DiC's Knights of the Zodiac: I Just Ran, I Ran So Far Away, But I Couldn't Get Away...

Today, in the year 2018, it's not hard for someone in English-speaking anime/manga fandom to give Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya a try, especially when it comes to the anime side of things. In fact, almost every single Seiya anime production currently made is fully available in English, either via streaming or home video, with the only exceptions being the last two movies & the entire second half (Episodes 74-114) of the original 1986-1989 TV anime adaptation by Toei; some of these options even have English dubs. Come next year, I don't think this will change in any way once the Saintia Sho & all-CG Netflix reboot anime series both debut, either, since the former will obviously be simulcasted over at CrunchyRoll, at the very least, while the latter is meant for international distribution, especially in English. However, things were completely different in the year 2003, as before then Saint Seiya had never seen any sort of official English release, either via anime or manga. Fifteen years ago, this series finally came to the United States of America & Canada, i.e. "North of Mexico"... But I'm sure even Toei Animation & Masami Kurumada himself would prefer that you forget all about it.

In June of 2003, ICv2 reported that DiC Entertainment had licensed the Saint Seiya anime & was producing an edited version that would air on Cartoon Network later that year titled Knights of the Zodiac, which was the English version of the name that the anime had become known as when it was exported around the world during the 90s & became a smash hit, especially in European & South American territories. As DiC CEO Andy Heyward pointed out, "There has never been a Japanese series that has been a mega-hit in Asia, Europe and South America that has failed to become a mega-hit in the U.S.", and considering the success DiC had with Sailor Moon previously, it made sense to give Seiya a go. So KotZ debuted in the U.S. on August 30, 2003 at 7:00 PM, being the new lead show for Cartoon Network's Saturday Video Entertainment System block, or SVES, which acted as a sort of weekend counterpart to Toonami, which aired on prime time on weekdays. The show kept that lead time slot up through October, which covered the first nine episodes, before getting moved to a 12:30 AM "death slot" that November, where it would stay until SVES was outright killed off after April 10, 2004; the block would be replaced by Toonami's move to Saturday evenings, but KotZ was left behind. Of the 40 episodes of Saint Seiya that DiC had adapted into Knights of the Zodiac, only 32 actually aired on Cartoon Network, 23 of which were barely seen by anyone, due to the "death slot". Canada's broadcast on YTV, which started a day after the US, did air all 40 episodes, however.

It gets better, though! As part of the major push DiC wanted to give the series, which included Viz licensing the original manga (but being forced to use both the KotZ name & all name/terminology changes DiC introduced), ADV Films sublicensed the anime with the intent of giving it an uncut release, complete with its own uncut English dub; ADV may have even dropped releasing the B't X anime just so they could do Seiya. The uncut DVD singles debuted on October 21, 2003, followed by a DVD & VHS release of DiC's KotZ, under the ADV Kids label, the following January. Unfortunately, six months after the show got cancelled on TV, ADV's release of Knights of the Zodiac stopped after seven volumes that collected the first 28 episodes; an eighth DVD & VHS were scheduled for November 16, 2004, but never saw release. Then, following the twelfth uncut DVD for Saint Seiya on May 31, 2005, which covered up to Episode 60, ADV stopped releasing the original version, and would later explain at cons that it was because the company was legally unable to release more of the anime. In other words, DiC only licensed the first 60 episodes of Saint Seiya from the very beginning, and were likely unwilling to license the rest just so that ADV could finish up its release, while Toei wasn't going to license the second half of an anime series to a third party. To this day, only Episodes 61-73 have since seen an official English release, by way of Cinedigm's 2014 sub-only DVD boxset, & subsequent streaming options, which at least finishes off the Sanctuary Chapter... Yes, DiC didn't even license the entirety of the original story arc.

Yes, THAT DiC decided to tackle a series as violent as Saint Seiya...

So, to quickly recap, out of a total 114 episodes of Saint Seiya, only the first 60 were actually licensed by DiC. Of those 60, only the first 40 were actually adapted into Knights of the Zodiac. Of those 40, only the first 32 actually aired on television (in the United States, at least). Finally, of those 32, only the first 28 actually saw release on home video, which I have gone through the trouble of collecting for the sake of this review... I haven't even gotten to actually writing about the adaptation itself, and already this downward spiral sounds like one of the worst things to ever happen to an anime! So, to "celebrate" the 15th Anniversary of Saint Seiya, & Masami Kurumada in general, finally making it to "North of Mexico", let's see how bad this adaptation truly is, & why it was sent to die after only two months.

