If you've read manga for a decent enough amount of time you more than likely have noticed that some mangaka have a habit of re-using certain character design "templates", if you will, and while some may try writing it off as "laziness" the truth of the matter is that there's actually a name for this concept: The Tezuka Star System. Officially titled the Tezuka Manga no Character Ichiran/Tezuka Manga Character List in Japan, the Tezuka Star System was the late Osamu Tezuka's habit of reusing certain characters across his various manga, as though they were actors being cast in multiple roles across numerous productions, with the English name for this concept being a reference to the real world "star system" that Hollywood utilized from the 1920s through the 1960s. For example, iconic characters like Astro/Atom, Black Jack, & Don Dracula have made appearances more or less as themselves (or, at least characters with the same designs & names) across various manga or anime from Tezuka, while characters like Rock Holmes, Ham Egg, Shunsaku Ban, Acetylene Lamp, & many others appear in various productions as essentially the same character they play in other ones. Therefore, Rock is often a "bad boy", Ham Egg is a villain, Shunsaku is a well-meaning good guy, Lamp is conniving, etc., & even Tezuka himself was a part of this, appearing in various series as a mangaka. Tezuka liked to treat his characters as though they were actors, even joking that some received "pay raises" if they performed well, and by reusing these characters readers could instantly get a bead on the kind of character these "actors" were portraying in a work, and sometimes he could even have them "play against type", like how Rock was originally a consistently heroic character before going "bad".
One mangaka that absolutely adheres to the Tezuka Star System is Masami Kurumada.
As you can see in the image above, for his 50th Anniversary art exhibition that was unfortunately cancelled, Masami Kurumada tends to use the same character template for his main characters, with some exceptions, like Okita Souji in Akane-Iro no Kaze, Maya in Evil Crusher Maya, and most notably Rei Kojinyama in Sukeban Arashi, which remains Kurumada's sole female lead. In fact, it's with Kurumada's debut work from 1974 that his form of the Tezuka Star System really got started, as Rei would be "recast" as Kiku Takane in Ring ni Kakero, her love interest Morita would be "recast" as Jun Kenzaki in RnK, & even her rival Shizuka Ayakoji would eventually "return" as Himeko Hojo in Fuma no Kojirou, among some other "recurring actors". Of course, the big one would be Ryuji Takane from Ring ni Kakero, who would become the recurring main character template I previously mentioned, being "recast" for Kojirou in FnK, Jingi Kikukawa in Otoko Zaka, Pegasus Seiya in Saint Seiya, Aoi Tendo in Aoi Tori no Shinwa, Sho in Silent Knight Sho, Teppei Takamiya in B't X, & most recently Pegasus Tenma in Saint Seiya: Next Dimension; it's really no different than how Tim Burton would often cast Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter in many of his films (8 & 7 out of 20, so far, respectively). However, when it came to one specific work, Kurumada seemingly decided to take the Tezuka Star System to its absolute limit.
Upon debuting Saint Seiya in Weekly Shonen Jump Combined Issue #1-2 of 1986 Kurumada had been making manga professionally for nearly 12 whole years, and while there were naturally long-term Jump readers who would continue to read the magazine for as long as they could, there was also now new, younger, generations of readers who might have at least heard of Ring ni Kakero or Fuma no Kojirou, but had only really known of Kurumada by way of Otoko Zaka's failure, at best. Therefore, Kurumada seemingly decided to reutilize many concepts, names, & terminology from his prior two hit works, but mainly from Ring ni Kakero, and repurpose them into new forms, if possible. That way, long-term fans of Kurumada's work would be able to identify the reference & have some bonus fun in that way, while the newer readers would be able to experience it for the very first time, and ideally in a way that's unique for them. In essence, Kurumada took the Tezuka Star System when it came to Saint Seiya & expanded it into more than just characters, and while some might try to argue that it's, once again, "laziness" there's no denying that the concept worked, as Saint Seiya is what people immediately think of first, despite some of its stuff being callbacks to Kurumada's prior works.
While I can't claim that I've collected them all, let's take a look at the ones I picked up on while re-reading Saint Seiya for the recent review of the manga I did.
