Saint Seiya Omega
Saint Seiya Omega is the 2012 entry in the Saint Seiya franchise.
It follows a new generation of Saints, and the main character is Pegasus Kouga, who seems to be very much like Seiya in terms of personality. Seiya himself also appears as a Gold Saint. Saori Kido is still present, as the goddess Athena; she also raised Kouga as a parent. She is kidnapped by the god Mars, leaving Kouga and his fellow Saints to save her. Other Saints include: Aquila/Eagle Yuna, Lionet Souma, Draco/Dragon Ryuhou, Orion Eden and Lupus/Wolf Haruto.
The production staff is composed of big names such as: Yoshihiko Umakoshi (character designer of Casshern Sins), Shigeyasu Yamauchi (director of the orginal series), and others.
Following the relative success of Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle, Namco Bandai announced that a game based on Omega is on the works. So far details like genre, platform, and release dates have not been revealed. Only a promo image was given: a cell-shadded Kouga in battle position. It's unknown if that is in-game footage.
Tropes used in Saint Seiya Omega include:
- Alternate Continuity: Toei immediately placed Omega as from outside Kurumada's canon, despite being set 25 years after the events from the first series.
- Anime Theme Song: A new version of Pegasus Fantasy is the first of Omega's OPs.
- Artistic Age: Creating a contrast with the original series where young characters looked much older, in here the very same characters aged, but now look young instead.
- Badass Grandpa: At 57, Tatsumi is still Saori's personal buttler, carries his shinai around and scolds bratty teenagers.
- Badass Mustache: Tatsumi grew one.
- Best Her to Bed Her: A variant with the permanently-masked female Saints. Traditionally, if they show their faces to someone they must (a) fall in love with them, or (b) kill them. Now consider the amount of Clothing Damage in a fight between Cloth-wearers and... well, you can see where we're going with this. Yuna deconstructs and eventually defies this - she's not happy about the tradition, and tends to fight at a handicap to prevent her mask from getting broken. Eventually (with a bit of encouragement from Kouga) she decides that it just isn't worth the effort, lets her mask get wrecked to win a fight, and gives tradition a big middle finger from then onwards. There's a reason she's bare-faced in the picture above.
- Big Bad: Mars. Unless there's some weird gambits like in Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas.
- Big Damn Heroes: Seiyra returns to save Kouga from Mars at the end of episode 10.
- Butt Monkey: Hydra Ichi. A veteran from the original series, never graduating from Academy and generally gets into way too much misfortune for laughs. Even Kouga, a total newbie, makes fun of him and didn't take his seniority so seriously.
- Canon Immigrant: The fact Athena Saints can be promoted to higher-ranking cloths was introduced in Next Dimension, long after the original series in which this subject was never touched upon, so it seemed a Gold Saint was born to be one and a Bronze Saint could only reach this far, if they weren't lucky enough to have Gold Saints as masters who could lent them the cloths to vanquish evil.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Of course. For one thing, Kouga is quite a bit bishier than Seiya and Tenma. And for being Shiryuu's son, Ryuhou got the bishie look of Shun...
- Celebrity Impersonator: Aria, who is presented as Athena
- Clothing Damage: Played for drama rather than fanservice. Your Cloth getting broken is a sure sign that a fight isn't going well for you, and overlaps with Wrecked Weapon.
- Crossover Cosmology: The Greek gods are real, and apparently so is the Hebrew God, which is required by Mars' plan to re-create the Tower Of Babel and charging it up with loads of Cosmo from all 7 elements.
- Curb Stomp Battle: Eden's first battle during the Saint Fight pitted him against an experienced foe who had the advantage in Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors (wind over thunder). The match lasted five seconds - one second for Eden to attack, four for his opponent to hit the ground.
- A minor one occurs in the next episode when Yuna obliterates her enemy with much ease (not as extreme as Eden's, but still counts), compared to the previous episode whereas Souma received quite a beating despite winning (off screen), and Kouga had to get himself beat up a lot before winning.