Following the wishes of her dead grandfather Lord Nobu, Princess Sienna has started a "Tournament of Knights" featuring young Japanese orphans who, after years of training, have finally earned their Bronze Cloths & become Knights of the Zodiac, the guardians of the Greek goddess Athena. The winner of the tournament will get the Gold Cloth of Sagittarius, and some of the Knights hope the mass media attention of the tournament will help in their own personal goals, like how Pegasus Seiya hopes to find his long lost sister Seika. After the Gold Cloth gets stolen by Phoenix Ikki, though, Seiya & his fellow Bronze Knights slowly find out just how little they truly know about their situation, especially when they find out that Sienna is actually the reincarnation of Athena, and that The Master of the Sanctuary now wants to take her out for good.

Yes, Shiryu, I too want to cry tears of "not-blood, seriously".

First & foremost, it is a little unfair to single out just DiC when it comes to Knights of the Zodiac, because there was another company involved in the production of this adaptation, Kaleidoscope Entertainment, Inc. Specifically, KEI was the Toronto-based dubbing studio utilized, & was also used for the dubs of anime like Power Stone, Slam Dunk, & Air Master. I bring this up right away, because the biggest problem with KotZ, possibly even more so than any sort of edits & censorship, would be with the dubbing itself; normally, I'd save the voice work for the end of a review, but this is a sharp exception. Considering that the dub was directed by Dan Hennesey, who also voice directed iconic shows like the 90s X-Men & Spider-Man cartoons, & even The Legend of Zelda, the end product just feels weak. Probably the weakest performance of all would go to Stacey DePass (Rouge in Power Stone, Eight in Beyblade: Shogun Steel), whose Sienna just comes off as stilted & without much emotion, even in moments where the character is visually supposed to come off as emotional; she improves, but I'd argue she shows the most emotion when narrating the start of each episode. Easily the most infamous actor in this dub, though, is Stuart Stone (Ralphie in The Magic School Bus, Proteus in X-Men), who plays "Swan" Hyoga in what is easily one of the most ill-fitting performances in the history of anime. Here you have a boy that's half-Russian/half-Japanese, was raised in Siberia, & is meant to be one of the most knowledgeable characters in the series... And it was decided to make him sound like a surfer, complete with having him call people "dude" every now & then; to be fair, though, "dude" is used way too often by a lot of characters. It's a complete betrayal of the character, and any time Stone has to say lines that showcase Hyoga's knowledge, the surfer voice only results in you not taking him seriously, even for 1/1,000 of a second. This is on the level of David Moo as Sanji from 4Kids' One Piece in how instantly terrible of an idea the delivery is. In fact, DiC knows what it did, because at one point a villain calls Hyoga a "Bleach-Blonde Surfer", and Hyoga takes it as an insult!

That's not to say that the entire cast is terrible, though, because there are some decent & even good performances to be found. While he doesn't always deliver screams of passion all that well at times, Tim Hamaguchi's (Zeo in Beyblade V-Force) Seiya does generally sound fine, and he's easily the youngest-sounding voice I've ever heard for the character, which fits. Conversely, Andrew Sabiston (Diddy Kong in Donkey Kong Country TV) gives Andromeda Shun the deepest voice I've ever heard the character have, but overall sounds fine in the role. While Unicorn Jab is only around for the first couple of DVDs, Robert Tinkler (Hanamichi in Slam Dunk, Gingka in the Beyblade Metal "Saga") delivers probably the most consistently well-done performance in the dub, and even William Colgate's Roshi is a good "Old Master" voice. Ikki is voiced by Scott McCord (Rukawa in Slam Dunk), and while the delivery itself is fine, he's definitely a case where the script ruins the performance, which I'll get to later. There are other honestly good performances in this dub, like Kim Kuhteubl as Ikki's old love interest Esmeralda (who's seriously way too good for this dub), but DiC unfortunately doesn't list who voices who in the end credits of each episode, and the likes of ANN, IMDb, & even Behind the Voice Actors have only properly associated so much of the DiC cast. For example, Shiryu is probably the best performance of the main characters, but I have no idea who voiced him. Finally, while both "Shina" (though still pronounced "Shaina") & Marin (now pronounced like "Marine") have perfectly fine vocal performances, they are both given an eternal echo effect due to the fact that they wear masks, as they're both female Knights; this makes it impossible to tell what's inner monologue & what's actually spoken.

Yes, I'm sure that's just all of the seawater
that's spilling out of Marin's mask.

