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Athena
Saori Kido - Athena
Voiced By: Keiko Han (1986-2004 JP), Fumiko Orikasa (2005-Present JP), Inori Minase (2018 Saintia Sho JP), Stacey Depass (DiC EN), Allison Sumrall (ADV EN), Emily Neves (Sentai/Netflix EN), Virginie Ledieu (FR), María Fernanda Morales (Latin America)
- Adaptational Heroism: In classical myth, Athena was just as cruel and petty as the other gods of Olympus. Here, she's the Big Good and the protector of humanity.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Her hair is light brown in the original manga, the anime changed it to purple.
- Asleep for Days: She sometimes pulls this. The most notorious instance taking place as she keeps herself in a sort-of sleeping state for 12 hours after being shot by the golden arrow in the Sanctuary arc.
- Barrier Maiden: She frequently stood in this position. In the Asgard (anime only) and Poseidon arcs, she uses her goddess' powers to delay Princess Hilda and Poseidon from flooding the planet and killing humanity. The effort was usually such a strain on her that it was a race against the clock for the saints to battle their enemies before time ran out and Saori died.
- Batman Gambit: In the manga, at the end of the Hades Saga, Hades revealed that Athena willingly allowed Hypnos to put her into the jar in order to make him confident enough to come out of his tomb. The one thing she didn't bank on was Hades still being able to take her on. Luckily, Seiya was there.
- Benevolent Boss: She does whatever she can to support her Saints in both battle and otherwise (such as subtly suggesting that Seiya spend some alone time with Miho in the Sanctuary arc). She also considers the loss of any of them to be more painful than an arrow through her heart, and this is Not Hyperbole, because at the time there really was an arrow going through her heart.
- Betty and Veronica: In a way, she is both the Betty and the Veronica to Seiya's Archie. She's the Veronica to Miho's Betty, Whereas she's the Betty to Shaina's Veronica. Keep in mind, Seiya and Saori really only have been ship teased as opposed to actually becoming a couple.
- Big Good: Athena is the goddess of wisdom, defensive war, strategy, justice and hope. According to the Hyper-Myth, she's the goddess who inherited dominion over Earth from Zeus (her real father). Athena reincarnates once every 200 years, to prevent evil from dominating the world and is the symbol of justice for all Saints.
- Characterization Marches On: In the beginning, Saori was a selfish girl and frequently kind of a jerk to the other Saints, quite pointedly telling the five Bronzes that they needed to keep serving her as her entourage even though they wanted no part in it (at first). It's a little jarring to see that from the Sanctuary arc on, she's one of the most noble and good characters in the series.
- Courtly Love: In the anime only, It's heavily implied that she and Seiya are in love with each other, but have resigned themselves to their respective roles.
- Damsel in Distress: Often her role in the story is to be kidnapped or offering herself as a hostage to save her friends (again).
- Deity of Human Origin: Played with. One of the things that characterizes her is the fact that, while being Athena incarnate, she is no less Saori at the same time. Unlike other gods, Athena and Saori are one individual with no divisions. This contrasts the Split Personality examples shown on Poseidon, who effectively takes over his host Julian Solo with no shared memories, and Hades, whose hosts effectively lose all of their personality.
- Depending on the Writer: In the original story, Saori is a spoiled heiress that later humbles down, but in the subsequent animations reimagining the story, she is always portrayed as a nice, demure girl with a mellow personality. This is a result of
Alternative Character Interpretation and Adaptational Nice Guy. - Depending on the Artist: In the original anime, Saori has brown eyes. In the sequels of the anime, and in the manga she has green eyes.
- De-power: In Next Dimension she gets turned into a baby, loses the God Cloth and becomes completely defenseless against her enemies, requiring help from Virgo Shijima to stay alive. She does age a little bit and takes some levels in badass later.
- Determinator: While the Saints fight, she's the one that hangs on for dear life with all her might in order to prevent the world from being destroyed. On top of that, even with her hands occupied, she still finds the way to help them overcome the obstacles they face.
- Dub Name Change:
- Princess Sienna in the Knights of the Zodiac dub and American translation of the manga.
- Known as "Lady Isabel" in the Italian Dub.
