In that case, it's kind of all the more bizarre that I became such a massive fan of Masami Kurumada & his works... because, from all indications, I shouldn't be.
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| Effectively the way "North of Mexico" sees Masami Kurumada, as proven by history. |
Honestly, I don't like to write about my personal life here, mainly because I don't think there's really all that much to say. I've done it before, sure, but that was because they were related to the only real times I had anything interesting to tell the story of, like that time I got published on GameStop at age 17, or that one year I made next-to-no-effort YouTube videos (relatively) early on in the site's life, or that "Proto-Blog" I did before starting The Land of Obscusion. I really don't consider myself all that special, so I don't find much point in writing about my past as a fan of stuff, because (in the grand scheme of things) I'm not really all that different from most people. My love of writing about obscure & forgotten stuff isn't all that different from stuff other people love doing; it's just a difference in specificity of the subject itself. However, this is one of those exceptions, because this is truly something that's honestly rather unique about me, when compared to other English-speaking anime fans. Considering where I live, how long I've been into anime as an earnest fan, & how little anyone really cares about him in English-speaking fandom, there should be no feasible reason why I am such a fan of Masami Kurumada. And, indeed, it often feels like I am utterly alone in that regard, because while there are English-speaking "Saint Seiya fans" who have been anime fans for much longer than me (& are much more notable & cooler than me, in every way)... I did not become a fan like they did, it's why I have always referred to myself as a "Masami Kurumada fan", and it's why I went as far as dedicate an entire year of this blog to a single mangaka for his 50th Anniversary.
Obviously, we should start at the beginning... and, in that case, that means we start in mid-2003. Again, by this point I wasn't really a "true" anime fan, as I was only really watching the stuff that was airing on FoxKids & Toonami, and I don't even think I had any official anime releases of my own quite yet, as the Arc the Lad anime DVD box set I still own (which I believe was my first real anime purchase) didn't come out until later that October. It was around this point that Cartoon Network was about to launch a new programming block on Saturday evenings called Saturday Video Entertainment System, or SVES, that would act as a sort of sister block to Toonami, which was still airing weekday afternoons at that point. What was getting a lot of advertising to help promote SVES was a brand new show called "Knights of the Zodiac", which starred young men clad in various armors who fought against evil. By this point I had never heard of Saint Seiya or even Masami Kurumada, not known of its immense popularity around the world, or how this anime from the late 80s inspired so many other influential & popular titles, from Sailor Moon to Gundam Wing to even G Gundam, the last of which I absolutely loved watching the year prior on Toonami. At this point it was a complete unknown to me, something that I had never seen or heard of before... so, naturally, this was how I got introduced to Masami Kurumada, right? After all, Saint Seiya is how EVERY SINGLE FAN OF KURUMADA'S AROUND THE WORLD GOT INTRODUCED TO HIM!!!!
Ahem... No.
At the time I simply dismissed KotZ as nothing more than some "Power Rangers knock-off" & was instantly uninterested in ever watching it, as I had stopped watching Power Rangers itself after Time Force ended in late 2001, having gotten a little tired of that franchise. Again, I didn't watch early Toonami before 2002, so I have never seen Ronin Warriors, the edited English dub of Samurai Troopers, which many called KotZ a "knock-off" of at the time, as well, despite the former being blatantly inspired by Saint Seiya; it's all about what a region gets first, after all. Also, after having watched & reviewed all of KotZ (that was released on DVD, at least) back in 2018, had I actually watched it back in 2003 I likely would have found it so terrible that I would have never given anything by Kurumada another chance ever again... which is kind of what happened anyway, for most American anime fans of the era, because DiC's KotZ is utter s***. Instead, I simply wrote off Knights of the Zodiac as something that completely uninterested me and moved on, not even really noticing that, come the start of 2004, both the original Saint Seiya manga (though with name & terminology changes to match what DiC had done for KotZ) & even a certain other Kurumada manga were both getting released in English by Viz & TokyoPop; again, I wasn't into manga at the time, either, so this was all Greek to me (Seiya pun not intended here; it's just a saying).
