When mankind as a whole is threatened, legend has it that a mystical set of gold armor will appear.  A powerful knight will rise to don the armor and battle the foes that threaten the world.  That time has come.  Ares an evil warrior in Greece threatens the Earth, and the armor has appeared.  But Ares knows of the legend and has stolen most of the armor, so that the chosen warrior can't rise up against him.  Now it is up to Seiya and his friends, the Bronze Knights, to get to armor back and defeat the Ares.

Such is the plot for the seemingly endless Saint Seiya.  Six volumes have been released, containing episodes 26-30.  The gold armor (called a 'cloth' in the series for reasons that I've never been able to fathom) was stolen in episode 7.  In the 23 shows since then the heroes have tried and tried to obtain all the pieces to this valuable armor, with little success.  The DVD contains the following episodes:

The Steel Saints, Friends or Foes?:  After finding out that Saori is really the goddess Athena, she shares her cosmos with the Bronze Saints making them even more powerful than before.  They are all caught off guard when the Silver Saint Battle attacks.  Things are looking grim for the heroes, when the Steel Saints show up: Ushio wearing the Marine Cloth, Daichi in the Land Cloth and Sho who bears the Sky Cloth.  After this trio attacks, the tide of battle quickly changes.  Back in Sanctuary Shina joins with Argo, a knight with a Medusa Shield that can turn people to stone, and Spartan who has telekinetic powers.  The three of them plan to destroy the Bronze Saints.

Medusa's Shield:  After Spartan causes the plane that three of the Bronze Saints were on to crash, Sieya, Andromeda, and Shiryu are attacked by Shina and her two allies.  Argo's Medusa shield turns out to be quite a powerful weapon, turning friend and foe alike into stone.

Dragon's Sacrifice Blow!:  Shiryu battles Argo: mano a mano.  But things don't go well for the Dragon Saint, as the Medusa Shield is stronger than he thought.  The Steal Saints show up, and they get trashed in short order.  But Shiryu has one more trick up his sleeve.

Attack of the Crow Army:  With Shiryu incapacitated and out of action for the foreseeable future, another Saint departs over personal differences.  This leaves the Bronze Saints severely undermanned. Sanctuary chooses this time to attempt to kidnap Saori.  They send a Silver Saint who has the ability to control crows.  Can the weakened Saints save their leader?

The Burning Cosmos of Love:  Seiya goes after the kidnapped Saori, and manages to retrieve her, but at the cost of breaking his arm.  Before he can get her home, the two heroes become trapped in the mountains with Shina on their tails. Wounded and on the run, it's a great time for a long romantic song!

When I started watching this series, I thought that the plot was moving a little slow and that the fights were too long.  Little did I realize that the plot would slow down even more.  Almost nothing happens from show to show.  There is a story arc; it just develops so slowly that it is hard to see it moving at all.  New characters enter and others leave, giving the illusion of a plot, but the overriding story itself doesn't advance much.

Of course I might be able to take the slow pace if it wasn't for the very unrealistic fights.  A person will be flailed mercilessly through the whole battle, taking one punishing hit after another.  At the last moment, through sheer force of will, they will pull their broken body together to vanquish their foe with one well placed hit.  I could let this go once or twice, but it happens all the time.
 
The animation in this group of shows, as with the earlier volumes, is fairly crude.  The motions are choppy and they try to animate as little as possible.  In addition to this, the animators have a problem keeping things in perspective.  In one scene a fist will be regular sized, then in the next it will be twice the size of someone's head.   That is just sloppy.
 

Audio:

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, and there was a little use of the sound stage.  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.

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 dull.  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:

This DVD includes a clean opening and closing, along with another installment of the text series on ancient mythology.  This chapter discusses Ares.

The preview gallery has trailers of Cutey Honey, Megazone 23, Golden Boy, Gravion, Orphen 2, and Bast of Syndrome.
 

Final Thoughts:

I was hoping that the plot would shift into gear with this volume.  I don't know why, just wishing thinking on my part I guess.  With the plot going nowhere and the animation crude, there isn't really any reason to pick this one up.  Rent it.