- Dude Magnet: She gets the attention of three guys: Seiya, Jabu (anime only) and Julian Solo/Poseidon.
- Expy: If Seiya is inspired by Joe Yabuki, Saori would be Yaouko Shiraki.
- First-Name Basis: The Bronze Saints (mostly Seiya) often refer to her as "Saori-san".
- A Friend in Need: Next Dimension starts with her intending to save Seiya for all of what he did for her.
- Giant Poofy Sleeves: Her dress before the Asgard arc.
- God in Human Form: Unlike Poseidon or Hades, who possess the bodies of humans, Athena descends from heaven in a human body in order to be raised among them as a sign of her love for humanity. The manga made her aware of this, but in the anime she was just as surprised by that revelation as the Bronze Saints were.
- Gorgeous Greek: Saori is noted to be beautiful by other people in several instances.
- The Heart: The guiding light of the bronze saints.
- Honorary Princess: Saori-ojousama is often translated "Princess Athena"; even if, as Athena 's reincarnation, Saori is actually royalty. Then again, Athena is an actual Ojou, and in mythology the daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods.
- Important Hair Cut: She used her hair to barter with Hecate in Next Dimension.
- Healing Hands: Extremely good at healing.
- I Am Who?: In the anime, she has no idea that she's the reincarnation of Athena until the plot kicks off.
- It's Personal: She'll put herself in harm's way to protect the Bronze Saints, mainly because they're her personal friends and she doesn't want them to be hurt on her account. There are times where she'll even instruct other Saints to keep the Bronze Saints away from the Sanctuary.
- Lady and Knight: She is a benevolent and compassionate Bright Lady with five White Knights in the Bronze Saints. However, Seiya is the most vehement in his devotion to her and had the most Bodyguard Crush overtones as well, while the others's bonds to her were more platonic/brotherly than anything. The Saints were actually named "Knights" in a lot of Western dubbing.
- Lady of War: See the armor on the right? When Saori is finally able to activate its power at great risk of her own life, she becomes one of these.
- Limited Wardrobe:
- Behold, the richest girl in the world only has two dresses, her white dress and her business attire. As the series continues, she shows other outfits but it's still pretty limited.
- There's a a jockey outfit in one of the movies.
- In the Legend of Sanctuary game, Saori is seen wearing a schoolgirl
◊ uniform.◊ - In the Saintia Sho Spin-Off manga, Saori◊ is seen in a Sailor Fuku.
- In Omega, she wears a princessy but simpler white gown.◊
- Living MacGuffin: The welfare of Athena is basically the main point of contention in the series, as her well-being basically dictates the fate of the Earth.
- Martyr Without a Cause: Averted. She puts her life at risk because it'll buy the Bronze Saints time to pull off their mission. She often ends up saving the day even when comatose from the menace du jour, and frequently ends up being the protagonists' Trojan Horse ace-in-the-hole.
- Messianic Archetype: Many of her personality traits have more in common with Jesus Christ rather than her mythological counterpart, mostly due her willingness to sacrifice her own life in order to save mankind and earth from destruction. In the fourth movie, Lucifer himself compares her with Jesus.
- My Greatest Failure: Saori never quite forgave herself for mistreating the Bronze Saints when they were kids, so it's a big issue for her whenever they get hurt on her account.
- Nice Girl:
- Once her identity as Athena is revealed, and even before, the Bronze Saints fight alongside her not only because she's Athena, but because she's no less Saori, and they don't want their friend to be hurt if they can help it.
- Saori greatly laments the fact that the circumstances necessitate putting the Bronze Saints in harm's way for her sake, as she doesn't want to bring harm to them. Thing is, they accept this as their raison d'être because she's worth it.
- Not So Stoic: Athena protects and empowers the Bronze Saints not only because they're her holy warriors, but mainly because they're her friends and doesn't want them to be hurt.
- Ojou:
- And even referred to as ojousama (Milady) by Tatsumi. The Bronzies are more informal and call her Saori-san (Miss Saori), except for Jabu who sticks to ojousama.
- A socialite, she's the heiress of the Graad Foundation to boot, becoming its leader when her grandfather Mitsumasa dies. This is basically her main role outside of the Sanctuary.