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| On the left, teenage human avatars representing the Greek pantheon. On the right, literal gods of the Greek pantheon. All are immensely powerful. |
Naturally, I think it's fair to first go over probably the most obvious & overarching callback Saint Seiya made: The Usage of Greek Mythology. The entire concept of Saint Seiya is that the heroes are members of the Greek goddess Athena's personal guard called Saints, some of their opposition include the forces of other Greek gods (Poseidon & Hades), and the events of Greek mythology are treated as literal history happening back in the "Age of Myths". This is an aspect that helped give Saint Seiya a unique identity when compared to its fellow action-focused Jump contemporaries, and I wouldn't be shocked if Seiya itself was how many fans back in the day actually got introduced to Greek mythology, in general. However, it wasn't the first Kurumada manga to feature the usage of Greek mythology, or at least characters inspired by Greek mythology.
As Ring ni Kakero continued telling its story, Masami Kurumada raised the stakes by having Ryuji (& later his Team Golden Japan Jr. teammates) go up the Jr. Boxing ranks, from interscholastic (Ryuji's initial fights with Kenzaki) to regional (the Metropolitan Tournament) to national (the Champion Carnival) to, eventually, the world. This culminated in the World Tournament where Golden Japan Jr. took on teams representing other nations, with their final series of matches to crown the winner seeing them take on Team Greece. Fittingly, Kurumada decided to name Team Greece's representatives after various figures from Greek mythology, namely Ulysses, Orpheus, Icarus/Ikaros (the katakana reads the former, but his shirt reads the latter), Theseus, & Apollon, while characters named Pandora & Balkan/Vulcan (the katakana works both ways) would also be seen as allies to them during & after this point. Afterwards, our heroes would team up with Skorpion & Helga (both of Team Germany), Napoleon Baroa (of Team France), & Shadow Sousui (of the Shadow Clan) to form the World Jr. Union to take on the 12 Gods of Greece, who were even more powerful than Team Greece. This group was made up of Cassandra, Creusa (take your pick over which one was being referenced), Artemis, Orion, Prometheus, Medusa, Narcissus, Pegasus, Venus, Hades, Poseidon, & Zeus; yes, two of these people, across both groups, used their non-Greek equivalents, but we'll get to that later. While not the literal incarnations of these mythological characters, they were more just representative avatars (enforced via Ring ni Kakero 2 showing that they have proper lineages & families), it's easy to see that Masami Kurumada has a fondness for Greek mythology, and while he used it more for flair & effect in Ring ni Kakero, as seen by the fact that some of the 12 Gods weren't actually named after "gods", he decided to be much more literal with it for Saint Seiya.
Because this is so encompassing I'll refrain from going over in detail every character named (or named after) the same between both RnK & Seiya as their own entry here. However, Saint Seiya would feature its own Orpheus (now named Orpheé, after the French spelling) & Pandora characters in the Hades Chapter, Poseidon & Hades are the primary villains for their own respective story arcs, Zeus is referenced a number times throughout the series, Seiya wears the Pegasus Cloth, Perseus Algol uses the Medusa Shield to turn his foes into stone, and in the Tenkai-hen Jousou movie (a.k.a. "Movie 5") & Next Dimension we have both the actual goddess Artemis & two of her "Angels", Icarus Toma & Angel Theseus (though the latter is only identified as such in the credits), though in Next Dimension Toma's title is changed from "Icarus" to "Sleep". Apollo also appears as a villain at the end of Tenkai-hen Jousou, & may be making his manga debut soon, if indications are true about Next Dimension's incoming final run.
Before we to get to more specific callbacks, though, there is also one other general concept to go over: Saint Seiya's Entire Modus Operandi. While not initially followed as the series slowly finds it identity, once things really get going Kurumada starts relying on a repeated concept for each of Saint Seiya's story arcs, and this also applies to Next Dimension. That concept is where the heroes have to make their way through enemy territory, defeating powerful foes who guard specific blockades that prevent the heroes from advancing until said foes are defeated. In the Sanctuary Chapter it's the Bronze Saints needing to defeat each of the Gold Saints, who guard their own respective palace, in order to make it to the Pope's Chamber at the top of Sanctuary. In the Poseidon Chapter it's the Bronze Saints needing to defeat each of the Mariner Generals, who protect one of the seven oceanic pillars, in order to weaken the defenses of the Main Breadwinner pillar that contains (& is slowly drowning) Athena. In the Hades Chapter it's done twice, as first Saga, Camus, & Shura (former Gold Saints who have been revived by Hades to work for him) have to make their own way through the 12 Palaces in order to reach Athena, followed by the Bronze Saints needing to make their way through Hades' Inferno. Finally, Next Dimension sees its own take on the trek through the 12 Palaces, only this time dealing with the Gold Saints of the mid-18th Century. It's a reliable, classic, & well-worn storyline concept, one that Kurumada arguably ran into the ground (as even B't X later on used the same concept for its overarching plot), but it was also a callback to something he had done before.
