Theory Musing: Why Does Saint Seiya Consistently Fail in "North of Mexico"?

Debuting at the start of 1986 (technically late 1985, but let's not split hairs here) in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump, Saint Seiya was the creation of mangaka Masami Kurumada, who had already seen major success twice over the past decade with Ring ni Kakero (his first big hit) from 1977-1981 &, to a lesser extent, Fuma no Kojirou from 1982-1983. He had also seen failure twice, with his debut work Sukeban Arashi from 1974-1975 & Otoko Zaka from 1984-1985 both being cancelled early on in their respective runs; Otoko Zaka would eventually return in 2014, nearly 30 years later. The last, in particular, was conceived by Kurumada as his magnum opus, the manga he had always wanted to make, so when he was told to stop making it (though he defiantly called it "Incomplete" on the last page of the [then] final chapter, proof of his status within Jump at the time) he decided that his next work would be something that he knew the general public would want to read, something that would be undeniably popular. In fact, he could take the things that worked for him a decade prior with RnK & FnK, re-utilizing them in ways that would be brand new for the younger generation of readers who had likely never read his previous hits.

The End Result of Every Attempt to Make
Americans & Canadians Care About Saint Seiya

The end result was a manga that, despite eventually being cancelled in & of itself and needing to have its final chapter published in an issue of V Jump magazine, still ran from 1986-1990 in Weekly Jump for 246 weeks straight (only four longer than RnK), compiled across 28 volumes, with Kurumada never taking a break; it remains his longest individual series in his entire catalog. In fact, Saint Seiya was often neck & neck with the likes of Dragon Ball & even Fist of the North Star (&, to a lesser extent, Captain Tsubasa & Sakigake!! Otokojuku) in terms of sheer popularity, with Saint Seiya apparently even surpassing one or even both at points during 1987 & 1988. Seiya was so instantly popular that a TV anime adaptation by Toei debuted before the manga was even an entire year old & was apparently optioned (alongside a toy deal with Bandai) before the first chapter was even published; truly, Kurumada knew what worked. In fact, while Akira Toriyama & the duo of Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's respective series are often cited as landmark & trendsetting works for shonen action manga, Saint Seiya is also just as much up there in a lot of ways, especially when compared to Dragon Ball, as a lot of what has become so iconic in that series (especially its second half) technically first appeared there AFTER Saint Seiya had done something similar first (Power of Gold vs. Super Saiyan, for example), or Seiya's entire run had simply ended. Regardless, Saint Seiya is a cherished icon of anime & manga, finding itself a massive following that love it to this very day the world over, as it was Kurumada's first work to see release outside of Japan.

That is, unless you live in "North of Mexico", i.e. the United States & Canada, where it has constantly only managed to achieve, at best, apathetic acceptance by most anime/manga fans, regardless of how many times it's been given a push over here; there has been a growing fandom for the series over time, but obviously not enough to ever be considered a "success".

At Discotek's most recent licensing bonanza livestream, I noticed some people in the chat repeatedly ask about Saint Seiya, which only reminded me of how the series had bombed three times for the company already: The 80s movie tetralogy across two DVDs in 2013, TMS' OVA adaptation of spin-off manga The Lost Canvas on DVD in 2015 (this was before the English dub debuted for Netflix, which Discotek had nothing to do with), & the movies being re-released on a single BD in 2021. To see people trying to ask Discotek about Saint Seiya just made me think "Where have you been all this time? Didn't you support the prior releases?", and when I brought this up on Twitter an old subject was brought up in response: "Why can't Saint Seiya ever seem to succeed in the US (& Canada)?". So allow me to ruminate some thoughts as we try to see if we can finally free Athena herself from this captivity without needing to simply bash away at it fruitlessly, like many companies have been doing for decades.