So, after that whole non-start, how exactly did I get into Kurumada's works? That wouldn't happen until later into 2004, or so, when I really started to get into anime & check out beyond what was on TV... as well as what wasn't even getting licensed for official English release. Yes, I was a dirty little fansub downloader, but while I did watch a handful of stuff as they were coming out at the time (like Fullmetal Alchemist [2003], Samurai Champloo, Samurai 7, Ragnarök the Animation, the early portion of Yakitate!! Japan, etc.) I was also just as interested in checking out titles that were long completed that simply caught my interest. This was when I first saw stuff like Tales of Eternia the Animation, éX-Driver, & the Generation of Chaos OVAs via fansubs, as well as titles like Soul Hunter, Android Kikaider the Animation, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (despite having never seen the TV series!), & the Bastard!! OVA via official releases. It was during this time, while I was perusing the list of shows over at AnimeSuki (which is actually still around, but only via its forums since 2019), that I came across a show with a most unique looking title: B't X. For someone like me having a weird looking title will likely mean that I'll at least look into it & see if it catches my interest, so that's what I wound up doing. This resulted in me finding out that this was from the same creator as that Knights of the Zodiac show from a year prior that I was completely uninterested in, with even the main character donning armor that looked similar to what KotZ's characters were wearing, and that initially did make me hesitate. However, I did like the design of the "flying horse" that the main character rode on, & I was already enough into mecha that I was curious about giving the anime a try.
In the end I decided that I shouldn't judge an entire creator based solely on a single work that, at the time, didn't appeal to me & I hadn't even watched in the first place (which, personally, I think too many people do, in general), so I decided to give B't X a watch via its fansub. It happened to be digitized VHS fansubs originally from the late 90s, so I guess this wound up also being my very first VHS fansub, technically.
This was how I got introduced to Masami Kurumada & his style; not via Saint Seiya, but rather via B't X. Admittedly the anime can have a bit of a slow start, but as I continued watching I found myself more & more wrapped up in its story. I quickly liked main character Teppei Takamiya & his goal of rescuing his older brother Kotaro from the Machine Empire that kidnapped him. I thought the idea of B'ts, which were essentially living robots that were loyal to their one blood donor, was really interesting & cool, with the B'ts of the primary cast of heroes & villains sometimes getting their own bits of character development. Most importantly, though, I enjoyed how the action played out & how the story slowly grew from a general rescue mission to one where the fate of life itself was on the line, and it did so in just enough of a subtle fashion that it felt natural. After finishing all 25 episodes of the B't X TV anime I immediately moved on to the 14-episode OVA continuation, B't X Neo... which gave me a stellar ending that I'd never forget. Even to this day I remember seeing the finale, which transitioned into a multi-minute credit scroll against a black backdrop, and just staring at my computer monitor in pure awe of what I had just watched. So, naturally, after watching B't X & adoring it I moved straight on to Saint Seiya, right? After all, Saint Seiya is what EVERY SINGLE FAN OF KURUMADA'S AROUND THE WORLD INSTANTLY THINKS OF WHEN IT COMES TO HIM!!!!
Ahem... No.
While I wound up absolutely loving the B't X anime I was hesitant about giving Saint Seiya a try, if only because by that point I had found out just how long that anime was (114 episodes) & I wasn't in the mood to move on to something that big quite yet; even to this day I have yet to watch all of Seiya TV, though that's mainly due to various reasons over time. Instead, I simply moved on to watching other anime, and by this point I had also started getting into manga, so I didn't move instantly into more Kurumada. My memory of exact dates & time frames can honestly be a bit wonky at points, but my next entry into the works of Kurumada actually didn't happen because I craved for more Kurumada, but rather it was simply due to me being a bit lazy. Around early 2005 or so I saw one of my friends get into the Hajime no Ippo anime, and he showed me some bits of it as well. Naturally, Ippo is excellent... but I wasn't exactly in the mood to start an anime that was 76 episodes (plus a TV movie & OVA) long; I only finally watched all of the first Ippo anime about a year or two ago. However, I still wanted some sort of boxing anime action so I (once again) perused the AnimeSuki list & found a title called Ring ni Kakero 1. Looking into it I saw that it was from the same guy who made B't X, so I decided to give it a go since I really liked B't X & it was much, much shorter than Saint Seiya was, 12 episodes vs. 114. Unfortunately, this is where I came across a bit of a problem: Ring ni Kakero 1 wasn't fully fansubbed.
