Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: 聖闘士星矢 THE LOST CANVAS 冥王神話

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 25

Chapters: 223

Status: Finished

Published: Sep 21, 2006 to Apr 7, 2011

Genres: Action, Adventure

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Champion (Weekly)

Authors: Kurumada, Masami (Story), Teshirogi, Shiori (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.27¹ (scored by 8,174 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #348²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #1218

Members: 16,429

Favorites: 1,107

Resources

Wikipedia

8.27

Ranked #348Popularity #1218Members 16,429

MangaShounen Champion (Weekly)Kurumada, Masami (Story), Teshirogi, Shiori (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /25

Chapters: /223

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Synopsis

This manga tells the story of the previous Holy war of the universe of Saint Seiya, taking place in the XVIII century, 250 years before the original manga. The story centers on the relation between Tenma, the Pegasus Saint and his beloved friend, Alone, who would eventually become his greatest enemy, Hades.

(Source: Wikipedia)

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Background

Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa was published in Brazilian Portuguese by Editora JBC from August 2007 to February 2012.

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Characters

Alone

Main

Libra, Douko

Main

Sasha

Main

Aries, Shion

Main

Pegasus, Tenma

Main

Crane, Yuzuriha

Main

Unicorn, Yato

Main

Partita, Owl

Main

Pegasus, Seiya

Supporting

Cancer, Manigoldo

Supporting

Reviews

Jan 1, 2020

Ninachu

Recommended

That thing you are reading right now? Drop it and read this instead.
I'm joking...or maybe I'm not.

I was always familiar with the Saint Seiya, but I was not aware of The Lost Canvas (or any Saint Seiya spin-offs). Honestly, I have no idea how I discover this manga, or what made me want to read it, but looking back, I'm so glad I did it.
Side note: No you don't have to read the original before reading this, but at the same time, if you read it, you gonna appreciate The Lost Canvas way more.

STORY/PLOT: 9/10
The plot is simple, almost cliche. I mean, it's ... your typical Saint Seiya plot where some pretty kid gets possessed by God, so nothing new. But unlike any other Saint Seiya works, this is by far more well written, more deep and philosophical. Also, the fights were so amazing, making this story even more epic.

ART: 10/10
The art, oh God, it's so gorgeous. Probably the best art style I have ever seen. Seriously, I wish more shonen had shojo art style, the world would be much better place, that's for sure. The art even gets better in the latest chapters.

CHARACTERS: 10/10
The characters are the best part about this. They are all lovely, especially the gold saints. The gold saints are obviously based on the original golden saints, but here they are way better and have more depth (keep in the mind, this is more of gold saint wank, so it's more focused on them than the main characters). Same goes for the bad guys, the specters.
Main character Tenma is not bad. He is your typical shonen protagonist, but hey, at least he doesn't take all glory like most shonen protagonists do. Alone as villain is great, he is my favorite character in this story. As for Sasha, she is the best Athena in the Saint Seiya universe.

ENJOYMENT: 10/10
The Lost Canvas is just so charming, but also tragic and overwhelming. My heart was always burning with the desire the more I read. It always left me wondering what would happen next. The more you read it, the better it gets.
I did not expect this beautiful story to affect me so emotionally. It was a nice journey while reading this.

OVERALL:
I know some Saint Seiya fans gonna kill me, but in my opinion, this is far superior than any Saint Seiya work (yes, even including original).
Obviously it's not perfect, and is far from masterpiece. There were some moments I wasn't really fond of, that I would personally change. But even then, it's still the great manga and I had great time reading it.
So, what did I learn from this? That the fate can be cruel. It shows that sometimes life is doomed to be a tragedy, but with the opportunity for grand and noble heroism along the way. But even in the death, all is not lost.

But what if this is no that deep and it's all in my head? Oh well, I'm sorry for fooling you into reading this.
So yeah, that's it. This manga is hidden gem and I wish more people would read it. I could talk about it all day, but I will stop here. Hope you enjoyed my review!