First, though, we should trace back where Kurumada likely got the idea for this storyline concept from: Bruce Lee. Specifically, I'm talking about The Game of Death, a film that Lee had filmed footage for back in 1972 but put on hold to film the iconic & influential Enter the Dragon. Unfortunately, Bruce Lee would pass away a year later, leaving the film unfinished, but footage from it would get repurposed into the 1978 film Game of Death (note the lack of "The" in the title), and since then there have been two different cuts (2019's Game of Death Redux & 2023's The Final Game of Death) that aim to reproduce what Lee's original vision was, using the 120 minutes of footage that was filmed back in 1972. The climax of Lee's story sees his character, Hai Tien, have to make his way up a five-story pagoda to retrieve an item in order to rescue his siblings, with each floor being guarded by powerful warriors: 10 Karate black belts, a Korean Hapkido master, a Praying Mantis kung fu master, a Filipino Escrima master, & finally a giant who uses a similar fighting style as Hai. Kurumada would pay homage to this concept from The Game of Death via the Shadow Tower in Ring ni Kakero's Shadow Chapter, which sees Ryuji need to make his way up the Shadow Clan's five-story pagoda in order to rescue his older sister Kiku, with each floor being guarded by members of the Clan: a 100 "Shadow Boxer" kumite; Seiryu, who Ryuji fights on a log perched above a pool filled with piranhas; Genbu, a pair of guardians who fight in dark sludge to hide their presence; Byakko, who has diamonds embedded in his knuckles (ouch); & finally their leader Nobi, who's the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Ryuji's Bruce Lee.
However, that's just a single building, so Kurumada would later expand on that concept & create the true template that Saint Seiya would call back to: Ashura's Nine Gates. This comes from RnK's penultimate story arc, the Ashura Chapter, which sees Golden Japan member Takeshi Kawai get indoctrinated into the mysterious Ashura Clan, so Ryuji & his friends invade the Ashura Clan's compound to get him back. However, in order to do so they have to make their way through the nine gates that lead to the Ashura King's palace at the top, with each gate being guarded by a powerful Ashura Clan warrior. Yeah, now THAT sounds exactly like Saint Seiya's modus operandi, doesn't it? While the Shadow Tower was more of a straight homage to The Game of Death, complete with Ryuji needing to do all of the fighting himself, Ashura's Nine Gates is truly where Kurumada first showcased his most common storyline concept, as while Ryuji starts things off by himself his friends slowly come to his aid & are essential in defeating some of the warriors that guard the various gates, just like how each of the Bronze Saints take on the various Gold Saints, Mariner Generals, & (to an admittedly smaller extent) Specters in Saint Seiya.
But enough general talk... let's get into the direct & literal callbacks!
We'll start off with the ones that are 100% blatantly obvious, if you've watched or read any of Masami Kurumada's other works, because they are interesting ones. Definitely the first one to bring up would have to be Cosmo, which in Saint Seiya is the power found within all humans & represents a small piece of the Big Bang that created the universe, and those who can harness their Cosmo can perform miraculous feats, though primarily it's used for combative purposes (plus the occasional bit of healing). In Japan, Cosmo is written using the kanji "小宇宙/shouchuu", or "microcosm/'mini-space'", with katakana furigana above it to let readers know it's pronounced "Kosumo/Cosmo". However, Saint Seiya isn't the first time Kurumada used the term "Cosmo", because in Fuma no Kojirou's most iconic story arc, The Sacred Sword War, Kojirou finds himself caught in the destiny-ordained battle between two forces, Cosmo & Chaos, with Kojirou fighting as a "Cosmo Warrior". In FnK, Cosmo is associated with the kanji "秩序/chitsujo", or "order", though it's generally written using "Kosumo" in katakana. It's obvious that Kurumada really liked the term "Cosmo" when he first used it in FnK, so he decided to make it an even bigger element for Seiya. In fact, "Cosmo" would make one more appearance in a Kurumada manga, this time in Otoko Zaka's revival decades later, Volume 6 specifically, but in that case it was in reference to a piece of art that looked like a spiral galaxy & was meant to simply be a fun little Seiya Easter egg, as Kurumada used the kanji "小宇宙", with "Cosmo" in katakana furigana, in reference to it.