For as much as digital fansubbing did to help bring anime around the world, for both good & ill from various perspectives, it was still something that was done by fans for fans, and no one was getting paid to do it; even back in the tape trading days payment was simply for the costs of copying & mailing out a VHS tape. Therefore, if an anime wasn't getting enough downloads, or if the group doing the fansub just wasn't interested anymore, that anime wasn't guaranteed a full translation, and this was the case for RnK1. Back when I first gave RnK1 a try there were only around six or seven episodes fansubbed, and while the group that was doing it (Deph) still managed to release a new episode once in a blue moon they eventually stopped at Episode 11 in 2006, one episode shy from the finish. Before it got quite to that point, though, a new season of Ring ni Kakero 1 was announced for Spring 2006, so it made me really want to finish watching Season 1. Therefore, during a trip with my friends to New York City's Chinatown around that time I saw a bootleg DVD box set for RnK1 & bought it. Sure, the English subs weren't great, & I'd later discover that the cover art used was actually from Volume 2 of Ring ni Kakero 2, but at least I could watch the remaining episodes ASAP. Naturally, that second season, Ring ni Kakero 1: Nichibei Kessen-hen, was not going to get fansubbed in any fashion, since Season 1 wasn't fully subbed (& literally no one was interested at the time in finishing it up), but I really wanted to watch what was next in the story... so Season 2 of RnK1 wound up being the first anime I ever watched "raw", i.e. without any subtitles whatsoever. Luckily I was taking a semester of Japanese in college by this point, so while I was by no means fluent I was able to understand some of the broad strokes of what was going on in Season 2, and overall still had a fun time with it; finer details were lost to me back then, but RnK1 is a straightforward enough series to get by with.
Unfortunately, for as much as I enjoyed the Ring ni Kakero 1 anime (&, no, the fact that it didn't start at the very beginning didn't make it impossible for me to get into it, hence why I call BS on anyone who tries to argue that the anime isn't newbie-friendly), it really did showcase the frustrations & uncaring nature of fandom. Simply put, I had to put more effort into being able to watch & enjoy RnK1 than anything else at the time, as due to the lack of interest from effectively anyone else it sometimes felt as though others were figuratively trying to tell me "No, you shouldn't watch this". Hell, even the group that was ripping the episodes of Season 2 from TV, as they were coming out in Japan, almost stopped doing so for this show specifically, due to a lack of interest. Unless those who did care put in the extra effort to continue supporting the rips, i.e. long-term "seeding" via torrent instead of simply downloading & closing the program (which is what 99% of people did back then), the remainder of Season 2 would become outright inaccessible. Yes, if things played out differently I would have never been able to even watch all of Season 2 "raw" back in the day, simply because no one else really cared about it. There's somewhat of a sense of entitlement to that complaint, sure, but if nothing else it was that whole scenario that likely helped embolden the position that I would later have when it came to certain titles I've covered here on the blog: "If I don't cover it, then it's likely no one else ever will."
Now, to finish things up with this subject, eventually a fansub group (Shinsen Subs) would actually bother to sub all of Season 2 of RnK1, and after finishing that they even went & fansubbed the final episode of Season 1, effectively making this a bit of a mercy subbing. Once that had happened, & I was able to re-watch both seasons with (at the very least) decent English subs, I was able to put Ring ni Kakero 1 away, for the time being, because it had (eventually) been given "the fair shake" that I felt every anime (in theory) should be allowed, i.e. a chance to find fans, even if it's years after the fact. While I loved B't X for the reasons I mentioned earlier, there was just a straightforward & earnest sense of fun & enjoyment I had watching RnK1, and later down the line when I realized its place in history (& eventually saw just how influential & impactful it was on shonen action manga, in general) I came to truly appreciate it even more. The idea that a different group, known for its primary focus on fansubbing sports anime (Saizen Fansubs), actually dropped RnK1 back in the day due to it being "too unrealistic" for them, just showed me how petty & stuck up other anime fans could be, not to mention hypocritical, as Saizen would later help fansub the OG Captain Tsubasa anime. While it's mostly mellowed out noawadays, for a time there was a legit hate from a rather vocal & notable amount of anime fans towards certain sports anime for being over-the-top & not "realistic" enough, like their favorites were.
