Saint Seiya: Meiou Iden - Dark Wing
Saint Seiya: Dark Wing

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I've been a fan of Saint Seiya for about 5 years and let me tell you that this is the most unfaithful, irrelevant, and uncreative spin-off this franchise has ever had.

Every spin-off has its interesting take on its protagonist and yes they may seem repetitive (the protagonist has to save or find someone dear to them while also dealing with the heavy burden of being a saint). It's simple stuff and Dark Wing isn't a stranger to this. Soichiro is a teenager who has a crush on Yoruhime, the reincarnation of Pandora of this generation, and has a twin brother Sojiro, who's the Gemini saint. ... Basic stuff for Saint Seiya.

But despite this series following a basic plotline for the franchise they manage to make it the most unoriginal and generic shonen that has ever graced the franchise. I'm not saying Saint Seiya is the amazing work of art but at least it has some aspects and worldbuiling that are slightly more unique than most of shonen today.

The first two chapters we're stuck with Soichiro who most of the time feels like an oc someone would make on DA and most of his personality is just "u-um I'm really shy and insecure and I love Yoruhim sooooo much kyaaaaaa~" but he also has this secret dark past where he went crazy and ended up hurting someone really bad!!! And now he never wants to engage in physical combat ever again because he's scared that he's gonna hurt his next opponent really bad...... or worse KILL THEM. 🐺😱😱 In the main storyline though Soichiro and Sojiro go to a prestigious school with the entire main cast and are on a cruise ship, we get some info abt the twins and a bit of their dynamic with other characters and then the boat gets struck by lightning and sinks. Soichiro tries to save Yoruhime but they both end up sinking in the ocean. In his final moments he has a monologue on how he wants to be strong and then they wyvern just spawns in and saves them. He wakes up in the underworld and he gets lore dumped about why Hades is waging war against Athena and I shit you not Athena just nuked the underworld.

At this point I was done with it because of how absurd and stupid it is not just from a story standpoint but from the pov of the franchise in general. This series has the balls to call itself a saint seiya title when it doesn't even bother working with the actual source material and even less with greek mythology like Mitsumasa did. This just feels like a rejected shonen that was shittly disguised as a saint seiya spinoff and it's a poorly executed trope of "what if the good guys are in the wrong!" or "do the end justify the means" but without the actual critical thinking. There's no point in writing anything related to the dialogue or lore because it's all just barebones shonen lore and the relationship between Yoruhime and Shojiro is worse and forced. There was this whole scene where they were went to a bathhouse in the underworld (????????) and a background character tried insinuating that they both shouldm't be so nervous around each other and how some bathhouses let ppl of the opposite gender be naked around each other LIKE WHAT. I know we don't have ages for these characters but these are at best 3rd year high schoolers ad I don't know why the author bothered doing this whole bit.

TLDR; Dark Wing is a sorry excuse of a Saint Seiya spin off and instead a mediocre shonen that relies on a franchise name to get picked up by a publisher.