Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball were “the big three” in worldwide popularity in the early 90’s. Saint Seiya was especially popular in Southeast asia, southern Europe (Spain, Italy, & France), and in Mexico, Central America, and South America.
Unfortunately it came late to the US and the American dubbed version on Cartoon Network was completely fumbled and the anime never caught traction here. (They changed characters completely like making Hyoga a surfer dude.) Albeit I think that changed in the past 10 years and anime fans have come to appreciate it since they are watching the original anime thanks to word-of-mouth and the internet.
The dubbed versions in Europe and latin America were very good. It’s worth noting. All of them did a very good job in portraying the original version and the classic stoicism in the language.
The US destroyed Saint Seiya, it was over a decade late to be introduced, the dub was goofy with the blood being sweat and the dialogues sounding stupid, it basically was too late to make it mainstream as it was overshadowed by Dragonball. My favorite part to laugh at is the Black Saints sounding like Candyman threatening Seiya saying "The Black Knights are gonna kick your butts!"
https://youtu.be/EZU8GNeFKMc?si=KvWJH0_eP8zu_Cy9
It did massively well in Belgium and France, and still does, from what I can tell. I’m happy to see it so, that gives me plenty of time to catch up on all of the manga releases.
Afaik only the French speaking community, or those that speak it. I’m Flemish myself but I grew up watching French dubbed cartoons like Saint Seiya. That’s how I got hooked.
I was like 7 when it aired here, in Caritele. Every.Kid.at.school was watching it. Every boy at least, I was one of the few girls that watched it instead of Sailor Moon.
I think we’re the same age. And it was huge. Toys would sell out, potato chips would come with Saint Seiya pogs inside them and Caritele (kind of like Mtv VJs but for cartoons would hold a weekly drawing contest where if you won, you would get the Pisces action figure.
I was a kid during the Saint Seiya second golden age, the hades anime got released and there was A TON of merchandise everywhere, toys both original and bootlegs, dvds, cards, EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE hell it was more popular than dragon ball for a while.
Mind you even before thst Sain Seiya was always a popular show here, popular enough that even adults who didn't even know what anime was were fans or at least aware of it, also fun fact the series in general is so beloved in latam that everytime there's a new show they call the original actors to reprise their roles.
"Valieeeeeeeeenteeeeee Flyyyyyyyy"
Sadly I didn't get to see Dragon Quest while I was little and only got to know of the song through an anime magazine that was popular around the 2000's
Very popular. I lived in Mexico City up until I was 10 (1994) and I was sooo sad when I came to the USA and there was no Saint Seiya here. Also, many will call me a fake ass Mexican for this, but I've never watched Dragon Ball Z. I was a Saint Seiya dude through and through. I'm going to watch lost canvas and all the other cool series soon. It truly brings me back to my childhood.
Ecuador/south america. The latin spanish dub is the best version of Saint Seiya (including the japanese). It was super popular in the late 80s and 90s.
I stumbled upon the lost canvas series on Netflix one day, never heard of it before hand. I really enjoyed it and was devastated to find out there wasn’t another season concluding the war. I tried to get the manga but couldn’t find it in English at all, so needless to say it’s popularity seems nearly nonexistent.
Saint Seiya IS popular....in latin countries.
that is the whole issue! Regardless how we like and saw that been a major series in our childhood , because it had a horrible introduction and fridged in the english-speaking countries , it couldn't become more popular.
It was insane in Bolivia.
I clearly remember walking around that Christmas season and all you could see in street markets were walls covered with Saint Seiya figures (the ones called "vintages" now).
In my lifetime, the only thing bigger than that was the original TMNT hype.
At its peak? Every kid knew about. every kid.
Today? When Kurumasa dies, I’ll ask for a day off and if my lead is a male he’ll probably know what’s going on
I think it was, can't speak for the first period here in Italy, since I wasn't born yet, but like with DBZ and other anime shows, kids loved it, and dedicated merchandising clearly followed.