Anyway, to reverse course a couple of years, after having now watched B't X & (what I could at the time, at least) Ring ni Kakero 1 I finally decided that, since I had enjoyed two works from the same creator, maybe I should finally give Kurumada's most famous work a go. Yes, now is the part where I talk about Saint Seiya!
At least, the original Saint Seiya manga, because I still wasn't in the mood for watching 114 episodes of anime.
But, yeah, it was around mid-2005 or so (again, I can be really bad with this kind of stuff) when I decided to start reading Saint Seiya via Viz's release, and in retrospect that was a good idea. You can read my review of the manga from earlier this year for more details, but the simple fact is that Saint Seiya has a really rough start to it, so much so that even by the end of Volume 2 I still wasn't really sold all that much on it. It got better as I continued to buy volumes & catch up to where Viz was currently at by that point, but it really wasn't until around Volume 4 of 5 that it really started to hook me. Had I decided to start with the anime instead that would have meant that I'd have to deal with around 10 to 12 episodes that very well could have not kept my interest before I started getting to the better stuff, and even then the Seiya anime has a ton of early "filler" that, when I eventually watched it, is 98% terrible; in comparison, both the B't X & Ring ni Kakero 1 anime caught my interest almost instantly. Luckily, though, Saint Seiya did indeed hook me & I continued buying new volumes so that I could continue reading it, enjoying the advancement into the fights with the Silver Saints before eventually seeing just why the battles against the Gold Saints are so beloved by fans. I also eventually started buying & reading the B't X manga from TokyoPop, as while I initially didn't bother I eventually realized that the anime had its own ending, so I wanted to see what else there was to the original manga.
Good thing I did decide to start buying both, too, because neither manga were really selling in English (TokyoPop reps on their forums eventually joked that "only 8 people bought B't X"), so while the initial volumes were usually readily available at my local Barnes & Noble or Borders (RIP) I eventually had to start requesting new volumes to be ordered at the B&N (alongside Bastard!!, which naturally always felt awkward to request to an employee), before I eventually found Right Stuf & started simply ordering new volumes through them or even Amazon. Just as with being able to simply watch the Ring ni Kakero 1 anime, continuing to read both Saint Seiya & B't X in manga form required more effort & gumption to accomplish, as though a disembodied voice was trying to tell me "Why even bother? No one really wants to read this stuff, you know!", but all it did was continue to reinforce my appreciation for Masami Kurumada & his works. It was almost like this secret that only I (at least, in my immediate vicinity) knew of & could share with my friends, who in turn also enjoyed what they saw & read. While seemingly "everyone else" in American anime fandom had written off pretty much anything by Masami Kurumada because DiC's Knights of the Zodiac had instantly bombed a few years back, it was as though I accidentally found an alternate way in, and by holding off on Saint Seiya until after first experiencing B't X & Ring ni Kakero 1 I had found myself a strong fan of his works, enjoying his highly dramatic style that mixed together shonen & shojo influences into something that I loved reading & watching, despite everything else figuratively telling me not to.