Now, to be fair, I'm sure Hennesey & the actors did the absolute best they could with what they were given in terms of the script, and what they were given was embarrassingly bad, and part of that is due to a bit of an inconsistency in localization. Back when DiC brought over Sailor Moon, every bit of "Japanese-ness" was removed, which included changing all Japanese names to English ones. Obviously, times had changed since then, even come 2003, yet DiC still decided to make some changes. The most blatant ones were for terminology, like changing "Saints" to "Knights", calling Pope Arles "The Master of the Sanctuary", or renaming Ikki's training ground Death Queen Island to "The Island of Doom", but I can fully understand that kind of stuff for the sake of both maintaining continuity with the series' international name, as well as not potentially offending hyper-religious parents. That being said, however, changing "Cygnus" to "Swan", even when an early visual blatantly says "Cygnus", was just silly; just teach children what Cygnus is. But then you look at the characters themselves, and 99% of them actually got to keep their original names, including nearly all of the Japanese characters. In fact, the show points out that it takes place in Japan, as well, which does make some of the anti-Japanese sentiments from the villains really amusing to hear in English. Still, I say "nearly", because Saori & Mitsumasa Kido were changed to "Princess Sienna" & "Lord Nobu", which just doesn't make any sense, alongside giving their butler Tatsumi a (really bad) Scottish accent, even though he's Japanese. I can understand changing these names if Seiya & the others got that treatment as well, but instead it just comes off as stupid, and the fact that there's never any explanation as to what they are "Princess" & "Lord" of just makes it all the more ridiculous. Finally, the last real name change is with Cancer Deathmask, which obviously wasn't going to fly with DiC, so they renamed him to Cancer Mephisto. Admittedly, he doesn't appear in the episodes released on home video, but Viz had to maintain the name change for the manga. Amusingly enough, & pointed out to me by the manga's translator Mari Morimoto years ago, DiC effectively gave the character an even more evil name, as Mephisto is just a shorthand version of Mephistopheles, a demon from Faust legend that's sometimes interpreted as the literal Devil himself. Nice going there, DiC.

Then there's the writing, which in the span of a single episode can go from more or less accurate to the original story to downright insulting in the changes it introduces, due to censorship. A perfect example is from Episode 5, which is the end of Seiya's fight with Dragon Shiryu. In it, Seiya manages to hit Shiryu to win the fight, but heavily incapacitates Shiryu in the process. In the original story, Shiryu is pretty much dead from the blow to his heart, so Seiya has to hit him in the same exact spot in order to kick-start his heart & revive him, made all the harder by the fact that Seiya is barely conscious himself. Obviously, DiC didn't want to address something like the concept of life & death to children, so KotZ changes the script so that Shiryu's "Dragon Power" is going away; he'll survive the fight, but "he'll no longer be Dragon". Not only does this remove every single bit of tension the scene is meant to have, because Shiryu's life is no longer on the line, but it just sounds insultingly idiotic, even to a child. I get why death was such a no-no in children's entertainment back in the day, & even to an extent today, but even if you were to use the standards of the 70s, 80s, or even 90s this change just sounds like something an ignoramus came up with. The original version was a perfect lesson of how to responsibly use the kind of wild strength these characters wield, and DiC completely threw that concept out, like it was a baby in bath water. In fact, the idea of living things dying at all is avoided like the plague, even when everything that's shown in front of you makes it so obvious that even a small child would wonder how stupid DiC probably thought they were in the first place. DiC even determined that showing Perseus Argol turning a trio of kids to stone was too much for TV; an entire character's trademark power got censored out for an episode!