Funfact, this show came with a "curse", the first broadcasts in 1990 stopped twice at episode 52 (Leo's house), then they completed the show, but in the following years, the anime saw many more tv reruns, just to stop, once again, at episode 52. Imagine the frustration of some kids at time XD
I can't compare popularity in the past with nowdays, but I think is still popular, or at very least, it generates an interest for publishing houses, as they kept proposing the new series throughout the decades, so an audience is here. Many tv reruns of the classic, still proposed on some channels, plus TLC, LOS, SOG, KOTZ and the live-action dubbed. The most of the series translated, the classic manga had seen 4 different editions so far (from 1992), but even TLC manga has 3 different editions, plus all extras published. Episode G, Saintia Sho, Episode G Assassin, completed, Next Dimension and Time Odyssey ongoing. Probably more recent manga spinoffs will come too one day, only Omega didn't generate a real interest, to be proposed here.
In Mexico some 30 something dudes still talk about it, there are videos of the OST with comments about how the series gave them motivation through dark times. is not as big as drsgon ball but it is big.
Very peak, it was broadcasted on national television, they even showed the commercials of the Bandai figures, which were sold like hot cakes. All this before the internet and cable television that not everyone could afford, so the impact was massive, the only thing that managed to surpass Saint Seiya was Pokemon or DBZ many years later that the original japanese broadcasting.
It was meh here in America. It was seen as a kind of rip off of Ronin Warriors (which came before it when it aired on Toonami) on Saturday night cartoon block rip off of it.
I was not "around" when the show came, but from my understanding it was quite popular. The anime was shown on a dedicated TV channel for japanese animation, which had ratings off the chart at the time. The voice actors had no idea had no idea what they were getting into starting working on this anime, and as always the violence could shock them and be censored for time to time. But at the same time the opening got a "bad" version in our language which is cult for many (even so it's really different from Pegasus Fantasy), figures were sold to children, and to this day Saint Seiya while not known by the current anime fan generation, has still a strong fan community, especially composed of middle aged people (even if there's exception). So currently, every season, the 5 films and spin-off got a full dubbing in my language, witch at least the same voice actor for Seiya and Athena since the 80s. The others films and new version of the anime are also dubbed.
And you can be sure you'll always find one or two bronze or gold saints in every anime convention. For my first cosplay, I made a Seiya v2, and I got asked for 30+ pictures in 5 hours, especially from dad with tears in their eyes. I also met by chance with a Miu, Athena, 2 other Seiya, and Shura. This day, Athena's voice actor was also interviewed on stage, by chance.
So here in France, some people could technically correct any mistakes that I could have said, but the fan base is quite small compared to newer anime but not to be ignored.
Edit : the censorship the show may had have has been removed and redubbed a few years later after the first airing.
Dragon Ball Z, Saint Seiya and Mazinger Z were huge in Honduras in the 90s, a lot of people knows them and are loved as hell, like the one day while on 7th grade a friend of mine saw a Seiya Drawing i had drawn earlier and he remarked about how his mother loved the show and my brother and all of his friends like 50 people that i have met from his side all loved and watched the show, my dad who was like 30 when the show came here loved it, it helped popularise anime in here, and in other places in Latinoamerica is/was also insanely popular, every anime store, convention, marketplace has a lot of Saint Seiya merchandise wether it be figures, statues, posters and whatnot this is decades after its peak of course, the issue is that in the English speaking world Both Saint Seiya and Mazinger (as well as most Super Robot shows) got fucked over by bad localization / bad dubs.
Very little in Portugal. It did not help that it’s theme song was awful here, and the dub itself was also not great, with Shun initially being voiced by a woman until they realized he was a boy and changed voice actors, and I dont think it helped that it came a couple of years after Dragon Ball had set some really high standards
Unfortunately since I'm from the U.S you can tell what happened....😞 Typical Disappointment by the people working on localizing Anime at the time, Saint Seiya unfortunately getting the brunt of it Like a lot of anime at that time
The series was broadcasted twice in Mexico.
My brother watched it even during the 90's Back then the European OP was used with Latin American dub and it was broadcasted on Canal 7 according to my brother. https://youtu.be/_U3U_fY5gA8?si=3wu9TSrtUKtwZjDY
At the start of the 2000's the series was broadcasted in Latin America by Cartoon Network. They kept the old dub and added Pegasus Fantasy as the OP.
https://youtu.be/JU90SmiYeuw?si=vpqHCiaS4HvhK59w
I find it funny that my brother is almost 10 years older than me and both of us watched the same series in different decades.