Anyway, I kept up with Viz's bimonthly releases of Saint Seiya by this point, though TokyoPop had already started slowing down with B't X, but after Volume 18's release in late 2006 it was revealed that new volumes would come out only three times a year from that point on. Volume 18 was the finale of the Poseidon Chapter, and by that point I had kept hearing about how amazing the Hades Chapter was, but I didn't want to wait any longer. Therefore I finally jumped into the Seiya anime waters with the Hades Sanctuary OVA via fansubs, just so I could instantly move on to the next part of the story. As I had heard, the story that I would have had to wait months to start reading was awesome from the very beginning, and I finished up that OVA just in time to see the second half of the next part of the anime adaptation, the Hades Inferno OVA, start getting released in Japan. I eventually also watched those shortly after they finished in early 2007, but since the Hades Elysion OVA wouldn't come out until 2008 I do remember simply reading some really crappy fan translations of the final volumes of the Seiya manga ASAP, just so that I could see how the story finally ended. I believe I also watched the fifth Seiya movie, Tenkai-hen Overture, for the first time at that point with my friends (who did the same as me to finish the Seiya story), as it was (for a few years, at least) the canon sequel, though by this point the Next Dimension manga had already started up in Japan.
Naturally, I later watched all of the Hades Elysion OVA sometime in 2008 or so & continued buying Viz's release of the Seiya manga until that finished in early 2010 (same with TokyoPop's B't X releases, with ended in late 2010), just so I could enjoy that finale with a much better translation & (in the former's case) via animation. It was also during that period of time that I heard about & then watched the live-action J-Drama/tokusatsu TV adaptation of Fuma no Kojirou that happened in late 2007 via fansubs, which I'm pretty sure was how I first experienced "Masami Kurumada's Fourth-Most Well Known Manga" in some fashion; I also at some point first watched the FnK: Yasha-hen OVA "raw" around this time. By early 2009 I was nearing the end of my time in college, & it was during my internship as a video editor that I'd say my passion had started to truly rekindle, though... because Masami Kurumada hinted in March of that year that the Ring ni Kakero 1 anime would be coming back by way of showing work-in-progress lyrics for a new song he was writing! Honestly, by this point I had more or less stuck my memories of RnK1 in the back of my mind, as the fansubs for the first two seasons had been finished up 1.5-2 years ago, & once I saw that a third season wasn't coming in 2008 I moved on, but seeing this hint just got me all sorts of excited in anticipation. While I had yet to read the manga in any real way, by this point I knew about the later story arcs & what was coming next, and I was all ready to see Ring ni Kakero 1 finally be given a second chance to be given "that fair shake" that I felt every anime should theoretically be given. After all, both seasons will have been fully available in English via fansubs for a couple of years by the time this third season, Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow, would debut in Japan in Spring of 2010, so surely some people would have watched the anime, enjoyed it, and then be ready to possibly fansub this third season! And, if not, surely it would at least get ripped as it aired in Japan, so I could watch it "raw"... right?
RIGHT?!?!?!?!
Nothing... Absolutely nothing. Not a single care from anime fans online in lead up (it was mentioned in some write-ups, but no one really had any interest in seeing it), not a single fansub for a single episode, and not even a single rip from Japan, despite it premiering on the same exact PPV services (Animax & SKY PerfecTV!) that the Seiya Hades OVAs debuted on in the past. For all intents & purposes, Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow did not even exist, and even in Japan it seemed as though it only barely existed on the merit of it being made there. While previously that feeling of being told "No, you shouldn't watch this" was merely figurative, as I was clearly able to still watch it in some fashion, this was close to being outright told "No, really, you shouldn't watch this. Stop asking!" as it could get. In fact, by not having any rips at all, this was being told to EVERYONE, even those from other regions where Masami Kurumada in general was more popular, and since Toei wasn't on the simulcasting bandwagon yet this meant that it was truly "for Japan only". Still, I wanted to watch this new season of RnK1, the very hinting of which reignited something in me that I hadn't felt for a while, so I had to do the only thing possible: Import the DVD release. Yes, they weren't cheap (three DVDs at 6,800 yen each, plus shipping... for only two episodes at a time!), but this was something I wanted to watch, arguably more than any other new anime that had debuted in that same exact season (though, to be fair, I had mostly long stopped trying to keep up with new anime by this point; even by 2010 it had just become too much), and nothing was going to stop me. If I had to do it the legal way, though I still had to unlock my DVD player to be able to watch the DVDs on my TV (which is generally considered a no-no by the manufacturer, you naughty importer), then so be it.
