Well, here we are with volume 6 of Knights of the Zodiac:  The Master of Sanctuary.   This is the edited from of the Japanese program Saint Seiya that was shown on cable TV in America for a time, though I believe that the series is no longer being aired.  This version offers less blood (and any blood shown is colored blue-green ) and no one actually dies in the program.  The show itself is harmed by these cuts, which make the program even less appealing than the original.

The story slowly moves along in this volume, with the Saints traveling around the world and getting into more long fights.

Episode 21 – Fight on the Ice Field:  Hyoga finds out that the villagers were enslaved to build a huge ice pyramid.  He goes and frees the peasants, but his old master, the Crystal Knight appears and attacks Hyoga.  He doesn't want to fight his old friend, but has no choice.

Episode 22 – Phoenix the Firebird:  The Fire Knight arrives in Japan and burns down Kido's house.  But Shun, Saori and Tatsumi have taken the golden helmet to a small cabin in the forest.  The flame knight tracks them down though and manages to beat the knights in battle.  All looks lost, but quicker than you can say "Deus ex Machina" a surprising person comes to the knights aid!

Episode 23 – Attack of the Silver Knight:  Marin is ordered to go to Japan and kill Seiya!  She arrives with a powerful Silver Knight.  When Seiya tries to battle the Silver Knight, Marin uses a powerful attack and seemingly kills her old student!

Episode 24 – Fly, Pegasus, Fly:  Seiya (you really didn't think he died in the last episode did you?)  is in the battle of his life (again) against the Silver Knight.  This Knight has some powerful attacks and nearly kills Seiya when....the Knight give up.  The cut an underwater battle scene were Seiya bests his opponent, and the way it is shown here makes little sense.

This show still isn't to my liking.  The edits, especially in the last episode, really hurt the story, and the story isn't that good to begin with.  If you are a fan of Saint Seiya, make sure you avoid this version and buy the uncut edition.

Audio:

The single audio track on this DVD was a stereo English dub.  The dub wasn't too bad, but it wasn't great either.  The best thing I can say about it was that there were no phony accents.  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 was 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 a 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.

Final Thoughts:

This series keeps on going, but doesn't really improve as it goes along.  It seems that every episode is a long battle scene with very little plot progression.  It also lacks the humor that other fighting shows like Dragon Ball Z have.  The edits that were preformed to make the show suitable for American television really hurt the show too.  I can't think of any reason to purchase this.  Skip it.