Understandably, the place where we should begin is how "North of Mexico" first got Saint Seiya, because, as the saying goes, "First Impressions are Everything". In that case, then the entire thing effectively stabbed itself in the heart right out of the gate, because said first impression was DiC's Knights of the Zodiac, which debuted on the short-lived Saturday night SVES programming block on Cartoon Network; yeah, not even Toonami. I should point out that "Knights of the Zodiac" is the general overseas name for the Saint Seiya anime, though translated into the language of the region it appears in (i.e. Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque, Los Caballeros del Zodiaco, etc.), so I add in "DiC's" to clarify that I'm talking only about this specific English version, as both ADV & Netflix/Toei would later produce their own respective English dubs using the Saint Seiya name; yes there are actually three different English dubs for this series. Localized by the same company that had originally brought over Sailor Moon during the 90s, DiC's KotZ unfortunately was absolutely terrible in so many ways. The dub performances were mixed at best, helped in no way by a poor localization that often wasn't sure if it wanted to be strictly accurate to the original script or if it should try to be its own thing, all while occasionally ruining certain characters, like making "Swan Hyoga" have a surfer dude voice or having Phoenix Ikki utter various quips ("I'd like to thank the Academy..."? Really?!) that were not funny in the least. Also, DiC literally used Bowling for Soup's cover of "I Ran (So Far Away)" for the OP theme, which is lyrically the exact opposite of what Saint Seiya is about & was likely only chosen because it, too, was a then-modern take on an 80s classic.

Then there's the censorship, which really made it seem like DiC had no idea what they had actually gotten when they licensed the Saint Seiya anime in the first place. You see, this series is known for its bloodshed & violence, including death, something that even today is generally rather taboo for children's entertainment on TV, and DiC's way of handling this stuff was embarrassing, even for its time; the idea of censorship was understandable, but not like this. Any & all blood was recolored in various ways, most infamously with "Mystic Energy" that flowed from Shiryu's wrists & was as green as Ecto Cooler, while almost anything regarding death or serious injury was treated as though it wasn't actually death or physically inflicted, no matter how visually obvious (or even thematically important) it was; "The Land Between Waking & Sleeping" was just absurd. In all honesty, just read my 2018 review of this dub for more detail, because just reminding myself of this stuff is annoying me all over again. After only nine episodes in a 7:00 pm time slot, DiC's KotZ was moved to a 12:30 am "death slot" (i.e. Cartoon Network had to continue airing it, so they put it in a slot they knew barely anyone watched), before getting cancelled after only 32 episodes; YTV in Canada managed to air all 40 episodes that DiC had committed to, though.

Needless to say, this first impression of Saint Seiya would go on to taint the franchise's entire reception in "North of Mexico" for a long time (though today it's just an embarrassing footnote), whether it was ADV's attempt at releasing the anime uncut, from which it was realized that DiC never even licensed the whole show (only the first 60 episodes), or Viz releasing the entire manga from 2004 to 2010, but was hobbled with needing to maintain all of the name & terminology changes that DiC had made; luckily, Viz's release was otherwise visually uncut. Even TokyoPop tried riding the coattails of DiC's KotZ by bringing over the B't X manga, Kurumada's big hit of the 90s after Seiya, during this time and were met with even stronger apathy; I'm sure emblazoning "From the Creator of Knights of the Zodiac!" on the early covers didn't help.

This is essentially what DiC was doing with Knights of the Zodiac...

However, while the first impression "North of Mexico" had of Saint Seiya via DiC's Knights of the Zodiac was undeniably terrible, the series would have had a major factor working against it from the very start, even if DiC's localization was utterly amazing: Age. Again, both the original manga & anime debuted in 1986 (the start & end of the year, respectively), while the anime ended after 114 episodes in 1989 & the manga would end in 1990. France was the first place outside of Japan to get the anime, which is where the "Knights of the Zodiac" nomenclature even originally came from, and that was in 1988, as the show was still airing in Japan. Afterwards, regions within Asia, Europe, & Latin America (including Mexico, which is why I'm specifically not saying "North America") would get the anime throughout the 90s, where the relative age of the show was still within reason for it to mix in well with other anime airing in those regions. Because of this, Saint Seiya would become a part of those regions' respective growing anime fandoms, and today there's a gigantic feeling of nostalgia for it in those countries.