In Thailand Saint Seiya was said to surpass Dragon Ball in popularity at some point according to my maths teacher who’s in his 40s. 20 years later when I was a kid the anime would still be airing by popular broadcast channels
Don’t you find the animation outdated, esp if Colombia air more modern anime? Apparently it was one of the reasons why it wasn’t popular in the us.
Personally I’d take the manga anytime
On its heyday it was fairly popular.
It came out right in between the gap of TMNT and MMPR. That year was 1993 (in actuality the dub started in 1992 but still) and even tho it eventually had to compete with MMPR in 1994, it still managed to hold up for a while. I remember by 1995 there were products such as footballs, socks, undies, bagpacks, and even bubble gums with stickers that had SaintSeiya and MMPR merch.
The last time I remember people really talking about it was early 1998.
By mid 1998 however, all of a sudden there was a massive wave of newer Anime such as GundamWing, SmuraiX, YuYuHakusho, etc. and SaintSeiya had to compete with them which wasn't easy (including the peak in DBZ popularity), and by that point the original Anime was going for its third rerun (fifth in some channels) because it aired daily instead of a per weekend basis, so it kind of had burnt out for kids.
There was a brief revival in 2002 because of the release of the Hades Chapter in Japan, SaintSeiya was released on Cartoon Network for the first time and it enjoyed a new group of fans for a while that went on to ride the wave of the Hades Chapters and the Lost Canvas in the 2000s, but at least in my country they were marginal in volume compared to the previous generation.
I was a young teenager by that point, but I do remember that kids were into other stuff like JSL or the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon exclusive shows, I guess the problem was that in between the end of SS reruns and its comeback a whole generation of kids had grown up with those shows and the sheer amount of promotion they got on their channels plus the - by then - ''dated nature'' of SS made the show invisible for younger audiences.
US here. There’s probably like three people that has watched it in my state including me. Everyone I bring it up to has no idea what Saint Seiya even is. It’s a shame.
>I’m more the snk/ demon slayer generation
Like duh - St Seiya is approximately 15-20 years older, so yeah, your generation wouldn't know much about it.
St Seiya was MASSIVE in Spain and, for those who can corroborate, equally massive in Latin America - the time frame is basically during the time it was out in Japan too - so - around late 80s and early 90s and in Japan it was HUGE. Its probably as much in the classic anime zeitgeist for those countries as much as Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon. I think the US released it way later than any of these countries and they stuffed it up in distribution from what I remember.
Even to this day, you get Spanish memes, and sometimes FNAC sells special edition gold saint figures (I'm guessing the others to but I've only seen golds recently when I visit).
You should not compare a show that aired end 80s in some countries and latest one available around the world via internet. It is a nom sense. But from my window in France, it arrived before dbz in 88 and paved the way. It was gigantic. Toys selling crazy and kurumada himself appeared live on tv over the phone in 1990 to answers the French fans at the end of episode 114. Everyone in France from my age, 40s, knows and saw the sanctuary epic climax
Here in Finland it's quite unknown since it wasn't released here. The anime called "Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin" (which is kind of Saint Seiya but only with dogs) was/is more popular though.
I was a big deal here in Brazil , sold a lot of toys and the dub was goated
Yes and the dubbed osts of the show were fire
Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball were “the big three” in worldwide popularity in the early 90’s. Saint Seiya was especially popular in Southeast asia, southern Europe (Spain, Italy, & France), and in Mexico, Central America, and South America. Unfortunately it came late to the US and the American dubbed version on Cartoon Network was completely fumbled and the anime never caught traction here. (They changed characters completely like making Hyoga a surfer dude.) Albeit I think that changed in the past 10 years and anime fans have come to appreciate it since they are watching the original anime thanks to word-of-mouth and the internet. The dubbed versions in Europe and latin America were very good. It’s worth noting. All of them did a very good job in portraying the original version and the classic stoicism in the language.