- Plucky Girl: For all of her physical weakness, the kid is mentally strong.
- Purple Is Powerful: A literal goddess with long, flowing purple hair.
- Say My Name: By the Bronze Saints, especially Seiya.Seiya: SAOOOOOOOOORI SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!
- Ship Tease: With Seiya.
- In the anime, when he saved her from Corvus Jamian and became unconscious, she tried to kiss him!
- Also, in the ending credits to the movie Saint Seiya: Legend of Crimson Youth, the Award-Bait Song "You Are My Reason To Be" plays. It's a love duet that plays in a starry background, with Saori and Seiya standing back to back; as the song finishes, they reach out for each other and hold hands.
- Spoiled Brat: As a child, she was rather mean and sometimes straight up cruel to the Bronze Saints and treated them like slaves. In the anime, her grandfather gave her a stern lecture about not abusing her authority, and she grew out of it.
- Strong as They Need to Be: It is amazing how much power she has, yet always needs to be rescued all the time. It's more understandable when we see that, unlike the Saints, she has not been specifically trained to fight. Specifically, she's mostly there to keep the Earth from being destroyed while her Saints take care of beating down the bad guys.
- Team Mom: She takes on a motherly role to guys older than she is.
- Token Heroic Orc: She seems to be the only god in the series willing to protect humanity and the earth from destruction.
- Younger than She Looks: She's thirteen at the start of the series.
- Wise Beyond Her Years: She has godly levels of determination and courage, all packaged on a 13-year-old's body.
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Poseidon
Julian Solo - Poseidon
Voiced By: Keiichi Nanba (JP)
- Adaptation Dye-Job: He's blonde in the manga. The blue hair did help in emphasizing his "Sea God" status, though.
- Arc Villain: In his own arc.
- Drunk with Power: Julian was already an entitled billionaire teenager who had never once been told "no" in his entire life, along with being the nascent head of a colossal shipping business. It only took a few days after turning 16, for him to realize he was the new age version of Poseidon, and he very quickly abused his divine level power on a planetary scale to wipe out all who he deemed unworthy of living in his new world.
- Dub Name Change: In Italy, the family name Solo is changed to the more exotic-sounding Ketives, while Poseidon himself is instead consistently referred to as "Neptune", his Roman counterpart, across the entire story, just as Zeus was referred to as "Jupiter" instead.
- Enemy Mine: He sends five Gold Cloths through the hyper-dimension all the way to Elysium for the Bronze Saints, because if the world is taken by Hades, he won't be able to conquer it.
- Evil Counterpart: To Saori Kido/Athena. As a child, Saori had the same sense of selfish entitlement as Julian, believing that other people existed for her pleasure and entertainment. However, when her grandfather passed away and she had to assume control of his fortune and company, Saori grew out of her more spoiled behavior. But Julian? When he's left as the head of his family, he intends to use their already immense wealth and power to dominate the rest of the world's markets though their shipping business.
- The Evil Prince: Julian is a billionaire heir that becomes the reincarnation of an evil god.
- Gorgeous Greek: He stated to be good looking in his introduction.
- Lazy Bum: In the manga, when he first awakens, he scolds Kanon for waking him up and plans to go back to sleep for a few hundred more years. Only when he realizes Hades is also awakening and he may permanently lose the chance to take over the world does he possess Julian.
- Making a Splash: As God of the Sea, he can bend all of the oceans in the world and rain to his will, causing widespread flooding. The biblical flood that washed away the old world that only Noah and his family survived? That was Poseidon's doing.
- Not Good with Rejection: Julian was quite shocked when Saori rejected his marriage proposal, and vowed to make her his since he's used to always getting what he wants.
- Powers via Possession: Julian gains godly cosmos thanks to Poseidon using him as a vessel. He was already very powerful before Poseidon was fully awakened.
- Prongs of Poseidon: He is Poseidon, Greek god of the seas, so naturally he wields a spiffy trident. He can launch powerful cosmic blasts from it.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Sealed in a jar again after his defeat.
- Soul Jar: Poseidon is using Julian Solo as one.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: In the manga, according to him, when he awakened during the last Holy War, he went back to sleep once he realized Athena was already gearing up to fight someone else (Hades).