- The director of Palaestra delivered a brutal to Koga after he discovered that the Athena that is in the Sanctuary is a fake
- Episode 10 features the granddaddy of all Curb Stomp Battles, with a side-order of No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Team Kouga never stood a chance.
- Which is brought Up to Eleven when Mars decides that he wants to finish Kouga off himself. It's only Seiya in all his Gold Saint glory that saves him.
- De-Power: The curse Mars placed on Athena, it keeps her from using her Cosmo, if she tries to force it out the curse's ill effects will engulf her; also her cloth is nowhere to be seen.
- Designated Victim: Oh no, how can this be! Athena has been kidnapped yet again.
- Determinator: Deconstructed! When Kouga is the only saint able to stand up to a certain Gold Saint named Mycean who's gone through a Face Heel Turn, Kouga musters up his Light element, he's the only one left standing, and it doesn't look like he's going to go down...! Only for Mars to show up, say that he's too dangerous, and soundly beat him to a pulp.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: There are five basic elements that forms a circle, each one having the edge over the other: Fire -> Wind -> Thunder -> Earth -> Water -> Fire; aside from those there are singular special elements: Light and Darkness, of which Light beats Darkness, and Darkness beats everything else. The supreme rule in Saint combat still prevails though, whoever burns more of their Cosmo will win regardless of element, meaning that yes, regular Saints do still have a chance against Darkness-users if they're skilled/powerful enough.
- Expy: Kouga is Seiya, Ryuhou is Shiryu, Yuna has elements of both Marin and Yuzuriha, and Haruto is probably one of Junkers[1].
- Souma has elements of Aioria and Regulus and Eden is Ikki.
- Ryuho is closer to Shun than to Shiryu, even if he is Shiryu's son. His character profile on the official site describes him as the sentimental, considerate character. From a different perspective, it's probably like this: Kouga is the new Seiya, Yuna is Hyouga, Haruto is Shiryu, Ryuho is Shun and Eden is Ikki; Souma is the only one without a direct equivalent in the main cast.
- Not exactly, Soma is a mellowed version of Jabu.
- Everyone Is Right-Handed: Averted, Souma and several other kids at the Palaestra are left handed.
- Face Heel Turn: The Gold Saints, with the exception of Seiya, are now Mars's elite guard. This is a bad thing.
- Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Mars's attack comes with little warning and virtually no reason aside from the fact that they needed a new god to hold the Villain Ball and act as this series' Big Bad.
- Give Him a Normal Life: Saori raised Kouga outside the Sanctuary, not revealing that she is Athena. She stated that she wanted to give him a normal life, but still allowed him to take training to be a Saint under Shaina's guidance so that he would able to protect those who he loves.
- Henshin Hero: The Saints are now this due to the cloths apparently losing the physical sense (no stand-by form) and instead becoming more versatile spandex-looking.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Seiya, supposedly, gave up on his life to save Athena and Kouga from Mars. It didn't stick.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Kouga couldn't use his Cosmo until Souma taught him how to.
- Hot Mom: Saori to Kouga, she is 37 years old in this setting.
- Human Resources/Living Battery/Powered by a Forsaken Child: Mars's Evil Plan requires him to harvest Cosmo from Saints on an industrial scale, slowly killing them in the process. This is why he took over the Palaestra - it's basically a giant Cosmo farm.
- Infinity Plus One Elements: Light and Dark, though they have more of an emphasis on the 'Plus One' than the 'Infinity'. The reason being that despite their advantages the above mentioned "whoever's cosmo burns brightest wins" still applies. However to date (ep 8) both elements are incredibly rare among saints, and of the three known Light element users two are deific the real and 'fake' Athena and the other is the massively gifted Kouga. There does however seem to be a bus load of low level dark element users among the Martian Mooks. The advantages of these elements are that they seem to be Non-Elemental in regards to the standard 5 (but directly counter each other). Dark also seems able to cause a Field Power Drain to non-dark users.
- Instrumental Theme Tune: Pegasus Fantasy still is going strong.
- Theme Music Power-Up: and of course it begins playing where it is needed the most.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Geki pretends to bow down to Mars, only to headbutt a Marsian in the stomach.