So, when did "North of Mexico" finally first get Saint Seiya? 2003

Yes, by the time DiC finally decided to give the anime a try in the US & Canada, the manga & anime were both already 17 years old since their debuts, and it had been 14 years since the anime had ended in Japan; I'm sure the anime had long ended in other regions by this point, as well. In fact, by the time DiC's KotZ finally debuted on August 30, 2003, Japan had already gotten the entirety of Saint Seiya Hades Sanctuary, a 13-episode OVA that adapted the first part of the manga's final story arc (which the TV anime never got to do), and a major part of that entire production was based around nostalgia for the original anime. This means that Saint Seiya was already a nostalgic franchise in Japan by the time "North of Mexico" finally started getting it! Sure, one can argue that Dragon Ball Z was also similarly "old" by the time it first started airing in the US & Canada (1996 via syndication, 1998 via Toonami), as it debuted in Japan back in 1989, but the main difference is that DBZ originally aired for so long that it didn't end until early 1996, not too long before it debuted in English; we're ignoring the region-specific subbed broadcasts here. While today there is a strong enough contingent of long-term anime fans to make releasing "old" anime more worth it, and there are even licensing companies & streaming services that focus primarily on such stuff, this was not the case in 2003. By that point, airing anything from a decade ago or older (& by that I mean "it ended that long ago") as "new" was essentially cable network suicide, as seen with the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979-1980 debuting on Toonami in 2001. In all honesty, it didn't matter if DiC produced a good localization or not, or if ADV was able to release all 114 episodes or not, it was way too late for Saint Seiya to ever feel "new" to viewers in "North of Mexico" by the time it finally came over.

In fact, this point leads perfectly into the next factor to consider...

Did DiC seriously think that Saint Seiya wouldn't
look outdated when compared to these fivesomes?

As mentioned before, Saint Seiya was a massive hit for its time in Japan, and its influence would be felt for a long time over, both in manga & anime. Because of that, the long time it took to finally come over to "North of Mexico" resulted in a factor that never was possible in the other regions Saint Seiya had been released in prior, Misinterpretation. One thing that Kurumada's biggest hit spurred into existence were copycat productions from other companies & studios that looked to imitate what Saint Seiya had done, in an attempt to make some money of their own. Possibly the first of these was Legendary Armor Samurai Troopers by Sunrise, which replaced Seiya's Greek mythology aesthetic with that of a distinctly Japanese aesthetic and aired in full while Saint Seiya was still airing; they even aired on the same network (TV Asahi) on the same day (Saturday), just two hours apart! After Seiya had ended in 1989, though, similar shows would continue to get produced, like Tatsunoko's Tenku Senki Shurato in 1989 (which utilized Hindu mythology & even debuted just a week after Seiya's final episode) & Sunrise's later duo of Wild Knights Gulkeeva in 1995 (which featured anthropomorphic animal heroes) & Reideen the Superior in 1996 (a re-imagining of the iconic 70s mech anime). Not just that, but Sunrise's New Mobile Report Gundam Wing in 1995 was also influenced by Saint Seiya, with the five "Gundam Boys" that were the stars having been admitted as being directly based on the Bronze Saints that starred in Kurumada's series. Meanwhile, Wing's predecessor Mobile Fighter G Gundam in 1994 was heavily inspired by both Saint Seiya & Ring ni Kakero in terms of feel & execution, as admitted by director Yasuhiro Imagawa. Even magical girl manga icon Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon from 1991 (& its original anime adaptation from 1992) was very obviously inspired by Kurumada's works, with some other incarnations, like the stage plays, being even more blatant about it.

What I'm trying to get at is that it's only understandable that when DiC's Knights of the Zodiac finally debuted in mid-2003, it wasn't going to be looked as something "fresh" & "new", but rather as something "stale" & "already done".