Up next let's go with something that's a bit of a one-off in both series it's used in, but it's a neat little thing to see called back to, especially since it's definitely more of a case of "it just sounds really neat": Misopethamenos; it's traditionally written as "Misopetha-menos", but that's likely just because it's such a long word that it can't fit on a single line in world bubbles. In Saint Seiya's Hades Chapter Shiryu's "Roshi/Old Master" Libra Dohko, who's been alive since the previous war with Hades 243 years ago, reveals that he's actually not an old man, and in fact hasn't even aged an entire year since the previous war! How is this possible? By way of a technique Athena taught him called Misopethamenos, which allows his heart to only beat 100,000 times a year, the same amount of times a human heart normally beats every single day... therefore, Dohko's body has only aged 243 days! Yeah, it's a bit silly (but totally within the kind of insanity seen in the series), but it's also a call back to Ring ni Kakero, specifically the start of the 12 Gods of Greece Chapter. At the end of the World Tournament Golden Japan fought to their absolute limits in order to defeat Team Greece, so much so that all five members effectively died at the end of their respective bouts... but Team Greece was so moved by Golden Japan's dedication that Greece member Orpheus used an ancient technique via his lyre that would slowly bring life back to their Japanese counterparts. That technique's name? Misopethamenos.
Two somewhat different techniques (one to bring back life, the other to slow down life), but both with the same name. So what does "Misopethamenos" even mean? Well, the Greek word, Μισοπεθαμένος, literally means "Half dead". Yep, that's it. From what I can tell there's no big symbolic meaning behind the word, or any real mythological importance to it. It's just what people in Greece would say when something or someone is seemingly near death, or at least looks like they're "half dead" (i.e. exhausted), but Kurumada likely just thought it sounded cool so he used it in RnK, and when coming up with how Dohko could be young again in Seiya he probably just thought "Hey, it still sounds cool". Maybe that's why Kurumada decided to write it in Latin/Roman script, instead of katakana, so as to make it look & sound more special & impactful to his primary audience of Japanese readers. I bet Seiya fans in Greece find it highly amusing, though:
Person A: "Behold, the miraculous technique of 'Half dead'!!"
Person B: "'Half dead'...!?"
So let's move on to an attack name, as while Kurumada is definitely a master at creating memorable & (mostly, as we'll see later on) unique names for the various attacks seen in his manga, there was one attack name that I guess he felt was just so good that he had to use it twice: Lightning Plasma. One of the 12 Gold Saints in Saint Seiya, Leo Aiolia has always been a big fan favorite and while he fights with the ferocity of a lion his special attacks are actually named after lightning. In particular, Aiolia's strongest move is Lightning Plasma, where he punches with such speed that the countless blows he delivers move at the speed of light itself, making it look like beams of light are streaking all over his opponent. Without a doubt, it's one of the most iconic attacks in all of Saint Seiya, right up there with Pegasus Meteor Punch, Galaxian Explosion, Rozan Rising Dragon, & many others.
However, Aiolia is nothing but a dirty, rotten thief because he outright stole his attack's name from someone else! One of Ring ni Kakero's 12 Gods is Venus (yeah, I know... we'll get to that in a bit), who found himself taking on Shadow Sousui during the fights with the World Jr. Union in front of Mt. Fuji. Not wanting to waste much time, Venus decides to strike hard with his superblow, Lightning Plasma. Similar to Aiolia, though, Venus' superblow really has nothing to do with his namesake, as Venus is the goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory, while this Lightning Plasma is a liver blow from above that, seemingly, is delivered at extreme speed, like lightning itself, which is a reliable generator of plasma. To be perfectly fair, "Lightning Plasma" is indeed an awesome name for an attack, so I can't fault Kurumada for taking the easy way out here & outright re-using it in Saint Seiya, especially since Aiolia's attack has become a popular one, among fans. That being said, though, Venus' superblow is also one of the more memorable ones in RnK.
