Fights, more fights, and yet even more fights are featured in this fourth volume of Saint Seiya.  The next story arc takes off and gets underway as the Saints, having defeated Phoenix Ikki, try to regain the pieces of the gold armor.

This DVD has an ample five episodes.  The shows on this disc are:

Episode 16 - Docrates' Fierce Attack:  The narrative switches for a while to the Sanctuary in Greece where Seiya trained and won his bronze armor.  There is a new 'Pope' leading the training center, and he has grand plans of taking over the world.  But he is frustrated with his inability to obtain all the pieces of the Gold Armor.

Back in Japan, after losing all of the golden armor, save for the helmet, the Saints decide to wait for Docrates to come to them.  They know that he'll be coming for the final piece that they have, and they'll be waiting.  But even all four Saints might not be able to stop the villain from getting what he wants.

Episode 17 – Save Saori:  Saori has been kidnapped and her ransom is the Golden Helmet.  Seiya and the other Saints go to make the trade, but will Docrates keep his word?

Episode 18 - Ghost Saints on the Rampage:  A new set of villains appears in this episode.  The Sanctuary's Pope let's Giest have a crack at getting the Gold Helmet.  Giest was imprisoned on a Caribbean island by the previous Pope because of her maniacal insanity and brutal behavior.  The new Pope thinks that these are traits he can use.  Giest sends her three Ghost Saints, Jellyfish, Dolphin and Sea Serpent, to hijack an oil tanker.  After they do so, they threaten to blown the ship up, killing the crew and spilling the oil, unless the four Bronze Saints bring the Gold Helmet to them.  Of course, when they arrive, the Ghost Saints don't just take the helmet, they attack.

Episode 19 – Blood on Hell's Island:  Having tracked Giest and the helmet to her base, the Saints lead an attack on her stronghold.  But Giest is expecting them and has a few surprises in store.

Episode 20 – Shina's Counterattack:  The Saints decide to go back to their masters for advice in the battles ahead, and to see if they can find out who is trying to steal the Gold Helmet.  When Seiya arrives in Greece, Shina and her troops attack him.  Marin interrupts and kicks Seiya off the island, but not before telling him that Hyoga is in danger.  His master, the Crystal Saint, is under the power of the Pope, and he has been ordered to kill his old student.

I know there are a lot of fans of this series, but I'm not one of them.  Try as I might, I just can't like this series.

First of all, I didn't like the animation.  This series originally aired in the late 80's, and the animation is definitely of the old school style.  There are a lot of pans over static figures, and zooming into still pictures.  They seemed to cut corner wherever they could, and it shows.  But it wasn't only the cheap animation that hurt the show; it was the poor drawing too.  Figures change size in relationship to other objects from scene to scene.  The proportions of people's bodies are way off in one shot, and they are correct in the next.  I'm not talking about subtle mistakes either, but gross exaggerations.   In one scene a villain's hand is about two feet wide.

The low quality animation hurt this show, though even top-notch animation wouldn't have saved it.

The scripts are not that good either.  Most of the shows are taken up with fighting, but when the characters are talking, they act like they've been hit in the head one too many times.  In this volume two people who have strong ties to the Sanctuary attack the Saints, and Ikki, in a flashback, even warns them that the danger comes from Sanctuary.  Yet they spend a lot of time (for this show) wondering who is behind all these attacks.

There are a lot of plot holes and things that don't make sense in this series too.  For example in one part Shiryu and Kiki figure out where the rest of the Gold Armor is.  It's a good deal away, so do they take a plane?  A car?  A bicycle even?  No, they decide to run there!  For unknown reasons they don't take a helicopter like the time before, and arrive just in tome to see the bad guys depart with it.  Things like that happen constantly throughout the series.  It boggles the mind.
 
If you are into long fight scenes where everyone yells their moves in advance ("Meteor Pegasus Punch!") then you might want to check this out. But if you are looking for character development, plot or interesting dialog, look elsewhere.
 

There is the choice between the original Japanese or an English dub and there are optional English subtitles.  The two-channel track was essentially mono, there was no use of the sound stage made.  The quality is about what you would expect from an older television show.  Both tracks were fairly clear, but not dynamic or full.  While the acting in neither track is very outstanding, I preferred the Japanese track. The voices seemed to fit with the characters a little bit more.  In the English dub women talking in high-pitched voices voice all of the children, and it gets weary very quickly.  One interesting thing I did not was that the subtitles translate the name of the protective suits they wore as "cloths" but in the dub they are referred to as "armor."  I like the term armor a lot better.

Video:

The video for this show is a little less than average.  The 1.33:1 picture had occasional specks and dirt, and was slightly muted.  Though it was from the late 80's the picture actually looked older than that.  A slight amount of grain was present throughout the shows, and the colors were muted a bit.  There were a few artifacts present in the picture, especially in the background and in dark scenes.  Nothing to horrible, but not anything great either.

The Extras:

There are minimal extras.  They include the Japanese opening without English titles, and a text piece on Greek Mythology.  There are also trailers for (click on the titles to read DVDTalk's reviews) Cosplay Complex, Kino's Journey, Steam Detectives, Magical Shop Abenobashi, Final Fantasy Unlimited, and Saiyuki.

Final Thoughts:

This latest volume of Saint Seiya hasn't changed my opinion of the series.  It is not that I dislike old school anime, I don't.  It's just that this show isn't very good.  The fights seem to be unending, and there was little advancement in the plot.  (At the end of these five shows they were at exactly the same place they were when it began.)  The animation was cheap, and the dialog was horrid. ("Undone by my potent femininity.")  I think you should skip it.