- Sheltered Aristocrat: Of the bad kind. He is heir of the Solo family, a very rich traditional Greek family, and outright mentions that from the day he was born, he'd never been denied anything at all. Even before realizing his true identity, Julian planned to use his family's shipping business to dominate all the world's markets, as well as take Saori, a girl he'd only known for 10 minutes as his wife, purely out of sheer entitlement.
- Wealthy Yacht Owner: Julian is the billiionaire heir of a ship business.
- We Can Rule Together: To Athena. She refuses and is trapped in a Bottomless Pit.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Poseidon thought humans were destroying the planet and wanted to flood the world to start it over right.
- Younger Than They Look: Julian looks like he's in his 20s, but is actually 16. It's especially jarring since he's really wide and Saori barely reaches his waist.
Hades
Hades
Voiced By: Akio Ōtsuka (JP)
- Affably Evil: He's quite restrained and polite most of the time, offering his enemies several chances to leave peacefully and await the coming doom quietly. True to his inspiration, he's also very fond of music and being the creator of a Paradise like Elysium, it's very apparent that Hades can appreciate beauty and art - Just not humans.
- All Crimes Are Equal: He judges humans for killing animals and plants, even though humans need them in order to feed. While fighting Saori in her God Cloth, he essentially describes living as humanity's sin.
- Arch-Enemy: To Athena.
- Back from the Dead: He is the one who granted Shion, Aphrodite, Shura, Camus, Deathmask, and Saga twelve hours of life in order to take Athena's head. The fallen Silvers were also granted this in the anime only.
- Benevolent Boss: Surprisingly. Or at least, that's what he claims. Considering the Hidden Disdain Reveal made by Thanatos, he probably didn't care that much about the specters all along.
- Big Bad: He’s the main antagonist of the franchise as a whole even though he was originally only meant as the Disc-One Final Boss before the Heaven and Titanomachia chapters.
- Cool Sword: His sword is made of pure hatred and in Next Dimension, it's invisible and has residual effects as a curse on Seiya's body.
- Demonic Possession: Every 200 years or so, Hades' soul possesses the body of the purest human; maybe for the sadistic and delicious irony of making goodness the way of his reincarnation.
- Dull Surprise: When possessing Shun, he displays very little in the way of emotions. Averted in his true body, in which he is openly wrathful.
- Eldritch Abomination: His soul.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: According to Athena, since he doesn't understand The Power of Love. For him love is a useless thing, created by humans and in which no one believes.
- Everybody Hates Hades: And with good reason.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Could be considered this, since he and Athena are destined to fight, being the reason for the creation of the Saints, and everything related to the series.
- Humanoid Abomination: He looks perfectly human, but between his disqueting temper, powers that border on the eldritch, ability to perform Demonic Possession and creating Hell in the first place just because he felt Mankind needed to be punished, it is abundantly clear that Hades is human only in shape.
- Implacable Man: And easily the most horrifying example in the series. Once the Bronzes threaten the place where his body is sealed, he possesses his body, suits up offscreen and marches forward while offhandedly striking the Bronzes down with his sword, eyes locked on Athena and not saying anything or even making a noise of effort the entire time.
- No Ontological Inertia: Upon his death, he and all the Underworld - and the beautiful paradise of Elysium - crumble to dust.
- Omnicidal Maniac: He seeks to annihilate the human race, as he holds humans responsible for the defilement and destruction they bring not only to their world, but several others. He also feels personally wronged by humanity's arrogance in daring to wage war on the gods.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Every time he used his power while Shun was possessed.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Playing extremely darkly. The 9th circle of Hell are where betrayers, traitors and treasoners go, and Hades considers fighting against him a personal betrayal of himself, who fancies himself the rightful God of earth. So all Saints go to Cocytus when they die, frozen up to their necks to be punished in the most undignified way possible for all eternity.
- Satanic Archetype: It is heavily implied that Hades is meant to be a stand-in for Satan, especially with Athena being a God in Human Form Messianic Archetype.