Since there's an attack name that was 100% copy-pasted... why not a character name, specifically Shura? Sticking with the idea of Gold Saints, one of those 12 shiniest warriors of Athena is Capricorn Shura, a warrior who wields within his right arm the spirit of the legendary sword Excalibur, which in Japanese is written using the kanji "聖剣/seiken", or "sacred sword", with furigana above it saying "Excalibur" in katakana. Well, much like Leo Aiolia previously, Capricorn Shura is nothing but a thief, but in this case it's downright identity theft! Well, OK, this is a sort of a technicality, as while they're the same name when it comes to romanization & katakana, they technically are "spelled" differently in Japanese, though that mainly comes down to a concept called "ateji". Sometimes, Japanese people like to use kanji to "spell" out a word, but unlike traditional kanji usage, the characters are only used for phonetic reasons, using what's called on'yomi, or the way it's pronounced in Chinese, rather than the standard kun'yomi. A perfect example is Konami's Salamander (a.k.a. Life Force), which officially uses kanji for its Japanese logo but purely for phonetic reasons, i.e. "it just looks cool"; ateji also allows for the usage of Chinese characters that would otherwise never be used in traditional Japanese kanji. When it comes to Masami Kurumada he kind of went bonkers with ateji while making Fuma no Kojirou, namely during the Sacred Sword War, because literally every single new character introduced during that arc used ateji for their names, regardless of whether the name was "foreign" or even somewhat Japanese. One of those new characters was Shura, a Chaos Warrior, and in Japanese his name is written with the kanji "朱羅", which is half ateji, as the traditional "shu" kanji for "Shura" in Japanese would be "修". However, the furigana above the kanji reads "シュラ", which is simply Shura in katakana & is the same exact way Capricorn Shura's name is traditionally written in Saint Seiya in Japan.
Most amusing of all, though, is the fact that by being a Chaos Warrior, FnK's Shura also wields a "Seiken/Sacred Sword", in this case the Genmu Hishouken/Phantasm Flying Ice Sword. Therefore, I have to believe that Masami Kurumada absolutely decided to go with a purposeful FnK reference when he decided to name Capricorn Shura & gave him Excalibur, though why he went with Shura specifically is a mystery that I'm sure only he knows the answer to. Hell, one of the Chaos Warriors is literally named "Arthur", using the kanji "亜沙悪" (read as "Aa-sa-a"; get it?), but maybe that would have been a little too on the nose of a reference.
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| Venus & Aphrodite look like they could be cousins. Ulysses & Odysseus, on the other hand... |
So, like I mentioned before, Kurumada kind of messed up a little when it came to naming some of the Greek characters in Ring ni Kakero. Specifically, Team Greece member Ulysses isn't using his proper Greek (or even Roman) mythology namesake, instead using the Latin variant; maybe Kurumada was making a reference to the James Joyce novel from the early 1900s. Likewise, 12 Gods member Venus is using the name of his namesake's Roman counterpart, which should probably disqualify him from being a member of the 12 Gods of "Greece", but I digress. Luckily, when it came to Saint Seiya Kurumada delivered a mea culpa, of sorts, by creating characters that use the appropriate Greek names. In terms of debuts, we first have Pisces Aphrodite, one of the 12 Gold Saints from the original series who's known for being the most feminine looking of the bunch; we'll come back to him later. Then, decades later, Kurumada would finally make up for the whole "Ulysses" thing in Next Dimension via Ophiuchus Odysseus, the forgotten 13th Gold Saint who would wind up being the Seiya sequel's de facto antagonist upon his awakening in the past; there's also Silver Saint Ophiuchus Shaina in the present timeline, as well. In real life, the Ophiuchus constellation also crosses the ecliptic, like the 12 used in the traditional zodiac, but it messes with sidereal & tropical astrology, so your mileage may vary. Also, yes, the third of Artemis' Angels in Tenkai-hen Jousou was named Odysseus, but much like Theseus he wasn't really all that important, and I imagine Ophiuchus Odysseus' existence now has 100% erased Angel Odysseus from canon, anyway.
Amusingly enough, Kurumada decided to keep the "incorrect" names intact for Ring ni Kakero 2, as there's a new Ulysses & Venus in that series, the respective sons of their predecessors, with Venus "Jr." even being one of the next gen 12 Gods! Sure, these character names aren't so much of a "callback" like the other stuff in this piece is going over, but it's still a fun little tidbit that I feel fits within the context, and when else would I be able to bring them up like this?