- The Juggernaut: If a Gold Saint's coming your way, you don't fight. You run, and you pray they won't catch up with you.
- Legacy Character: The Dragon Cloth has been passed through close peers for three generations: Dohko[2] (Master) to Shiryu (Disciple), later Shiryu (Father) to Ryuuhou (Son).
- Lighter and Softer
- Living MacGuffin: The Tower of Babel Arc wouldn't be much different if Aria were an inanimate object...
- Noodle People: Several characters have this going, a testament of Yoshihiko Umakoshi's art style.
- Official Couple: Ryuhou's existence confirms that Shiryuu X Shunrei is canon.
- Older and Wiser: Geki, who went from and early (and comparatively easy) opponent for Seiya in the Galaxian Wars tournament to an instructor at Palaestra. Ichi... not so much
- Older Than They Look: Due the artstyle you wouldn't say that many of the returning characters are on their mid-thirties to forty.
- The Other Darrin:
- Shoko Nakagawa is darrining Keiko Han and Fumiko Orikasa as Saori/Athena.
- Kiyoyuki Yanada replaced Yuji Mikimoto as Geki.
- Power Crystal: Now each Cloth has one, due crystal pendants being the new vessels for the cloths, they're officialy called Cloth Stones.
- Rank Up: Sagittarius Seiya, it finally happened.
- Red Sky, Take Warning: Twice in the first episode, announcing Mars's imminent arrival.
- Retool: Toei is openly taking liberties with Omega, stating beforehand that it doesn't fit in Kurumada's canon, such changes being:
- Rearranging some Cloth rankings like Aquila and Orion, orginally Silver Cloths that are now Bronze Cloths.
- Expanding upon the requirements to be considered a true Athena Saint, originally by the time the trainees won the right to wear a Cloth, they were already considered as a qualified Saint ready to defend their god; Omega is making this only the halfway point, even with their Cloths in hand they must train more in Palaestra, only after graduating they will be treated as qualified Saints.
- With the poor Hydra saint from the original series' time still being unable to graduate, as he still doesn't know how to use his Elemental Powers. It sounds even lamer considering one of the minor bronze saints is now his teacher.
- Shout-Out: Aquila has a number of quirks from another one of Umakoshi's creations - Itsuki Myoudoin/Cure Sunshine of Heartcatch Pretty Cure.
- Shown Their Work: Mars' Tower of Babel looks like the one in Bruegel's painting, plus extra colorful lighting.
- The Smurfette Principle: Aquila Yuna is the sole female among the Bronze Boys. She's also the only girl to qualify for the Saint Fight tournament.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Shot straight to hell. Team Kouga's first battles against Mars's forces don't just pitch them against regular Mooks, but Gold Saints and even the big guy himself. Needless to say, it rarely ends well.
- Spirit Advisor: Seiya to Kouga. He mentors the new Pegasus Saint the basic of Cosmo Energy from beyond, or from wherever he is now.
- The Spartan Way: Palaestra seems to be a departure from this method as seen the original story. Budding Saints still go through their own Training from Hell, but by the looks of things children aren't dying by the boatloads when they fail to live up to the standards set.
- Super-Hero School: The Palaestra was originally supposed to be this.
- Theme Music Power-Up: In episode 7.
- Tin Tyrant: Mars
- Tournament Arc: The Saint Fight. Gets rudely interrupted by the real plot before it even reaches the finals.
- Transformation Trinket: Crystal pendants replaced the urns as the vessel for the cloths.
- Transformation Sequence: but of course!
- The Worf Effect: Sagittarius Seiya to Mars, to show how menacing the new villain is. The former protagonist had to fight for his, Athena and baby Kouga's lives, one special attack from Mars was enough to destroy the arms piece from a Gold Cloth, and Seiya supposedly died fighting him.
- Unwitting Pawn: What Aria's role ultimetaly amounts to.
- Wham! Episode: Episode 8, With Sanctuary's "Athena" revealed to be an impostor, Palaestra ultimately just a front to train Saints to serve Mars, the headmaster one of his worshipers, and the entire school being taken over in the last stretch of it.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Among other things, Kouga has red hair.