➤ Netflix's Knights of the Zodiac, the review of the second part 🎮

The useless reboot by Netflix and Toei Animation continues Saint Seiya, the famous work of Masami Kurumada became famous in the 80s with the legendary anime then renamed The Zodiac Knights a little around the world. A controversial operation that has raised enormous controversies even before starting and in this one review of the second part we will try to understand better: if you read our review of the first part, a few months ago, you will probably remember our negative opinion. We are talking about a reboot that is far from necessary, given that the franchise is still going strong almost forty years after its debut, and a series of changes that have angered historical fans and crippled a story and characters that have simply become. iconic. Incredible to say, the new installment of episodes tries to patch up the problems we encountered: let's see together how.

The saga of the silver knights

We had left Seiya and the others in an erupting volcano after the defeat of Nero, knight of the Phoenix and brother of Shaun, knight of Andromeda: the fate of the five seemed uncertain, but the new series begins immediately with the revelation that Mur dell'Ariete he saved everyone - including Vander Guraad's black knights - except Nero, who sacrificed himself to give him time to help others. Seiya thus finds himself separated from the group, and immediately under attack: the Sanctuary in fact, he sent the silver knights to assassinate Lady Isabel, and among these there is also Castalia, Pegasus' mentor. The first four episodes of this second "season" retrace quite faithfully the original plot of the manga, thus excluding some fillers of the original anime such as the battles against Docrates or the knights of Morgana, and reducing the number of silver knights who pounce on protagonists. The screenwriter Eugene Son he made a fairly sensible cut and sew job, given the limited time available, anticipating for example the crucial battle between Sirius and Perseus' Argor in which the Dragon loses his sight for the first time.

The problem of tight deadlines, however, continues to cast its shadow over production Toei Animation. The episodes are few and short: the script does not give the characters time to breathe and mature, transforming the dialogues into exchanges of jokes without pathos, although the voice actors - who for the most part are the same as in the 80s - do their part. better to get back to the parts that made the Spanish adaptation of Saint Seiya great. As we said in the review of the first part, however, the rumors continue to be out of tune with the new youthful characterization of some characters, especially Pegasus who has become a machine gun of ironic jokes. And so, in just four episodes, we go from the clash on the beach with Eris - forget the famous nude scene - to the arrival of Ioria del Leone, the golden knight who kidnapped Patricia, Seiya's sister, in the very first installment of the reboot. And it is at this point that the story stops standing and goes completely to hell.

The confused knights

As we said, the Sanctuary sent the silver knights, and then Ioria, to assassinate Lady Isabel, but the reason is not what you think, if you saw The Knights of the Zodiac many years ago or simply read the Kurumada manga. In the historical series, in fact, the Grand Priest he had convinced the shrine knights that Isabel was an impostor, which is why they wanted her dead. In the reboot, however, the reincarnation of Athena is linked to a prophecy: her rebirth on Earth would mean the beginning of the end for mankind, and this would be the reason that pushes the Sanctuary and the knights of Athena to want her dead. Which makes no sense at all: if knights exist to protect the goddess Athena, why should they want his death? And the sudden, iron loyalty of Seiya and the other Bronze Horsemen to Isabel doesn't make sense either. And that's not the only detail that doesn't square with the story laid out in the previous episodes.

We've already discussed the senseless change to the storyline of Tisifone, who doesn't wear the mask in the reboot, and who swore revenge because Seiya only defeated her in battle. Evidently driven by criticism to restore the sentimental bond between the warrior and the knight of Pegasus, Eugene Son has suddenly decided to make Tisipone fall in love with Seiya simply because of his courage and his devotion to the goddess Athena. So, suddenly, within a few minutes and a few battles, the enemies take Isabel's side, Tisifone takes a crush on Pegasus and risks his life, Nero returns to the scene and leaves for no reason, Seiya's sister maybe she is dead but maybe not and maybe she could be Castalia but maybe not. The plot evolves in a hasty and confused way first in a more or less faithful replica of the original series, then taking a completely new drift with the return of Vander Guraad and his black knights: while the spectators discover, stunned, that in this reboot the Cosmos can be bottled and stored in special super-technological canisters, ours find themselves fighting a final video game boss and leave us with another cliffhanger that refers to the future saga of the golden knights.

Some highs and many lows

We have already expressed ourselves in the last review regarding the technical quality of this Toei Animation production: it is a computer graphics without enormous pretensions that alternates prominent moments with abysses of mediocrity. Even in this season the problems encountered in the first remain. In quiet moments, when the characters converse normally, there is an alternation between the rigid animations of the body, the often exaggerated gesticulation and the unconvincing expressiveness of the faces. THE fighting on this tour they made a better impression on us, mostly because the number of riders who followed one another on the screen left little room for more elaborate choreographies that risked going badly. The animators focused so on the special shots that, all in all, they effectively reminded us of those of the counterparts drawn by Shingo Araki in the 80s, especially in the case of the silver knights. It's a shame, though, that the knights in the reboot keep swapping fists like the Hadokens from Street Fighter EX. Too bad we are no longer in 1996.

The design continues to be convincing, faithful to the original one despite the general rejuvenation of all the characters which, as we said above, clashes not a little with the historical voices of De Palma, Balzarotti, Rosa and Cericola, to which some old guards are added like Giorgio Melazzi, who returns to play Damian del Corvo. The armor remains the best part of the reboot, to be honest. Toei Animation has very little retouched those of the silver knights and the gold knights, focusing more on the effects and textures that effectively convey the idea of a metal alloy with lots of dents, scratches and dirt during the fights. The gold armor, needless to say, they sparkle and shine like never before, transmitting that aura of power and royalty that has always distinguished them in manga thanks to Kurumada's scrupulous work with nets, perhaps his only talent as a designer. It must be admitted that it is not much, but at least the reboot can boast at least this respect towards the original work.

Comment

Resources4Gaming.com

5.0

The first three or four episodes of this second season of Saint Seiya: The Knights of the Zodiac have deluded us that Eugene Son was finally determined to put aside the bizarre ideas of his reboot to faithfully follow the original story. In a sense, he did so, but hastily, using confused explanations and motivations to adjust the shot and realign the two works. The result is a noticeably better tranche of episodes than the first, but still a long way from the 80s anime in many respects. We still think this reboot is fundamentally useless, but we admit we're a bit more optimistic about its future.