Before we move on, I figure I should go over an interesting one-off, because this is (from what I can tell) the only callback in Saint Seiya that's purely visual & conceptual, as it doesn't use the same name as what came before it; also, this is the last one that calls back to Fuma no Kojirou. As one of the primary Bronze Saints, Andromeda Shin tries his hardest to not go on the offensive, so he prefers to use his Nebula Chain in a defensive fashion. One way Shun uses the Nebula Chain is via the move Andromeda Nebula, where he lays the chain out around him, creating a field where any foe that enters the area of protection is hit instantly. Definitely a memorable move, and a truly unique one within the pages of Saint Seiya... but it's also not the first time Kurumada created such a move. Back in Fuma no Kojirou two of Kojirou's fellow Fuma ninja are the twins Kouu & Shoryu, who utilize various colored feathers to attack their foes from afar, as though they were shuriken. However, the twins can also utilize their feathers in a defensive fashion with the move Byakuujin, literally "White Feather Formation", where they lay out a multitude of white feathers in a radiating web pattern. Any movement within the Byakuujin results in the feathers in the affected area shifting, upon which Kouu or Shoryu can attack instantly with one of their feathers, making it perfect for foes who try to hide their presence. While not an exact 1:1 copy, there's no doubt that Kurumada was thinking of Kouu & Shoryu's Byakuujin when he conceived of Shun's Nebula Chain, and especially the Andromeda Nebula maneuver, and this does result in each move being one of the most instantly memorable of their respective series.
The last category of callbacks are what one can "evolutions" of what came before, as while the callbacks are obvious to see, they're modified in ways so that they're not as direct & literal as the ones we saw earlier. A perfect example would be Another Dimension, a special attack in Saint Seiya from Gemini Saga & Sea Dragon Kanon where they send their foes to interdimensional space, in hope of trapping them there forever. However, this move is an evolution in both name & concept to something from Ring ni Kakero: Another World. During the battles with the 12 Gods Kenzaki found himself taking on Hades, a master of illusion who instead of simply fighting the genius boxer with his fists tries making Kenzaki think he had been sent somewhere else, a place where his superblows could be flung back at him. However, this would eventually be revealed to simply be the product of a technique Hades could utilize called Seikyokukai/Boundary of Absolute Control, and once Kenzaki realized what it was he was able to reproduce the technique himself, putting the two on equal footing. Technically, Another World isn't really considered a superblow in Ring ni Kakero, since it's not actually a punch of any sort, but it's plain to see what Kurumada was thinking of it when he came up with Another Dimension, though in the latter's case it's effects were taken much more literally.
While calling going from a "World" to a "Dimension" an evolution might be considered a stretch to some extent, there's no denying that's exactly what Kurumada did with our next callback. Despite representing a constellation themed around fish, Saint Seiya's Pisces Aphrodite has absolutely nothing to do with the piscine, instead being themed around various types of roses. That, in & of itself, can be seen as a callback to Kouu & Shoryu in Fuma no Kojirou, as Aphrodite's roses come in different colors, each one having its own unique ability, similar to Kouu & Shoryu's feathers. To be fair, this is also a general concept for action stories, so I don't 100% count it as a direct callback; still worth mentioning, though. However, I do want to focus on Aphrodite's first attack, Royal Demon Rose, a red rose that can slowly make a foe lose command over their five senses, leaving them vulnerable to further attack. Hmm, a character who also enjoys roses & has a regal air to them? Why that perfectly describes Ring ni Kakero's Napoleon Baroa, the French Jr. Champion! Personally, Napoleon is one of my favorite characters in RnK, and part of that is because he's portrayed as being extremely clever & cool under pressure, knowing when to bow out & possibly knowing when to hold back for later. Kurumada must have also really liked him, because while Skorpion & Helga join the fight against the 12 Gods having experienced no real change in their fighting styles, Napoleon came to his fight against Artemis with something new. Therefore, when Napoleon's superblow Demon Propose was countered he was able to win the fight with a superblow no one had seen before: Royal Demon Seed. As a move it's rather simple, being a corkscrew cross, but as the name for a special attack it's... interesting, almost as if Kurumada was planning to return to it later on. So when Kurumada created Pisces Aphrodite it's easy to see that the 12th Gold Saint was reaping the "rose" that was seemingly sown by Napoleon's "seed".