Just eight years prior, in 1995, both DiC's initial localization of the Sailor Moon anime & Graz Entertainment's Ronin Warriors (the English localization of Samurai Troopers) debuted on American television, with both eventually also getting re-run on Toonami a few years later (1998 for Sailor Moon, 1999 for Ronin Warriors). Meanwhile, Gundam Wing made its debut on American television via Toonami (both in edited & late-night uncut forms) in 2000, while G Gundam debuted on Toonami in 2002; Shurato, Gulkeeva, & Reideen have yet to see official English releases. By the time DiC's KotZ arrived, it was being mocked & ridiculed by some as being a "Ronin Warriors knock-off", while its ridiculous amounts of censorship & alterations made it feel like something that was made a decade prior, despite being a brand new production. It's also possible that something like Saban's Power Rangers was also used in comparison, as it's entirely plausible that Kurumada took some influence from Super Sentai when he created Saint Seiya. While I'm sure Cartoon Network had intended for KotZ to be the flagship show for SVES, as it originally started the entire block, its quick reception as nothing more than a cheap knock-off of multiple other shows that were actually popular on Toonami likely helped kill SVES before it could even truly get started, as it ended after only 32 weeks, just like KotZ in the US, before being replaced by Toonami's move to Saturday nights. By taking so long to finally see release in "North of Mexico", Saint Seiya had immediately felt old hat, outdone & outshined by titles that not only were inspired by it but had also managed to come out anywhere between one to eight years prior, and in fact was initially looked at as a knock-off of titles that, in essence, were actually the "knock-offs", themselves.

I know I was in that camp back in 2003, as while I never saw DiC's KotZ when it aired, I do remember seeing the ads for it & thinking that it was just a cheap imitation of something like Power Rangers; I wouldn't get into Kurumada's works until seeing B't X via fansubs about a year or so later.

So, tell me again... Where do I start?!

But all of these factors so far relate to Saint Seiya's initial introduction in "North of Mexico" nearly 20 years ago. After all, anime fandom has grown larger & larger, and there's now a strong enough contingent of older fans who fully understand Seiya's place in the grand scheme of things (i.e. no one calls it a "Ronin Warriors knock-off" anymore). However, even despite all of that, the franchise still can't seem to find any major footing, even after multiple attempts by a wide variety of companies (DiC, Viz, ADV, Cinedigm, Crunchyroll, Discotek, Seven Seas, & even Netflix!); why is that? Well, I'd argue that a major part of that comes down to a rather simple thing: It's Become Too Big. While Saint Seiya more or less laid low after the manga's cancellation in 1990, once Kurumada returned to Shueisha in 2000 with Ring ni Kakero 2 it didn't take long for his biggest work to return in full force. 2002 marked both the debut of a new spin-off manga drawn by Megumu Okada, Saint Seiya Episode.G (which Okada is still making to this day, across two sequel series), as well as the beginning of the release of Saint Seiya Hades Sanctuary, the previously mentioned OVA adaptation of the manga's Hades Chapter; today, there are about as many spin-off manga for Kurumada's works as there are actual multi-volume series by the man himself! In fact, from 2002 to 2015 there was literally some sort of anime based on a Masami Kurumada manga (either Saint Seiya or Ring ni Kakero) every single year, with Seiya being the main source. During that time, the advent of legal streaming & simulcasting came about, which resulted in the later productions (the spin-off Lost Canvas OVAs from 2009-2011, next-gen non-canon sequel Saint Seiya Omega from 2012-2014, midquel spin-off Soul of Gold from 2015, & the spin-off Saintia Sho ONAs from 2018) all getting released in English via streaming as they came out in Japan. Meanwhile, the OG TV anime, the movie tetralogy from the 80s, & the Hades OVA trilogy (Sanctuary, Inferno, & Elysion) all got officially streamed in English at some point or another, though today only the movies remain currently available via RetroCrush. There's also an all-CG reboot anime that debuted on Netflix in 2019, & is currently in its second season on Crunchyroll, that calls itself Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya.