Tfw still crying over anime getting cancelled

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Jul 7, 2019

Riversofbeauty

Mixed Feelings

WARNING:This review will contain spoilers

Story (5):
''Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas'' is basically about the fight against Hades that took place in the 18th century.Its basically centered around the three main characters(who grow up as friends in an orphanage):Tenma who becomes the one of the Saints that serves Athena,Sasha who's the reincarnation of Athena and Alone who turns out to be the reincarnation of Hades.And thus by a cruel twist of fate Alone turns into Tenma's and Sasha's enemy.
The story isn't bad however considering that its 223 chapters long even though it focuses on one war makes it rather superfluous in a lot of parts(especially the ...

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Sep 10, 2018

ChouEritto

Not Recommended

The Lost Canvas is usually heralded as being vastly superior in all ways to the original, an opinion I can't understand when the exact opposite is true.

[Note: May contain minor spoilers for Saint Seiya and The Lost Canvas]

First, looking at the story, there isn't really much to say. It's mainly just an expansion of the Hades Arc from the original except far less interesting due to prequel syndrome already making it apparent who will live and survive. Even in this area, it does a poor job as we're told in the original manga that Dohko and Shion were the only survivors of the war, yet ... there are far more in TLC, thus making it not only a retread of the original, but an inconsistent one.

The main aspect that tends to draw in others is the superficial element of the art, being better than the original, to which I have to disagree. Kurumada's art style had a very distinct appearance of melding bishonen elements with highly masculine traits and having incredible detail within the armour of each character. Teshirogi's art style, however, contains no signature traits to allow her craft to stand out as an individual with the characters now having pretty generic faces and the detail in some of the cloths is nowhere near as great.

The only thing allowing the series to stand out is the characters, but not in a good way. Tenma, Athena and Hades are the only ones who really matter and are given nothing to make them any more, or even as, interesting as their classic counterparts. The initial support cast of Yato and Yuzuriha are also thrown aside into irrelevancy very early on, unlike Shaina and Marin from the original who play a constant supporting role throughout the entirety of the classic. The only characters people tend to remember are the Gold Saints, who are all pale imitations of their 20th Century counterparts. The only exceptions are Albafica's toxic blood being interesting and Manigoldo being very honourable unlike his classic counterpart Deathmask, but that in itself causes them to be incredibly bland as the ensemble of Gold Saints lacks a chaotic element to make some members distinct. Moreover, Regulus is perhaps the biggest Gary Stu in the entire franchise. Some may complain about the Bronze Saints' power ups in the original, but all of them are fairly excusable compared to a below average Gold Saint swiftly becoming God tier just because he becomes naturally attuned to his opponent.
On the subject of Gary Stus and overpowered characters, let's get back to Tenma. Throughout the series, we're constantly pushed forward the idea that he's destined to fend off Hades and the only character who could do so. Not only is this somewhat contradictive of the original series, where the use of things such as God Cloths or a Pegasus Saint fighting Hades seemed to be the stuff of antiquity, but we're never given reason to believe Tenma is so capable until towards the end of the manga through several rushed power ups after the reveal that his parents are both of highly special lineages as with all generic protagonists. Compare this to Seiya, who's parents were nobody too special and constantly proved himself by pushing his body to the breaking point against Gold Saints and Gods alike numerous times, and it's easy to see which of the two is a far better handled protagonist and representation of the series.
It does attempt to make the villains more sympathetic and fleshed out than their original counterparts at least, but it is never to the extent the audience can truly connect to them, plus Garuda Suikyo in the canon version of this, Next Dimension, pulls such off far better.

Overall, The Lost Canvas is a completely overrated work that falls flat compared to the original series in almost every aspect. It is something I cannot recommend and would advise people instead read the original Saint Seiya manga or if looking for a continuation of it, read the canon version Saint Seiya: Next Dimension.

Story - 3/10
Art - 5/10
Characters - 3/10
Enjoyment - 3/10

Overall - 3.5/10

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Poll: Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa Chapter 97 Discussion Cosenza - Jan 21, 2023	0 replies	by Cosenza »» Jan 21, 2023 5:22 AM
Poll: Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa Chapter 7 Discussion AleAP123 - Jan 5, 2023	0 replies	by AleAP123 »» Jan 5, 2023 5:07 PM
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