This next one is actually slightly complicated, simply because in one way it's rather straightforward, but in another way, it has a surprising history behind it; also, just the simple fact that it appears so "often" is kind of remarkable. One of the strongest of Poseidon's Mariner Generals is Siren Sorrento, who utilizes a flute to play beautiful music that can paralyze foes, even when they've destroyed their ear drums (music is just sound, i.e. vibrations of the air, after all), a move which Sorrento calls Dead End Symphony. A truly memorable attack name, to be sure, but also one that's nearly a literal callback to a move Kurumada had created previously. In Ring ni Kakero one of Team Greece's members is Orpheus, a musical prodigy who also is talented at boxing, just like Golden Japan's Kawai. Orpheus is so talented, in fact, that can he move around in the ring in a way where it makes Kawai confused as to where Orpheus exactly is, and when at peak confusion it gives Orpheus the chance to strike with his superblow, Dead Symphony. On its own, it's easy to see that Kurumada looked to Dead Symphony when creating the name for Dead End Symphony... but there's more to it than just that.
When Sorrento is ready to truly finish off his opponent he unleashes his ultimate attack, Dead End Climax. However, Sorrento isn't even the first person to use an attack featuring the name "Dead End" in it! During the middle portion of the Sanctuary Chapter Seiya is attacked by a trio of Silver Saints, one of which being Musca Dio, and his special attack's name? Dead End Fly. However, even THAT is technically not the first time Kurumada used the "Dead End" nomenclature, though visual proof of it is nowhere to be found online. Following the World Tournament in Ring ni Kakero, Team Greece ally Balkan comes to Japan to verify the seeming deaths of Golden Japan, eventually finding himself in Aokigahara, where the Shadow Clan's primary base is located. This results in a bit of a scuffle with Shadow Sousui, during which Balkan unleashes his superblow, Shocking Fire... or, at least, that's what it's been called ever since RnK was collected via tankouban form. Due to the sometimes-manic nature of weekly publishing, Masami Kurumada was apparently unsure of what exactly to call Balkan's superblow, and the decision to call it "Shocking Fire" was seemingly made at the very last moment. Unfortunately, that was still too late for the presses, so in (from what I can figure out, at least) Weekly Shonen Jump's Issue #8 of 1980 Balkan's superblow wasn't actually called "Shocking Fire", instead being called Dead End Fire. Sadly, no one has seemingly ever scanned the actual page showing this name being used, so while it's been officially confirmed as having happened there's no visual available online to corroborate it.
Yeah, the "Dead End" nomenclature went from being a temporary placeholder that wound up getting published by accident into something that Kurumada wound up using three times in Saint Seiya, across two different characters! It went from being a literal dead end into a four-way intersection.
OK, I'll be completely honest & say that this might not have been a direct callback by Masami Kurumada, but at the same time feels so blatant that I think it might just be that. Similar to Musca Dio, Crow Jamian is another Silver Saint that Seiya has to deal with during the Sanctuary Chapter's middle portion, especially when he uses his ability to command crows in an attempt to capture Saori Kido/Athena & whisk her away to Sanctuary. Eventually, Seiya manages to prevent that, so Jamian is left no choice but to attack Seiya himself with his special attack, Black Wing Shaft. From the perspective of Jamian's title, this attack name makes sense, since crows have "wings" traditionally featuring "black" feathers, and the "shaft" is the part of the feather that the vane grows off of. However, if you remove one word from the name of Jamian's attack you get one bad mother... (Shut your mouth)
But I'm talking about Shaft. (Then we can dig it!)
Yes, while Black Wing Shaft perfectly matches Crow Jamian as an attack name, it also sounds extremely similar to (in my opinion) one of Ring ni Kakero's most iconic characters: Black Shaft. The American Jr. Champion, Black Shaft is very blatantly Masami Kurumada's homage to blaxploitation, which was popular in American films throughout the 70s, with Shaft himself being named after arguably the most iconic character from that era, John Shaft, who was created by novelist/screenwriter Ernest Tidyman & portrayed by the late Richard Roundtree; Samuel L. Jackson & Jessie T. Usher have also portrayed "Shaft", though those were the son & grandson, respectively. While not exactly the most relevant of the World Rivals, as he's mostly forgotten about after the Nichibei Kessen Chapter (which he was the main antagonist of), Black Shaft remains a highly memorable part of that manga's overall cast, and only partially because of his heavy usage of (admittedly solid, for the era) English. Kurumada even avoided portraying Shaft in anything resembling stereotypical minstrel visual (i.e. blackface style), something that was still being done in many manga at the time, which has resulted in the character aging extremely well over the decades, visually. Now, sure, none of this really can definitively prove that Kurumada precisely named Crow Jamian's attack "Black Wing Shaft" as a reference to Black Shaft. At the same time, though, Kurumada could have named Jamian's attack anything else related to crows (Black Wing Murder, Murderers' Crow, Corvus Claw, etc.), and he chose one that's literally the name of one of the World Rivals from RnK, only with a new word shoved in, as though it was a middle name.