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

In fact, this is a perfect time to bring up the visual censorship, which is easily both the most interesting & mind-boggling aspects of Knights of the Zodiac.Unlike Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya was known for being rather violent & bloody in the original manga, and the anime wasn't too much different, though it did remove or tone down the most extreme moments. DiC must not have known this, because right from the first episode it's shown what was done to edit the bloodshed, and the choice is rather brain dead. Obviously, the blood itself is recolored, which isn't surprising, but instead of trying to make it skin-colored so as to "remove it", or even simply turn it white to look like sweat, DiC instead decided to make it the most natural of human blood colors... Greenish blue. Yes, the first shot of blood in the entire show, which is of Jab bleeding out of the mouth slightly, looks more like he had swallowed some Listerine earlier & was just spitting it back out during the fight. This isn't made any better later that episode, when Greek giant Cassios has his ear chopped off by Seiya, which results in the entire left side of his head being covered in a dark blue splash; eventually, the show settles for motor oil-ish black, which is admittedly better, if still stupid. Easily the most infamous bit of blood censorship, however, comes in Episode 11, where Shiryu slits his wrists so that he can bleed on his & Seiya's Cloths in order to repair them, since they need life force. DiC, in a sad attempt to get around this, colors Shiryu's flowing-from-the-wrists blood bright, neon green, as if it was Ecto Cooler, and he, Aries Mu, & Mu's student Kiki all refer to it as "Mystic Energy". Then, when Shiryu is supposed to be effectively dead after severe blood loss & is shown almost entering a Buddhist equivalent of Heaven, Mu instead tells Shiryu to exit "The Land Between Waking & Sleeping"... This is easily "peak Knights of the Zodiac". In a later episode, Shiryu is shown completely covered in "Mystic Energy", looking more like Kenshiro after a tough fight in Fist of the North Star, yet the show refuses to even hint that he could die, even though it's visibly obvious. And don't get me started on how DiC handled the end of Shiryu's fight with Perseus Argol, which technically isn't visual censorship, but is easily just as stupid as "Mystic Energy"...

Getting back to the writing, headed up by Mark Leiren-Young, there's just so much effort put into some of the lines that you can tell that this is a "try-hard" dub, i.e. it thinks it's so hip, cool, clever & awesome, only for it to fall flat on its face constantly. There's a crap ton of euphemisms, puns, & dumb jokes that get tiring, or downright insult your intelligence, in just about every single episode. For example, only this adaptation would dare to have Ikki use both "I'd like to thank the Academy," & "Put a fork in him, because he's done," in the same episode to establish him as a real force to reckon with. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the writing completely ruins Ikki, who just talks way too much & utters some of the most cringe-worthy jokes & faux-tough talk; he doesn't come off as threatening, but instead comes off like a joke. In comparison, the Master of Sanctuary is given better treatment, making him sound just as mad & maniacal as he should. Unfortunately, the biggest problem of all is that, eventually, Knights of the Zodiac just eventually settles into a lull, one where you're no longer surprised by anything the dub does, because you've pretty much seen everything it has to "offer" as an edited adaptation. Coincidentally, this starts to happen right when the anime-original filler starts up, which results in a double-whammy of simply painful viewing, because the filler itself already could get embarrassingly bad, and this dub does none of it any favors. In fact, after watching all seven of these DVDs, I can only name a single, solitary episode that actually came out "good", & by that I mean there were no egregious bits of censorship, the writing didn't try too hard to sound "cool", and all of the voice actors delivered perfectly fine performances. That's just sad...

Right from the first episode, it's obvious
DiC was not ready for this show.

On a shockingly positive note, the overall content of each episode is honestly mostly utilized, with the only outright removals done regularly being the original OP, ED, eyecatch, next episode preview, & title splash. In terms of actual episode content being excised, I only came across a handful of the most violent shots being ignored, usually by freezing or slowing down the preceding footage. In fact, each episode of KotZ runs 22.5 minutes, which is slightly longer than your standard American program's ~20 minutes, so credit must be given to DiC for not simply hacking Saint Seiya to pieces, resulting in multiple episodes being combined into one, like what 4Kids eventually did to One Piece; considering the violent content, this could have easily been done. Still, some footage is moved around in each episode, as well as using silly-looking transitional footage, so it's only natural that Seiji Yokoyama's original musical score couldn't be maintained. In its place is music by the duo of Jean-Michel Guirro & Mike Piccirillo (Stargate Infinity, Sonic Underground), which is not all that great at all, honestly; it's not terrible, but it is absolutely generic. It's instantly forgettable the moment you stop hearing it, utilizes some beats that I'm positive I've heard in numerous other generic soundtracks, and it has no sense of subtlety at all; action scenes get faster tracks, slower scenes get something more melodic, etc. The only memorable piece of music is the theme song, and that's only because of how ill-fitting it is. Likely chosen simply because it was a new take on an 80s classic, similar to what DiC likely thought they were doing with Saint Seiya, Knights of the Zodiac infamously featured "I Ran (So Far Away)" by Bowling for Soup, a rock cover of A Flock of Seagulls' 1982 hit song. The main problem here is that "I Ran" is the complete & utter opposite of what Saint Seiya is about, thematically. The series is about never-giving up & facing your problems head-on with everything you got, while the song is about being unable to run away from your true feelings about things like love. What's even dumber is that DiC decided to use the second verse for KotZ, which is all about being abducted by aliens... I am not kidding, read the lyrics. They likely chose it simply because the word "aurora", which sounds vaguely cosmic (even though it's not), is used, which I think is the best is the example of where this dub went wrong. Literally within the first minute of the first episode, this dub showcases how much it fails.

