I Cavalieri dello Zodiaco: Saint Seiya Hades

After the conclusion of the battle against the God Poseidon, the seal that imprisoned the Lord of the Underworld (Hades) disappears, awakening Athena's ancient enemy from sleep together with his 108 Specter warriors: thus begins the new sacred war.

The sanctuary of the twelve houses is attacked by those who turn out to be the deceased golden knights returned to life thanks to Hades wearing his armor, the Surplici, with the intention of killing the goddess Athena, under Pandora's order, before the twelve hours of life granted to them. Thus begins an adventurous climb of the twelve houses which will see a succession of spectacular fights, powerful techniques and events with very beautiful dialogues, extraordinary music and evocative scenography.

A "Hades" saga created with remarkable direction, beautiful drawings by Shingo Araki, a spectacular plot created by Masami Kurumada and wonderful music.

But hey, Hack Masami Kurumada finally saw the ending part of his "great" manga (that even manga lovers, not me who I can't stand them, laugh at it for its crappy quality) being "animated" with awfully drawn landscapes that not only look like they were drawn by toddlers but they're worst than backgrounds in series made by this same company in the friggin' 60's, even worst CGI animation that would make blush a windows 95 savescreen for its stiffness and total and complete boredom that I NEVER experienced once during ALL the original series runtime, even during the weakest of episodes on offer (meaning the retcon before the twelve houses saga). Really, the hard truth is that Saint Seiya, as a franchise, started and ended with the 1986 animated series, nothing else matters and nothing will ever matter period. Oh and congratulation to the most embarazzing of intros ever, the ridicolously effeminate two-minutes intro before the classic Pegasus Fantasy song rolls on, that was genius. Avoid this and The Lost Canvas at all costs.

This chapter is very good in story, art, fights and characters, the soundtrack is intense, emotional and amazing. I think the only critic I have is that some characters who are introduced as important end up being ignored or just abandoned, having a poor closing and a poor development: in fact, I think that these characters either shouldn't be used or if used, used properly, it feels like they're there just because they have to appear in the show, their actions are forgettable and their relevance to the story is very poor. By the other hands, the main characters get the attention, development and the respect they deserve. I really wish I had more of some characters.

I enjoyed it a lot, and I mean it. Watched all of saint seiya (1986-1989) and it always seemed boring to me. I review it here with 6/10, but this Hades Chapter really deserves a 9.

It is really good to watch the saints with this amazing quality. The animation was on point and it was all that this story deserved. The 3D effect sometimes doesn't fit, but it isn't really important here.

The plot is really good, and we finally can watch the gold saints in action together with the loved bronze saints ones. We face a lot of emotions here, totally different from the 86' anime, that always had these childish emotions and poor plot.

The OST is really one of the strongest points in this anime, mainly because the older anime hadn't a good one. It does really matter if we are talking about emotions.

Amazing, nearly perfect 9/10

Since the first installment of this series, this anime grew so big and big that it is now a global phenomenon (even if this part is only video available OVA). For this new season the plot improved in every way and it became extremely good, now you have plot twists and sub-plots.

I really like the first seasons but this is a much more serious work and you can tell it because it evolved in many aspects like animation, dialog, action sequences and even characters (well that was sort of expected since this part came out more than 15 years from the release of the last one). It is now an adventure tale with epic proportions which is a little less focused in the five main characters. Like it's predecessor it has many errors and contradictions but its improvements totally make it up. The only part I enjoyed less was the second half, since creator Kurumada hired a new production crew and the animation gets hurt a bit. Still is one of the best anime out there and everyone should take a look on this.