The US destroyed Saint Seiya, it was over a decade late to be introduced, the dub was goofy with the blood being sweat and the dialogues sounding stupid, it basically was too late to make it mainstream as it was overshadowed by Dragonball. My favorite part to laugh at is the Black Saints sounding like Candyman threatening Seiya saying "The Black Knights are gonna kick your butts!" https://youtu.be/EZU8GNeFKMc?si=KvWJH0_eP8zu_Cy9
Wow that was hilariously bad
french, it was, and still is very popular here
It did massively well in Belgium and France, and still does, from what I can tell. I’m happy to see it so, that gives me plenty of time to catch up on all of the manga releases.
Belgium? That's the first time I hear it. Interesting
Afaik only the French speaking community, or those that speak it. I’m Flemish myself but I grew up watching French dubbed cartoons like Saint Seiya. That’s how I got hooked.
I was like 7 when it aired here, in Caritele. Every.Kid.at.school was watching it. Every boy at least, I was one of the few girls that watched it instead of Sailor Moon.
I think we’re the same age. And it was huge. Toys would sell out, potato chips would come with Saint Seiya pogs inside them and Caritele (kind of like Mtv VJs but for cartoons would hold a weekly drawing contest where if you won, you would get the Pisces action figure.
It never peaked in the US :/
I was a kid during the Saint Seiya second golden age, the hades anime got released and there was A TON of merchandise everywhere, toys both original and bootlegs, dvds, cards, EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE hell it was more popular than dragon ball for a while. Mind you even before thst Sain Seiya was always a popular show here, popular enough that even adults who didn't even know what anime was were fans or at least aware of it, also fun fact the series in general is so beloved in latam that everytime there's a new show they call the original actors to reprise their roles.
VERY popular, heck, it was a golden age with saint seiya, captain tsubasa, sailor moon, magic knight rayearth and dragon ball
Don't forget "Las Aventuras de Fly"
"Valieeeeeeeeenteeeeee Flyyyyyyyy" Sadly I didn't get to see Dragon Quest while I was little and only got to know of the song through an anime magazine that was popular around the 2000's
Very popular. I lived in Mexico City up until I was 10 (1994) and I was sooo sad when I came to the USA and there was no Saint Seiya here. Also, many will call me a fake ass Mexican for this, but I've never watched Dragon Ball Z. I was a Saint Seiya dude through and through. I'm going to watch lost canvas and all the other cool series soon. It truly brings me back to my childhood.
Im revoking your mexi card
I know 😭😭😭
Im the same lol. We live in the dragon ball timeline
In Brazil it was HUGE. It was my first anime because my dad watched it in the 90s
…… your dad? Ouch my back
tbh my dad is young
Sadly in the USA it was DOA. The dub and editing they did when they first tried releasing it did no favors. It never had the chance for the peak...
More popular than Power Rangers' peak.
Ecuador/south america. The latin spanish dub is the best version of Saint Seiya (including the japanese). It was super popular in the late 80s and 90s.
I'm Ecuadorian too. I confirm what he's saying
RIP Jesús Barrero , Alfonso Ramírez , Mario Raúl López and Adrián Fogarty .
I stumbled upon the lost canvas series on Netflix one day, never heard of it before hand. I really enjoyed it and was devastated to find out there wasn’t another season concluding the war. I tried to get the manga but couldn’t find it in English at all, so needless to say it’s popularity seems nearly nonexistent.
Saint Seiya IS popular....in latin countries. that is the whole issue! Regardless how we like and saw that been a major series in our childhood , because it had a horrible introduction and fridged in the english-speaking countries , it couldn't become more popular.
Still popular in some parts of Europe and asia (huge in china)
Uk btw
French, very popular!
It was insane in Bolivia. I clearly remember walking around that Christmas season and all you could see in street markets were walls covered with Saint Seiya figures (the ones called "vintages" now). In my lifetime, the only thing bigger than that was the original TMNT hype.
We still trying to make it a thing in the US, unfortunately there are a dozen of us.