Yeah, I'm going with that totally being a callback.
Finally, we end with a callback to what is, in my opinion, the greatest pair of attack names Masami Kurumada has ever thought up. The three strongest warriors within Hades' army of Specters are the "Three Judges of Hell", which in the original Saint Seiya consists of Wyvern Rhadamanthys, Griffon Minos, & Garuda Aiakos, all named after the judges of the underworld who were previously legendary kings of Greek myth. The first of the Judges to be defeated would be Garuda Aiakos, after underestimating the power of Phoenix Ikki, but it's not as though he didn't put up a fight. After initially using his attack Garuda Flap, which launches his foe high into the air so that they can crash down violently to the ground, Aiakos decides to go all out with his strongest attack: Galactica Illusion. Befitting its name, Kurumada decided to go with some wild imagery whenever Aiakos delivers the Galactica Illusion, showcasing space, planets, & giant floating eyes that wouldn't look out of place in a Lovecraftian short story. Unfortunately, Ikki would manage to find his way around the Galactica Illusion, allowing him to take out Aiakos for good... and, really, considering who Ikki is based on, visually, it only makes sense that the move wouldn't work for long.
That's because Phoenix Ikki is a "recasting" of Ring ni Kakero's Jun Kenzaki, the boxing prodigy who went through an insane training regimen of punching a bunch of high-intensity, coiled electric transformers so as to create his two iconic superblows, Galactica Magnum & Galactica Phantom. I mean, come on, there's just a straightforward & simple genius in those two attack names, as just saying them gives one an instant idea as to their respective power, though the imagery Kurumada provides for both are no slouches, either. Therefore, it's perfectly understandable that Kurumada would want to give Saint Seiya a callback to those two superblows, and Galactica Illusion is honestly a really cool & unique counterpart, taking the overwhelming awe of Galactica Phantom's imagery & making it look fittingly mysterious; sure, a "phantom" can be seen as a type of "illusion", but it still rolls off the tongue in a cool way. In terms of a direct counterpart to Galactica Magnum there is Saga & Kanon's Galaxian Explosion, which on its own is very cool & has some fittingly destructive imagery put to it, but the name itself always did sound a little bit like Kurumada maybe tried just a little too hard to match what sounded so natural for Kenzaki's superblows. Regardless, Kurumada waited until rather late into Saint Seiya to make his callback to Galactica Magnum & Phantom, and Galactica Illusion does a good job at being just that.
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Again, I won't claim that this is every single callback found in Saint Seiya, but I'm pretty certain that this is at least the large majority of them. Also, don't take this to mean that there's barely anything unique to be found Saint Seiya when it comes to names & terminology, because there's just so many of those to be found, in total. So many characters, each of which having their own unique name & attacks, talking about a bunch of different terminology, are found within the pages of Masami Kurumada's most iconic work, so the ones that are actual callbacks to his prior hit manga are honestly a small percentage. Finally, outside Tenkai-hen Jousou & a little bit of Next Dimension, I didn't even bother to include any callbacks & references found in the various Saint Seiya productions made since the original manga ended in 1990, as there are plenty to be found there. For example, I had once mentioned years ago how Soul of Gold's finale was pretty much a direct homage to the one found in B't X Neo, while the most recently debuted spin-off manga Rerise of Poseidon sees mangaka Tsunaki Suda do the occasional Ring ni Kakero homage. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't quickly mention Southern Cross Christ from Evil Goddess Eris (a.k.a. "Movie 1"), who uses the katakana "Kuraisuto" (which isn't part of the actual Japanese name for Jesus Christ, "Iesu Kirisuto"), just like World Bantamweight Champion Jesus Christ does in Ring ni Kakero.
Callbacks are just good fun, and when you have someone with a catalog like Masami Kurumada's it's honestly kind of tough to NOT make one every now & then.
Ring ni Kakero © Masami Kurumada
Saint Seiya © Masami Kurumada
Saint Seiya: Next Dimension © Masami Kurumada
Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow © Masami Kurumada/Shueisha・Toei Animation
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