In theory, this should technically have made getting into Saint Seiya easier than ever for English-speaking anime fans, but the reality is that it arguably made it even more complicated. Ask most people who are fans of Saint Seiya, and most of them will likely say to just "start from the beginning", but that's actually not doable anymore, at least via anime, as Netflix removed its stream of the OG TV anime earlier this year, after only ~2 years of availability. Also, some people just aren't big on jumping into a 114-episode anime cold, especially when the first 40 episodes feature a lot of "filler" that mostly can't be skipped over, as they were written into the main plot; also also, the pacing can be a bit slow, at points. OK, so how about the other options? Well, Lost Canvas is a great adaptation of that manga spin-off, but it stops just shy of the half-way point of that story (I'd argue for the best, personally), and overall isn't actually related to the main Saint Seiya story anyway; it's best treated as a standalone product. Saint Seiya Omega was created with the intention of fostering a new generation of fans, but the general opinion of that series is mixed, while the second half of its two-year run switches the focus over more towards appealing to long-term fans, instead of growing that new fanbase. Soul of Gold is a solid little story in its own right (at least, I enjoyed it), and while I do know of at least one person who had it act as their introduction to Saint Seiya I personally wouldn't recommend starting with it, since its plot can be heavily reliant on what happened beforehand. The Saintia Sho manga is a very enjoyable female-focused spin-off series, I even prefer it to Lost Canvas, but it does have a rough & slow start to it, & from what I've heard the ONA is not very good at all; also, little surprise, but Seven Seas' release of the Saintia Sho manga doesn't look to have done well, either. As for the CG reboot... it's generally considered something to avoid by fans, as it makes all sorts of alterations simply for the sake of it & some were not well received at all (making Shun into a girl really was the laziest gender bend they could have done, & it should have been Ikki or Shiryu instead), and arguably is the worst starting point of all. As for the movies, while I feel that they do make for a good introduction to the overall feel & style of Saint Seiya, they do admittedly repeat a lot of the same plot points (Shun getting saved by Ikki, Seiya donning the Gold Sagittarius Cloth, etc.), so your mileage can vary.

In the end, actually getting into Saint Seiya isn't quite as easy as it should seem, because by now it's just such a massive franchise, with so many different entries, that it can feel intimidating for newcomers, and the current lack of being able to just "start from the beginning" certainly doesn't help any; that being said, Crunchyroll still streams all of the various spin-off anime. I mean, I literally made a "Newcomer's Guide to Saint Seiya" back in 2016 (which is now pretty outdated!), so that should tell you how big this franchise has become for hesitant newcomers. Admittedly, though, this applies mainly to the anime side of things, as Viz did add its release of the OG manga to the Shonen Jump Vault earlier this year, & Seven Seas' Saintia Sho release has a digital option, so things are rather straightforward on the manga front; now if only B't X could at least get a digital re-release...

Like the true design for Zeus,
some things about Seiya remain a mystery...

Beyond all of that, though, there is one other factor, and while I'd consider this a "secondary reason", it still has some merit to, I feel. Namely, Masami Kurumada's visual dichotomy isn't for everyone, which I feel is something that is only brought up on rare occasion. What I mean by this is that while just about all of Kurumada's works have a very romanticized, dramatic, & even "manly" mood & feel to them, the actual visuals feature more of a bishonen (i.e. "pretty boy") look to them, which to some clash wildly with how Kurumada has a penchant for bloodying up his cast & occasionally showing some dark & even gruesome visuals. In essence, Kurumada's style is possibly best described as "The Looks of a Shojo Manga, but with the Heart of a Violent Gekiga". Compare this to his main contemporaries, who either go full-bore on the "manly", gekiga-style visuals (Tetsuo Hara, Akira Miyashita), or have a looser style that adds an element of cartoonish-ness to everything (Yudetamago, Akira Toriyama), but all of which are generally looked at by fans as "fitting" the mad action portrayed in their respective works. However, Masami Kurumada went in the direction he did on purpose, as he always wants his manga to be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of gender, and it was with Saint Seiya that he truly reached the apex of that goal, as women are arguably just as relevant to the franchise's success as men, if not maybe even more so, even if only by a little; iconic mangaka like Yun Kouga & artist collective CLAMP got their starts by being fans of Kuruamda's catalog. Still, there's no denying that his visual dichotomy just doesn't work for some people who aren't already fans, and that's completely understandable.