Really, the biggest problem of all, something that DiC simply couldn't have overcome, is the simple fact that Knights of the Zodiac was produced 10 years too late. Part of the reason why Saint Seiya managed to succeed everywhere else in the world was because it got to air in those territories just a few years after it finished airing in Japan, at most. Therefore, it was part of a burgeoning anime fandom in Europe, Asia, and South & Central America, and it wasn't too old to feel outdated. In comparison, by the time this series finally came to the United States & Canada, other series that were heavily influenced by or outright copied Seiya's style had already aired on television. By 2003, both Gundam Wing & G Gundam had already aired on Toonami, and both were inspired by Masami Kurumada in different ways. Going even further back there was Ronin Warriors, the English adaptation of Sunrise's Legendary Armor Samurai Troopers, which was a very blatant "Seiya clone" that traded in Greek mythos for Japanese lore, and that first debuted on American television via syndication back in 1995! Ronin Warriors then had a resurgence in popularity when it re-aired on Toonami in 1999, followed by Bandai's dual-audio DVD release in 2002. In fact, when Knights of the Zodiac finally debuted here, it was mostly cast off as a "Ronin Warriors knock-off" by people, not knowing that the show they got here first was the knock-off itself. Unfortunately, Saint Seiya was just too old to really appeal in general to a mainstream audience come 2003, even if it could have been somehow aired uncensored; it's like when Sunrise pushed to have 1979's Mobile Suit Gundam air on Toonami back in 2001.

Finally, to act as the cherry on top of this mess of a cake, DiC's entire Knights of the Zodiac endeavor ends right as Seiya & the others head over to Sanctuary to fight the Gold Saints, i.e. it stops right before the best & most iconic part of the series begins! In fact, why did DiC even license 60 episodes, if they never intended to adapt that far in the first place?! Yeah, as the ICv2 article at the beginning said, DiC only originally intended to adapt the first 40 episodes but licensed 60; so much for that veil of assuredness from Mr. Hayward.

All 7 of the ADV Kids DVDs, plus the cover for the unreleased Volume 8

Technically, this shouldn't be a proper review for the blog, because I'm only actually covering the first 28 episodes, or what ADV Kids released on home video; if I had to actually watch all 40 episodes, I'd have to check into an insane asylum. Still, I am covering an entire run of something relating to DiC's Knights of the Zodiac, even if it is unfinished, and I'd hate to give the feeling that I might, one day, actually cover the remaining 12 episodes. Sure, this technically isn't the all-time worst edited English adaptation of an anime, as I'd still rank 4Kids' One Piece lower than it, and DiC did try to remain accurate to the original story to a surprisingly large extent, but don't mistake that as me giving what DiC did any slack. This is still a complete embarrassment of an English dub, with a try-hard script that deflates the effectiveness of some of its villains, actively neuters the impact of multiple scenes by constantly avoiding the concept of people actually dying, & handling the use of bloodshed in ways that really makes one wonder if DiC even knew what Saint Seiya was like before licensing it. This wasn't some relatively new anime that was tough to get a bead on, either; DiC figuratively had 17 years to get Saint Seiya ready for the US & Canada! This dub deserves to be utterly forgotten with time, & feel dirty for having let these seven DVDs stay in my home for the past eight months.

Seriously, if you want to see how I felt about watching this dub in real-time, just check out my giant Twitter thread.

Make no mistake, I... HATE... THIS... DUUUUUUUUB!!!!!!
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Now, 15 years later, Toei is getting ready to give it another go with the Knights of the Zodiac name through the Netflix reboot. Amusingly enough, however, it's already been confirmed that this new series will, so far, only cover up through the battles with the Silver Saints, which would put it as ending exactly at the same place as where DiC's botched attempt finally died at in Canada. Will Toei & Netflix succeed where DiC failed (which, in turn, only helped to make other companies fail with the property)? Only time will tell, but one can only hope that lessons were learned.

All I know right now is that I need an anime based on a Masami Kurumada manga that's been handled with much more tender love & care. Oh hi, Anime Midstream!

Anime © 2004 Masami Kurumda/Shueisha・Toei Animation © 1986 Toei Animation Co., Ltd.