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Knights of the Zodiac - Out of Arena (Vol. 3)
Saint Seiya is an animated television show that was immensely popular in Japan when it originally aired in 1986. Since anime has taken off so quickly in the US, television executives decided to air the show on this side of the Pacific. Since the series had a lot of violence and a little swearing, they edited the show some, rewrote some dialog (so that no one actually dies, they just never appear again) and changed the color of the blood from red to green. This edited show was retitled Knights of the Zodiac to avoid confusion with the original version, which has also made its way to DVD.
This DVD continues the story of the knights trying to reclaim the gold cloth. The four episodes included on this disc are:
Episode 9 – The Black Knights Appear: Seiya has an idea, and gets a dog to track Ikki's scent. This only leads him to an area in a forest where the young Ikki trained before going to the Island of Doom. Shun is already there, wondering why his brother turned evil, when a new villain attacks: the Black Swan. He is part of a quartet of evil Knights, black counterparts of the heroes.
Episode 10 – Dragon in the Graveyard of Knights: Shiryu continues his journey to get the Dragon and Pegasus cloths fixed. On his way to the mystical Mu, the only person who can repair magic cloths, he enters a cave filled with the bones of the knights that MU refused to help. When these skeletons come to life and attack Shiryu, he has his hands full.
Episode 11 – Seiya Battles Black Pegasus: The knights accept a challenge from the Black Knights to fight for the pieces of the Gold Cloth that each of them possess. Kiki, a young elf (or some strange creature, who knows...) brings Seiya his cloth and tells him of the terrible price Shiryu had to pay to get it repaired. He then faces the Black Pegasus, while Hyoga battles the Black Swan.
Episode 12 – The Nebula Chain of Friendship: Seiya is fighting off a disease he contracted while fighting his counterpart and slides partway down a mountain. Andromeda finds him and uses his Nebula Chains to pull him back up. But before he can retrieve Seiya, Black Andromeda appears and attacks. But Shun can't defend himself without letting his friend fall to a certain death.
This censored version is certainly more child friendly than the original version, but it is also more idiotic. When one person is near death, they say that he is in the land of sleep. And instead of blood coming from a wound, they changed the color to green and imply that the Knights are leaking some sort of mystical energy.
The animation was very crudely rendered, even for 1986. The character design is poor, and the motion is jerky. I could ignore all this if the story was better, but it isn't. The show seems to contain just one mind-numbing battle after another. Main characters routinely get beaten to near death, or should I say sleep, only to come back and defeat their opponents through shear force of will. I don't mind that once or twice, but it happens way too much in this series.
The DVD:
Audio:
The single audio track on this DVD was a stereo English dub. The dub wasn't the worst I've ever heard, but it wasn't very good either. The acting was very stiff, and mainly consisted of either speaking the lines in a flat tone or shouting them. Surprisingly there was some limited use made of the sound stage. The sound quality was about what you'd expect for a children's animated show. It didn't sound full and dynamic, but it wasn't too flat either.
Video:
The show was presented in a 1.33:1 ratio, as it is shown here on TV. There were some digital artifacts present, but nothing that was too bothersome. The print was from the 80's but it looked older. The colors were muted a little making everything look like it was photographed through very light gauze. There was some grain in the picture, and there were several instances of dirt or spots on the film. Not anything horrible, but not a great print.
The Extras:
The only extra was trailers for other ADV children's shows: Super Duper Sumos, Megaman, Street Fighter, and an ad for Bandai Toys.
Final Thoughts:
I really don't like this show. I don't mind the lousy animation, or the below average dub job, you get used to that when you've been an anime fan for a while. It is the mindless story and constant fights that does it in for me. Add to that the editing that has been done, and this series is not a winner. If you are a major fan of the show, check out the unedited version, but I rate this version a Skip It.
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