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INTEREST: Lost 90s American Animated Saint Seiya Teaser Finally Unveiled




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tintor2



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Posts: 1829
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:44 pm Reply with quote
Sweet mother of Athena. Now I've seen everything
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:24 pm Reply with quote
That makes Dic Sailor Moon seem like a masterpiece, to make matters worse it's looking like a ripoff of the Double Dragon cartoon.
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ninjamitsuki



Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 591
Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology)
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:29 pm Reply with quote
Holy crap, I had no idea this even existed. I'm hoping the Doozy Bots will be next, if there was ever more than the teaser made.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
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Location: New York
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:32 pm Reply with quote
Not only does it look absolutely horrendous (the same quality of the awful Double Dragon cartoon DIC made), the odds are very good it would be airing in markets with Spanish language channels showing the actual Saint Seiya. There would be no real hiding that this show had a better, bloodier version en Español.

Still, kudos to the detective work of Ray Mona for unearthing this bizarre curio.
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omegafinal



Joined: 13 Jul 2005
Posts: 125
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:43 pm Reply with quote
I've only heard of it of its early live action and western animated adaptation from Secret Galaxy (formerly Toy Galaxy) as a short footnote on their video about Saint Seiya. This is going to be quite a watch when I get the time later on.
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Zhou-BR



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 1423
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:53 pm Reply with quote
It's curious that the Gold Saints have the same awkward, bulky look as the early Saint Seiya action figures by Bandai, and that the five main characters are already wearing the second versions of their Bronze Cloths, which were the only Bronze Saint figures Bandai was producing and exporting in the '90s.

I suppose Bandai figured the Saint Seiya anime was too violent to air on broadcast TV in the US, so they tried producing a sanitized cartoon that could be aired in syndication to advertise the action figures. That might not have panned out, but the pilot short is good for one thing at least: it makes the Shizuo Kawai episodes of the anime look good. Also, muscular shirtless Shun is too funny.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6258
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:54 pm Reply with quote
ninjamitsuki wrote:
Holy crap, I had no idea this even existed. I'm hoping the Doozy Bots will be next, if there was ever more than the teaser made.


Yes, I want to see if Ray Mona can uncovered Doozy Bots ever since it's alleged existence.

But back on topic, holy cow!!! So Toei not only had Sailor Moon commissioned for an American animation adaptation, but also Saint Seiya too. What other Toei anime got a greenlit American animation adaptation?

Well, now we know Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, Gundam, and Urusei Yatsura (anybody watched Galaxy High School? Yes, that show is actually an Americanized/westernized remake of that anime) all had Americanized animation remake/adaptation!!!
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1122
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:14 pm Reply with quote
It's mindblowing to discover that Bandai had considered two options for bringing Saint Seiya to the U.S., the action figures were a hit in Latin America and I supposed in other markets like Europe (I heard the Famicom game was translated into French and released for the NES) and Bandai wanted something big alongside Power Rangers.

Zhou-BR wrote:
I suppose Bandai figured the Saint Seiya anime was too violent to air on broadcast TV in the US, so they tried producing a sanitized cartoon that could be aired in syndication to advertise the action figures.

Yeah, Saint Seiya could get pretty violent, not as much as Fist of the North Star but it's more violent than Dragon Ball, not to mention the series touched on some religion themes like Buddhism in the case of Shaka, and I know that in the U.S. mentioning religion in kids shows is considered inappropriate (though I guess the Greek references would've been left intact), on the other hand back in the 90s Latin America networks had pretty lax standards so very few people complained about the show.
In the video Ray Mona mentioned that U.S. adaptations of shows like Gundam and Dragon Ball were also considered. It's interesting how anime back in the 90s was seen as unmarketeable in the U.S., which is weird considering the past successes of shows like Voltron and Robotech, but perhaps producers thought anime was getting "too japanese" or too violent, I also remember how some Game Freak employees mentioned Nintendo of America wanted to change the designs of Pokémon to make them look like humanoid creatures. It's funny to read this thing with the benefit of hindsight
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PurpleWarrior13



Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 2025
PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2022 2:05 am Reply with quote
It honestly just looks like a cheaper and cheesier version of the actual anime (much closer than ToonMaker's Sailor Moon), and they probably could've just used a heavily censored version of the original animation.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
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Location: New York
PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2022 1:51 pm Reply with quote
PurpleWarrior13 wrote:
It honestly just looks like a cheaper and cheesier version of the actual anime (much closer than ToonMaker's Sailor Moon), and they probably could've just used a heavily censored version of the original animation.


The copyright on the footage was 1993, which was a very different time for animation, and importing animation was apparently seen as low rent. This was around the same time as Western animated Mega Man from Ruby-Spears (the first time they didn't alter the box art on one of those games was X4 during the PS1 era), that horrendous Double Dragon cartoon where Billy looks like someone melted a Kenshiro figure, and every cartoon wanted to look like Image Comics. I get in 1993 you couldn't show the original series without heavy, heavy edits, but still.

All that being said, the way that this sort of localization works best is if the original isn't available in any other form. In Saint Seiya's case, it was in Spanish-language channels. It would have created a lot of marketplace confusion. And people thought DBZ on Telemundo had a cult following, imagine the kid watching this show after Street Sharks.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2022 2:43 pm Reply with quote
The casts' non-cloth looks is so much more generic and drab compared to their civilian outfits in the anime.
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Spawn29



Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Posts: 551
PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:46 pm Reply with quote
mdo7 wrote:
What other Toei anime got a greenlit American animation adaptation?


Maybe Dragon Ball? Renaissance-Atlantic Films had filed a U.S. trademark for Dragon Ball copyrighted in 1994. A year before Funimation
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Multi-Facets



Joined: 15 Oct 2019
Posts: 217
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2022 12:31 pm Reply with quote
Silver Kirin wrote:
not to mention the series touched on some religion themes like Buddhism in the case of Shaka, and I know that in the U.S. mentioning religion in kids shows is considered inappropriate


Any religion that isn't some form of Christianity is considered inappropriate in kids' shows. The English dub of "Digimon" made a blatant reference to Moses, for instance. I could really go off about that, but I don't have time. :-/
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