- In Dante's The Divine Comedy (which heavily influenced the Underworld of Saint Seiya), Hades's palace is located in the exact area where the Devil in Dante's work was imprisoned. Also, Hades's palace contains a gateway out of the Underworld (in the Divine Comedy, the narrator and his guide escape Hell by climbing down Satan's body and emerging back on Earth).
- His true body is gorgeous with an angelically motifed armor and a huge one-handed sword like Milton's depictions of Lucifer.
- And furthering the Dante resemblance, he has Thanatos and Hypnos (In service to him via the pentagram on their foreheads) who possess a similar armor theme, in place of Dante's Satan having two extra heads (which are chewing on Brutus and Cassius, while Satan's main head is chewing on Judas).
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Not him, but the his Specters' souls are sealed by Athena at the end of the previous war.
- Shoulders of Doom: When Shun was possessed by Hades, part of his black robes included gold shoulders of doom. His God Robe doubles down on the look.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Kurumada choose to represent him as a man with long hair and blue eyes and blacks as deep as two lakes; although in the first tables of "Next Dimension" (published entirely in color) Hades has yellow eyes and pale skin.
- Visionary Villain: Being the Lord of the Underworld, he wishes to kill all of the living by possessing Shun, moving the moon and planets so they would block out the sun everywhere on Earth. After that, he will take his perfectly preserved body from Elysium and use it to rule over everyone.
- What Beautiful Eyes!: His eyes are described as "beautiful, deep ponds of clear water", and even his hosts are sometimes mentioned to have beautiful eyes because of their pure souls.
- When the Planets Align: His power over the earth itself in Greek Mythology is used here to forcibly block out all sunlight to planet Earth by aligning the rest of the Solar System's celestial bodies in the way of said light, a so-called "Greatest Eclipse".
Thanatos and Hypnos
Thanatos
Voiced By: Toshio Furukawa (JP)
- Adaptational Badass: In Greek Mythology, Thanatos is a minor God who Herakles once defeated with his bare hands to bring a grieving friend's wife Back from the Dead. Here, he easily destroys the Gold Cloths; something that had never happened in all the millennia the Cloths had existed.
- Creepy Twins: With Hypnos.
- Curtains Match the Window: Has both eyes and hair silver-grey.
- Deal with the Devil: Along with Hypnos, offered Pandora a right hand seat at Hades' side if she served him.
- Enemies with Death: To Seiya. He tried to kill his long lost but recently found older sister out of spite. Which didn't prove to be such a good idea.
- The Hedonist: He first appears playing a lyre while surrounded by a harem of nymphs in his palace at Elysium.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: At one point, Thanatos reveals that he didn't care at all about the specters or Pandora.
- Jerkass: Of all the canonical gods from the series, Thanatos is easily the cruelest, petty and villainous. He even showed contempt for people on his own side, such as the specters.
- Minor Injury Overreaction: Completely lost his shit when Seiya managed to bruise two of his fingers.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: From Greek Mythology, the personification of Death.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Hypnos' blue.
- Rule of Symbolism: The Thanatos Surplice is standing erect in an authoritative position, raising its arms as if taking away something, looking down on the viewer, indicating that its task is more dispassionate than that of his Hypnos counterpart.
- Villains Out Shopping: He's introduced playing the lyre to some nymphs in Elysion.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Silver hair more precisally.
Hypnos
Voiced By: Issei Futamata (JP)
- Creepy Twins: With Thanatos.
- Curtains Match the Window: Has both eyes and hair yellow.
- Martial Pacifist: He hates fighting, conflict and destruction, and yes, even death (though he doesn't seem to begrudge his brother). He'd much rather send enemies into a Convenient Coma.
- Monochromatic Eyes
- Polar Opposite Twins: Unlike his sadistic brother, he doesn't seem to enjoy violence. That being said, he is still a very powerful opponent.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Thanatos' red.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: From Greek mythology, the personification of Sleep.
- Rule of Symbolism: The Hypnos Surplice is leaning in an imparting/overseeing position, as is laying an individual to sleep. It has a motif of a peacock's tail, which evokes a dreamlike image. Its posture indicates that it tends to its task carefully.
Artemis
See Next Dimension page.
Chronos
See Next Dimension page.
