold Saints, Rhadamanthys sends a secret force of Spectres to attack Sanctuary behind his superior Pandora's back and lures three Gold Saints to a trap where their powers are reduced so he can easily defeat them. When the Bronze Saints team up with the supposed defector Lyre Orphee, Rhadamanthys is the only one to block his binding music and deals him a fatal blow. Forming an enmity with Kanon, Rhadamanthys is able to even go head to head with the Gold Saint, showcasing himself as one of the mightiest and most intelligent generals in all of Hades' army.

** Gemini Saga is a man who had wrested with the evil in his heart his whole life. After murdering the Pope and taking his place, Saga frames the pure-hearted Gold Saint Sagittarius Aiolos for his attempted murder of baby Athena and has him mortally wounded, ruling Sanctuary for thirteen years with almost nobody the wiser. Having his forces close in on Athena, Saga later recovers his goodness and ends his own life to atone for his misdeeds. Later revived by Hades, Saga turns out to deceive Hades the whole time to free Athena from mortal constraints and gives his life to help Seiya and the other Saints.
** Virgo Shaka is known as the Man Closest to God. A living Buddha, Shaka is known as perhaps the mightiest Gold Saint and one of the craftiest. Effortlessly outplaying Leo Aiolia, Shaka controls his mind to send him to fight the Bronze Saints and later faces Phoenix Ikki as a skillful fighter. When the revived Gold Saints come to Sanctuary, Shaka effortlessly defeats Hades' Spectres and then allows his own end at the hands of the revived Saga, Shura and Camus to send his soul to aid Athena to the end.

** Sea Dragon Kanon is the twin brother of Saga, the leader of Poseidon's Mariners who helped to awaken Poseidon to manipulate him and the Mariners in flooding the world. Using them as his secret army to help pave his own road to world domination, Kanon later repents and inherits his brother's mantle as "Gemini" Kanon, ultimately proving an invaluable ally who infiltrates the underworld to help stop Hades and dies a loyal Saint of Athena in a suicide attack against one of Hades' top minions.
** Wyvern Rhadamanthys is perhaps the most powerful of Hades three Judges of the Underworld. Distrusting the revived Gold Saints, Rhadamanthys sends a secret force of Spectres to attack Sanctuary behind his superior Pandora's back and lures three Gold Saints to a trap where their powers are reduced so he can easily defeat them. When the Bronze Saints team up with the supposed defector Lyre Orphee, Rhadamanthys is the only one to block his binding music and deals him a fatal blow. Forming an enmity with Kanon, Rhadamanthys is able to even go head to head with the Gold Saint, showcasing himself as one of the mightiest and most intelligent generals in all of Hades' army.

* AdaptationDisplacement: Fanarts depicting the Saints with their [[AdaptationDyeJob anime hair colors]] are waaay easier to find than fanarts having them in their manga hair colors. The anime hair colors are so iconic, they ended up becoming the ''actual'' hair colors of the characters in ''Manga/SaintSeiyaTheLostCanvas''.