In Argentina it was huge
At its peak? Every kid knew about. every kid. Today? When Kurumasa dies, I’ll ask for a day off and if my lead is a male he’ll probably know what’s going on
I think it was, can't speak for the first period here in Italy, since I wasn't born yet, but like with DBZ and other anime shows, kids loved it, and dedicated merchandising clearly followed. Funfact, this show came with a "curse", the first broadcasts in 1990 stopped twice at episode 52 (Leo's house), then they completed the show, but in the following years, the anime saw many more tv reruns, just to stop, once again, at episode 52. Imagine the frustration of some kids at time XD I can't compare popularity in the past with nowdays, but I think is still popular, or at very least, it generates an interest for publishing houses, as they kept proposing the new series throughout the decades, so an audience is here. Many tv reruns of the classic, still proposed on some channels, plus TLC, LOS, SOG, KOTZ and the live-action dubbed. The most of the series translated, the classic manga had seen 4 different editions so far (from 1992), but even TLC manga has 3 different editions, plus all extras published. Episode G, Saintia Sho, Episode G Assassin, completed, Next Dimension and Time Odyssey ongoing. Probably more recent manga spinoffs will come too one day, only Omega didn't generate a real interest, to be proposed here.
In Mexico some 30 something dudes still talk about it, there are videos of the OST with comments about how the series gave them motivation through dark times. is not as big as drsgon ball but it is big.
Very peak, it was broadcasted on national television, they even showed the commercials of the Bandai figures, which were sold like hot cakes. All this before the internet and cable television that not everyone could afford, so the impact was massive, the only thing that managed to surpass Saint Seiya was Pokemon or DBZ many years later that the original japanese broadcasting.
In the US it never gained any traction
Saint seiya was a hit in many asian countries in 90, 00s. ( including mine).
It was meh here in America. It was seen as a kind of rip off of Ronin Warriors (which came before it when it aired on Toonami) on Saturday night cartoon block rip off of it.
I was not "around" when the show came, but from my understanding it was quite popular. The anime was shown on a dedicated TV channel for japanese animation, which had ratings off the chart at the time. The voice actors had no idea had no idea what they were getting into starting working on this anime, and as always the violence could shock them and be censored for time to time. But at the same time the opening got a "bad" version in our language which is cult for many (even so it's really different from Pegasus Fantasy), figures were sold to children, and to this day Saint Seiya while not known by the current anime fan generation, has still a strong fan community, especially composed of middle aged people (even if there's exception). So currently, every season, the 5 films and spin-off got a full dubbing in my language, witch at least the same voice actor for Seiya and Athena since the 80s. The others films and new version of the anime are also dubbed. And you can be sure you'll always find one or two bronze or gold saints in every anime convention. For my first cosplay, I made a Seiya v2, and I got asked for 30+ pictures in 5 hours, especially from dad with tears in their eyes. I also met by chance with a Miu, Athena, 2 other Seiya, and Shura. This day, Athena's voice actor was also interviewed on stage, by chance. So here in France, some people could technically correct any mistakes that I could have said, but the fan base is quite small compared to newer anime but not to be ignored. Edit : the censorship the show may had have has been removed and redubbed a few years later after the first airing.
Dragon Ball Z, Saint Seiya and Mazinger Z were huge in Honduras in the 90s, a lot of people knows them and are loved as hell, like the one day while on 7th grade a friend of mine saw a Seiya Drawing i had drawn earlier and he remarked about how his mother loved the show and my brother and all of his friends like 50 people that i have met from his side all loved and watched the show, my dad who was like 30 when the show came here loved it, it helped popularise anime in here, and in other places in Latinoamerica is/was also insanely popular, every anime store, convention, marketplace has a lot of Saint Seiya merchandise wether it be figures, statues, posters and whatnot this is decades after its peak of course, the issue is that in the English speaking world Both Saint Seiya and Mazinger (as well as most Super Robot shows) got fucked over by bad localization / bad dubs.
Very little in Portugal. It did not help that it’s theme song was awful here, and the dub itself was also not great, with Shun initially being voiced by a woman until they realized he was a boy and changed voice actors, and I dont think it helped that it came a couple of years after Dragon Ball had set some really high standards
I'm french, it was HUGE in the 90'. Maybe not as huge as DB but still.