Beyond that secondary reason, it really is just a feeling of ????? as to why Saint Seiya can never seem to find any footing in "North of Mexico", a question that can seemingly never be solved, no matter which company gives it a try. It's certainly not a no-name franchise by any means, even if you've never seen or read it you have more than likely at least heard of it, yet it seems to sell as though no one's heard of it before. It's a known brand the world over, which is why Toei considers it one of its "Core Titles", alongside Dragon Ball, One Piece, Digimon, Sailor Moon, & Pretty Cure/PreCure, yet it seems to be treated as nothing more than a nuisance by most people when you go above 30° N in latitude in the Western Hemisphere. It absolutely feels like a mystery that can never truly be answered, mainly because it doesn't feel like there's any coalesced reason behind it; after all, how can one figure out the shape of something formless? In many ways, Saint Seiya is best described as "The Soccer of the Anime World", i.e. it's beloved, cherished, & even idolized in many (if not most) regions of the world, only to be given nothing more than an indifferent shrug by the United States & Canada, as a whole; it certainly has its fans & is given some sort of official representation, but it's a speck compared to abroad.

That being said, the US & Canada at least do care about soccer enough to make a ruckus of some sort any time there's a World Cup, so maybe that isn't actually the right sport to compare Saint Seiya to; maybe it's actually "The Water Polo (or Handball) of the Anime World"?

Finally, to finish things off, we also have to consider one other option: Is It Just Saint Seiya, or Is It Masami Kurumada in General? To be fair, this is something that's hard to really judge, as there's literally only been one other Kurumada work to ever see official English release: 1994-2000's B't X. As mentioned way back in the beginning, TokyoPop licensed the manga in an attempt to ride the coattails of DiC's Knights of the Zodiac, which obviously burned the publisher bad, and while "only 8 people" bought the manga & staff allegedly held bets as to whether the last volume would ever come out in English (all admitted to me by TokyoPop staff, in their own forums, back in the day), all 16 volumes did eventually come out between 2004 & 2010, the same overall time frame as Viz's physical release of Saint Seiya, coincidentally enough; unfortunately, though, some of the later volumes are now absurdly expensive, & there's no digital option. During that time, Illumitoon Entertainment gave the B't X anime a try in 2007, but that company's poor excuses for DVD releases stymied what were already poor chances at selling, due to age; to be fair, the two B't X DVDs released were some of the better ones, & Volume 2 was actually just fine. Also, Illumitton had wanted to get B't X to air on TV, just like any of its other licenses, but no networks bit on it, which isn't surprising when DiC's KotZ bombed as hard as it did; TV networks tend to never forgive or forget, after all. When combined with the repeated failure of Saint Seiya during & after what TokyoPop & Illumitoon tried, it really did seem like anything by Masami Kurumada was just set to fail... Until 2018, that is.

At AnimeFest 2016, Anime Midstream (which at that point had only ever released all of 90s mech anime Matchless Raijin-Oh) announced that it had license rescued all of the B't X anime & would be releasing the show on DVD. After two years in production, an amusing promotional trailer for B't X was put out online by Anime Midstream & dubbing studio Sound Cadence, which produced a brand new English dub (featuring Eric Vale reprising his role as Teppei, from the unfinished Illumitoon dub), and shortly afterwards a complete DVD boxset saw release in 2018. Against all expectations, the release seemed to sell well for Midstream, even hitting Right Stuf's "Top Sellers" as the #4 Best-Selling DVD release for the week it came out. The following year, Midstream & Sound Cadence finished things up with a complete DVD boxset for the B't X Neo OVA series, complete with its own amusing promo, and this release went against the usual logic by seemingly outperforming the TV series, staying on Right Stuf's "Top Sellers" list for multiple weeks & even becoming the #1 Best-Selling DVD release in the entire store for a week. Obviously, all of this is relative, as what sales Anime Midstream would consider a "success" for B't X won't automatically match what, say, Discotek had wanted for Saint Seiya. Still, it was eventually indicated that B't X, as a whole, had exceeded all expectations Anime Midstream had for it, and even earlier this year both boxsets hit the Right Stuf "Top Sellers" list again during a "Small Publishers Sale", which included Midstream's entire (if small) catalog, showing that people are still more than willing to support the show; the entire Sound Cadence English dub is even streaming for free over on Tubi now.