It was during this time that I was making my next-to-no-effort YouTube videos, which included me occasionally reviewing anime... so guess what I did! Yep, I decided that I would review these RnK1: Shadow DVDs as they came out & arrived in the mail... and, shockingly enough, those video reviews still exist & haven't been copyright claimed to hell by Toei Animation, even 14 years later!! Yeah, for whatever reason Toei has never put in a copyright claim or restricted access to my crappy videos for over a decade, so you can still watch my 10-11-minute videos about the first two RnK1: Shadow DVDs (though you really shouldn't), and in fact my video about the first DVD from August 9, 2010 remains my most watched video of all time, at over 52,400 views, while my video about the second DVD from September 24, 2010 is my fourth-most watched video, at over 31,500 views. I would imagine the reason for those (relatively) high view counts is simply because for a bit of time they were essentially the only way for anyone to actually see any footage of Season 3 online, due to the lack of rips, in a sort of "If you show it, they will come", at least for early-era YouTube; again the site wasn't even six years old yet, & only turns 20 next year. However, those two DVDs only covered the first four episodes of Season 3, and six episodes were made... so what happened to my video review of the final DVD?
Simply put, I delayed a bit on importing that third & final DVD (again, 6,800 yen, plus shipping!), and by the time I finally got it in December 2010 I had started up a blog called The Land of Obscusion... maybe you heard of it, but I kind of doubt it. I mean, who in their right mind would name a blog after a portmanteau of the word "obscure" & a song by Genesis? Anyway, having started the blog on December 1, 2010 & shortly thereafter finding out about then-new potential news of another season of Ring ni Kakero 1 getting announced at Jump Festa, I decided to do written reviews of the first two seasons of RnK1 so that I could do a written review of all six episodes of Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow that Christmas Eve! I did also plan to at least do a video review of that third DVD, but by then the camera I had been using for YouTube videos was gone, so I effectively decided to stop making videos & focus instead on the blog completely; I did make one last update video using a different camera, but it just wasn't the same.
And, really, I don't think there's any reason to continue from this point on... because there's an entire blog that catalogs everything I've ever written on it in chronological order via the "Blog Archive" on the sidebar, & you can just check out The Master List for something more (mostly) alphabetically organized. I was able to watch & review Ring ni Kakero 1: Sekai Taikai-hen, the fourth season that was hinted at back in December 2010, shortly after it finished up in Japan in June 2011 due to that season actually getting rips of some sort, even if they really weren't all that great; I also just recommend reading my 2021 re-review of all four seasons of RnK1 as a single series. Season 4 also aired in Japan mere months before Toei finally joined the simulcasting bandwagon in late 2011, though I wonder if Crunchyroll would have even bothered to simulcast it anyway, since that have also required subbing 30 prior episodes of anime for it to make sense. I also did my first Saint Seiya reviews in the two months prior to the Season 4 review when I watched & reviewed all of the five Seiya movies that had been made at that time, and I don't think it's worth going over all of that stuff in detail, as I think this whole thing has gone on long enough. The only other thing worth bringing up is that, in the time since my old reviews of Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow in 2010, both video & written, that season eventually got ripped & shared online (prior to the later HD rips for Seasons 3 & 4 that came about, specifically)... and that's because of me. Around 2011 or so I was contacted by the person who ran Frenchies-Subs, a French fansubbing group that wanted to fansub RnK1: Shadow, saw that I had the DVDs, & asked if I could share them, in some fashion. I honestly don't recall how I did it but I managed to do so for them, and in return they promised to also fansub Season 3 into English; sounded like a straightforward deal. If you watch those subs & see "LordGeo" credited for the DVD rips, that would be me, in my literal sole involvement with fansubbing.
Frenchies-Subs would only ever release the first three episodes of Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow with English subs, though they would do all of that season with French subs. What... the... hell... I seriously don't want any of what I've written so far to sound whiny or entitled, but that's all sorts of messed up. I help out in full, only for the other side to not fully honor their part of the deal, but I guess that's just the risk of fansubbing, right? After all, if "no one" cares about the title then why should it be given "that fair shake"?
