Today is August 13th, 2006. It’s been almost a year since the Meikai-Hen OVAs had their debut on Skyperfect TV, and here I find myself only now writing a review for something I had waited to see for so long.
Something I had longed to see for almost 15 years.
Why? Well, there are several reasons. Most of them have been discussed to death on numerous web sites, passionately so—sometimes, rather “over-the-top-ly” so.
As most of you who stumbled upon this page likely know, essential changes were made when producing this first half of the Meikai-hen: the voice actors cast changed, Yamauchi Shigeyasu was declared persona non grata, and Michiko Yokote was kept away from the scenario.

Masami Kurumada apparently decided to again “take charge of his work”, and to keep a close eye on things. Unfortunately, his “close eye on things” consisted mostly in having an extremely conservative view of the adaptation, and to take care to appear “trendy” and “youthful” in terms of voice acting. And so, Mr Kurumada literally fired the original cast for the Bronze Saints, after disputes with Tooru Furuya, who was Seiya for so many years. This, to anyone who knows a bit the way voice-acting in Japanese animation works, how important voice actors are, and how essential coherence as well as continuity in voices in a series are, heralded a very bad portent of doom.

Unfortunately, it did come true. Not where the fans expected it to, though.
Because, even though the voice actors are very different, it is clear when one hears the Meikai-hen OVAs, that they’ve given their hearts and souls into it, and done their best. After all, fans can’t even complain on the quality: Tooru Furuya was replaced by Masakazu Morita, who gives his voice to Kurosaki Ichigo, the main character of Bleach, one of the most popular titles around. And the voice of Saori Kido went to Fumiko Orikasa, again a very important voice in Bleach, where she plays Kuchiki Rukia.

As deep as my doubts were concerning this unnecessary and risky change, I found myself grudgingly growing to like the new cast. Even Shun’s voice, even though it would be nice if the voice actor could lose an octave or two once in a while… No, the problem was not there. Once I was beyond the feeling of sitting there watching another episode of Bleach, the voice-acting was really fine.

The problem was double: first of all, the animation was simply god-awful. Defiicient. Inexistent. Horrible. Shameful. You could almost have sworn it was the work of amateurs. Quite frankly, to this day I don’t understand how the Toei and Skyperfect TV aren’t ashamed to have produced such a sloppy, jarring job. Fluidity is inexistent, animation is full of standstills, of over-abuses of pancels. The job, overall, is badly, very badly substandard. On par with the worst episodes of the TV series, such as it was made some 20 years earlier! I have yet to understand how it came to be so, and why.

The second problem was in the adaptation. To put it simply, there was no adaptation. Exit any hint of originality, any addition that would have enriched the animated version. The adaptation consisted in following the manga step by step, image by image, with a rigidity bordering on fanaticism, except for two painfully short moments: a small flashback on Orpheus playing the harp for the Gold Saints and the Pope, and a glimpse of Seiya helping Shun to stand up, in a rare gesture of friendship and attention. There were quite a few paths a good scenarist could have followed, many hints left from the Juuninkyu-hen by Michiko Yokote. It would have been so easy to follow them and turn this Meikai-hen in a fantastic adventure—perhaps too easy.

All along these OVAs, Masami Kurumada’s heavy hand has slammed down every good thing that could have been done, forbidden all creativity and initiative—and forcibly made it into what is a nice little fiasco, compared to what it should have been.
There is one thing which comes as a single ray of sunlight on the darkness of this Meikai: Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno’s artwork, as beautiful and inspired as ever.

Don’t mistake me, I’m the happy owner of the Meikai-hen Japanese DVDs, one of the “brainless fools” denounced by some people who should really sit down and relax when hysteria takes hold of them. I have enjoyed it. After all, I did love that part in the manga. I would be a hypocrite if I claimed I hated it from beginning to end. But, still, I am not blind.

There are jarring mistakes, jarring errors in judgement, terrible animation quality and insane choices imposed by an author who longer deserves to have any rights over a title he may have created twenty years ago, but no longer understands. It’s correct to say that Masami Kurumada has ruined what could have been a wonderful Meikai-hen. I will be very happy on the day he just withdraws and again allows true professional, truly talented people to work on the title. Just as I started rolling on the floor laughing when I heard he was already dropping (well, slowing down…) his Saint Seiya Next Dimension horror. Even if a prequel is, in my opinion, a bad mistake, at least Shiori Teshirogi will do a far better job in terms of art, and who knows, maybe she’s a good fanfiction writer?

Anyway, in conclusion, I can only say this: no matter how I refuse to let myself blinded, and to not see the bad stuff, no matter how I cannot ignore the amateurish work that gave the Meikai-hen its sloppy, awful animation, and the complete lack of creativity and talent that made its adaptation a rigid copy of the manga—still, Saint Seiya is Saint Seiya. I cannot wish for a stop of the series, like some (raving) fanatics started howling for.
This title remains infinitely precious to me, and I want to see the whole Hades chapter in anime. The second half of the Meikai-hen is scheduled to debut this Winter. I wish it good luck. I hope some of the mistakes can be corrected. I hope to see more, and, to plagerize a very famous US TV series:

I want to believe !