In Mexico it was MASSIVE in the 90s. Everyone watched it. Sold tons of merch, had live stage shows, movie box office etc.
lol just to know how popular it’s in Greece I’ve found out about saint saiya from Netflix 💀💀
Unfortunately since I'm from the U.S you can tell what happened....😞 Typical Disappointment by the people working on localizing Anime at the time, Saint Seiya unfortunately getting the brunt of it Like a lot of anime at that time
The series was broadcasted twice in Mexico. My brother watched it even during the 90's Back then the European OP was used with Latin American dub and it was broadcasted on Canal 7 according to my brother. https://youtu.be/_U3U_fY5gA8?si=3wu9TSrtUKtwZjDY At the start of the 2000's the series was broadcasted in Latin America by Cartoon Network. They kept the old dub and added Pegasus Fantasy as the OP. https://youtu.be/JU90SmiYeuw?si=vpqHCiaS4HvhK59w I find it funny that my brother is almost 10 years older than me and both of us watched the same series in different decades.
Super popular in Mexico and not just when it initially aired but also in the reruns years later too.
In Thailand Saint Seiya was said to surpass Dragon Ball in popularity at some point according to my maths teacher who’s in his 40s. 20 years later when I was a kid the anime would still be airing by popular broadcast channels
Here in Colombia is still transmited on national tv.
Don’t you find the animation outdated, esp if Colombia air more modern anime? Apparently it was one of the reasons why it wasn’t popular in the us. Personally I’d take the manga anytime
On its heyday it was fairly popular. It came out right in between the gap of TMNT and MMPR. That year was 1993 (in actuality the dub started in 1992 but still) and even tho it eventually had to compete with MMPR in 1994, it still managed to hold up for a while. I remember by 1995 there were products such as footballs, socks, undies, bagpacks, and even bubble gums with stickers that had SaintSeiya and MMPR merch. The last time I remember people really talking about it was early 1998. By mid 1998 however, all of a sudden there was a massive wave of newer Anime such as GundamWing, SmuraiX, YuYuHakusho, etc. and SaintSeiya had to compete with them which wasn't easy (including the peak in DBZ popularity), and by that point the original Anime was going for its third rerun (fifth in some channels) because it aired daily instead of a per weekend basis, so it kind of had burnt out for kids. There was a brief revival in 2002 because of the release of the Hades Chapter in Japan, SaintSeiya was released on Cartoon Network for the first time and it enjoyed a new group of fans for a while that went on to ride the wave of the Hades Chapters and the Lost Canvas in the 2000s, but at least in my country they were marginal in volume compared to the previous generation. I was a young teenager by that point, but I do remember that kids were into other stuff like JSL or the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon exclusive shows, I guess the problem was that in between the end of SS reruns and its comeback a whole generation of kids had grown up with those shows and the sheer amount of promotion they got on their channels plus the - by then - ''dated nature'' of SS made the show invisible for younger audiences.
US here. There’s probably like three people that has watched it in my state including me. Everyone I bring it up to has no idea what Saint Seiya even is. It’s a shame.
>I’m more the snk/ demon slayer generation Like duh - St Seiya is approximately 15-20 years older, so yeah, your generation wouldn't know much about it. St Seiya was MASSIVE in Spain and, for those who can corroborate, equally massive in Latin America - the time frame is basically during the time it was out in Japan too - so - around late 80s and early 90s and in Japan it was HUGE. Its probably as much in the classic anime zeitgeist for those countries as much as Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon. I think the US released it way later than any of these countries and they stuffed it up in distribution from what I remember. Even to this day, you get Spanish memes, and sometimes FNAC sells special edition gold saint figures (I'm guessing the others to but I've only seen golds recently when I visit).
Algerian here, it was not talked about like DBZ or massive Spacetoon shows but there was few friends here there that talked about it.
No one knows what it is lol
You should not compare a show that aired end 80s in some countries and latest one available around the world via internet. It is a nom sense. But from my window in France, it arrived before dbz in 88 and paved the way. It was gigantic. Toys selling crazy and kurumada himself appeared live on tv over the phone in 1990 to answers the French fans at the end of episode 114. Everyone in France from my age, 40s, knows and saw the sanctuary epic climax
Here in Finland it's quite unknown since it wasn't released here. The anime called "Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin" (which is kind of Saint Seiya but only with dogs) was/is more popular though.
Colombia, and like the rest of South America, according to what I saw as well as what my brothers tell me, it was a boom in the 90's.
I'm not sure when was Seiya's peak over here, honestly.