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| My current collection of Kurumada anime on physical media, minus my Fuma no Kojirou LDs (because the DVDs are absurdly expensive). |
By the way, I wonder how Saint Seiya is fairing in "North of Mexico", by this point...
Yes, this was a literal image shared by Discotek Media when giving its enjoyably obtuse & vague "hints" for future announcements in preparation for one of its big update extravaganzas last year. The person in said image is Justin Sevakis, owner of physical release production company MediaOCD (which produces literally every single Discotek release), direct inspiration for the creation of this very blog all those years ago due to his excellent Buried Treasure/Garbage articles on ANN, and now the current owner of AnimEigo, i.e. he owns his own anime licensing company as of earlier this year. In our current English anime licensing landscape it is now mostly companies owned by larger corporations (Crunchyroll, Sentai, GKids, Anime Limited, etc.), while the independently-owned side is really just down to only three that are still actively releasing anime in any consistent fashion as their primary business: Discotek Media, AnimEigo, & Media Blasters. In other words, all hope for any Masami Kurumada anime ever being licensed (i.e. not just more Saint Seiya), outside of potential future productions that would more than likely get simulcasted (but nothing else), is effectively gone... zilch... nada... essentially a giant "F-Off!" sign to anyone interested in that stuff, kind of like how Ataru responded to the plea to save the Earth in Episode 1 of Urusei Yatsura's legendary "BBC dub".
That one image, though amusing when it was shown last year due to Saint Seiya fans continually asking for more Saint Seiya, despite it constantly bombing for Discotek, now represents two of the three independently-owned English anime companies not wanting to ever even look at another Saint Seiya anime... and if they won't touch Saint Seiya then they certainly won't ever touch B't X (whenever Anime Midstream's license expires & those DVD box sets go out of print) or Ring ni Kakero 1 (effectively leaving that show to never be fully available with English subs, in any fashion or form); the Fuma no Kojirou OVAs are with Aniplex, so they've long been in the "Never Gonna Happen" category. Sure, there's still Media Blasters & on rare occasion Sentai picks up an older title from out of nowhere (still waiting on that Hareluya II BØY home video release that was announced in the press release three years ago!), but neither of them seem likely. Kurumada's works simply aren't really the kind of anime that MB licenses nowadays, while Sentai hasn't worked with Toei in any real fashion in at least a decade, outside of Toei hiring Sentai Studios to sub & dub all of Seiya TV a few years back for streaming (but no actual licensing); maybe Sentai could work with TMS to offer B't X & Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas on Hidive, but that's really it. And, to clarify, this is all completely understandable from a purely business perspective, so I hold no ill will or hatred over any of this. It just really, really sucks from the perspective of someone who absolutely loves Masami Kurumada's works & wants nothing more than for others to be given the chance to check his stuff out, especially those that aren't Saint Seiya, i.e. experiencing things "The Wrong Way", like I did.
In the end, it's all about that "that fair shake". But, again, "that fair shake" is nothing more than a theoretical concept...
Boy, this whole piece ended on a bit of downer note, now didn't it? Welcome to being an English-speaking American fan of Masami Kurumada's works, I guess! However, despite all of these annoyances, I don't regret having discovered the catalog of Masami Kurumada, because I just absolutely love the man's style & it's something I can always find comfort in reading and/or watching, if I need it; it's not purely an escape for me, but I always find enjoyment in it. Sure, I wish I could easily guide others into this stuff & see what I see in it, but at least I've given it my all in trying to do just that, and I'll continue to give it my all however I can; in the end, I feel that's what counts most. Even if "no one" else cares about giving certain anime & manga "that fair shake", at least I'll be there to try.
B't X © Masami Kurumada/Shueisha・TMS
Ring ni Kakero 1: Nichibei Kessen-hen © Masami Kurumada/Shueisha・Toei Animation・Marvelous
Saint Seiya Hades © Masami Kurumada/Shueisha・Toei Animation
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