I think what's most interesting about this whole thing, however, comes down to a single factoid: Anime Midstream never used the name "Saint Seiya" a single time to promote B't X. Even Illumitoon brought up Seiya in its press release back in late 2006, so it really makes one wonder if the real problem is Saint Seiya, and not just Masami Kurumada, in general. Again, that's not to say that a company would suddenly find massive success in licensing the Fuma no Kojirou OVAs or the Ring ni Kakero 1 anime, especially if they avoid mentioning Seiya, but it is interesting (even if only coincidental) that all these companies focused so much on Saint Seiya, even if they were technically releasing something else by Kurumada, only to fail... yet Anime Midstream seemingly avoided bringing up Saint Seiya even once during promotion for its B't X releases, only to succeed; obviously, fans brought up Saint Seiya in relation, but that's to be expected. Again, though, with such a small test sample to work off of, this is really nothing more than barely elevated conjecture, but it is something worth thinking about, I feel. Like I said, Saint Seiya is arguably just "too big" at this point, and directly acknowledging it while advertising another of Kurumada's works may give the vaguest of implications that one would need some familiarity with Saint Seiya in order to enjoy another Kurumada title, which in turn might actually turn potential audiences away; they obviously share themes, stylistic choices, & even character designs (Tezuka Star System, & all), but they aren't directly related.

Hey, I just really like this promotional image.

In all honesty, this is a topic I've considered writing about for years, but usually someone else wound up covering it every now & then. At the same time, though, while there are various reasons as to WHY Saint Seiya continues to fail time & time again in "North of Mexico", none of them really seem to help give any indication as to HOW exactly things can change for the better. While something like Fist of the North Star (which, to be fair, has been around in English-speaking anime/manga fandom in some way since the 90s) has managed to slowly find itself proper recognition & acceptance over here, so much so that it became the 9th "Most Efficient Manga" for Fall 2021 in the US & Canada, i.e. highest sales per volume (& Viz only started its current releases during that period!), the same cannot be said of one of its most iconic contemporaries. It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma that's cocooned within a conundrum that we can all only continually theorize & ruminate in regard to.

Can anything change, in that regard? Sure, anything's possible. WILL anything change? Honestly, after all this time, I almost kind of doubt it, and that saddens me to say, since Masami Kurumada is more or less my favorite mangaka of all time. Even though Anime Midstream's release of the B't X anime was a success for them, it will more than likely be treated as nothing more than an aberrant outlier, a weird glitch in the Matrix. Instead of maybe giving Kurumada's other works a try & see if maybe people in "North of Mexico" are willing to try something outside of the giant mega-franchise when it comes to Masami Kurumada, they'll instead keep trying to see if they can finally crack open the Wailing Wall that is Saint Seiya, in a vain attempt at reaching the Elysium of being the first to truly succeed with it outside of the usual regions. In the end it's all about Seiya, and as long as that conundrum continues to exist in "North of Mexico", that's just what we'll have to accept.

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Meanwhile, this technically marks the 10th Anniversary of Theory Musing, something I first did on Halloween 2012, during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, where I brought up my concept of the "Three Pillars of Sports (Boxing) Anime & Manga", of which Ring ni Kakero was one of them. Over the next decade I wound up accidentally turning it into a yearly column where I "ruminated" over various subjects, like the idea of licensing "Never Before Seen Anime", purposefully advertising anime as "So Bad, It's Good", the concept of anime-focused Kickstarter campaigns (this one actually got a little bit of minor traction, which was cool), investigating a Japanese conspiracy theory that Next Senki Ehrgeiz was originally meant to be an adaptation of Cyberbots, or using fansubs for an official anime release, among other topics. If often got to the point where I sometimes wracked my brain to come up with a subject for the next Theory Musing piece, only to wind up getting lucky & having a workable subject essentially fall into my lap, like this one you just read.

That's why, with this 10th Anniversary, I am closing the book on Theory Musing, at least as a regularly recurring column, and I honestly think this is a great subject to close it out with. It could very well return at one point or another should a fitting subject scratch that itch, but I think this has been a great little run as something that I've felt should be done every year; not bad for something originally made after experiencing "the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter".