Knights of the Zodiac 25
Posted: March 13, 2011 Filed under: Knights of the Zodiac 2 Comments »Masami Kurumada – Viz – 2009 – 28 volumes
You know, I keep thinking this series can’t top itself. It can’t get any more awesome. And somehow, in every volume, it does. The first 13 pages of this volume are probably among the best pages of shounen manga ever written. The splash page for the chapter features a flaming corpse in the foreground of a landscape shot, and from there we see the beginnings of a fight between Ikki and Garuda Aiakos. Long story short, Aiakos has an attack which involves throwing Ikki so high up that he vanishes, then comes down at an appointed time directly on an X that Aiakos has drawn and marked as his grave. The second time Aiakos does this, Ikki lands on his back at terminal velocity and knocks him into the crater, saying “The spot you marked was your own gravesite.”
Little did Aiakos know, he was already dead.
Now, Ikki is pretty badass. Pretty much anything he does is awesome, mainly because he can’t be killed, and every time you do “kill” him, he comes back at you stronger. Because he’s the Phoenix Knight. He has a long, drawn-out fight with Hades that isn’t that interesting, unfortunately, save for the fact that Ikki keeps getting up and spouting choice lines. There are some other elements in play that I do not want to spoil, because I would hate to ruin the only plot-related surprise the series has to offer. But the surprise does make this fight more interesting than it needs to be. Also, weepy.
At the end of this fight, my favorite gold knight comes back for no reason. In fact, he’s about the only gold knight that I bother to remember, simply because he is so mind-blowing amazing every time he appears. The extremes this character goes to are exactly what the finale to this series needs. Thank you.
Later, we catch back up with Seiya, who is frozen in Cocytus with a bunch of really disturbing-looking gold knight corpses. A fight ensues that should carry us over into the next volume.
Worth mentioning is the reader survey results at the end of the volume that shows what attacks were the fan favorites while the series was running in Jump. While the Galaxy Explosion did win second place (a forbidden move that generates more force than the big bang that created the universe), I feel that the Meteor Punch, which cannot create or destroy galaxies and won first place, had no place on this list. Also conspicuously absent were all of Virgo Shaka’s attacks. I’m not sure why the readers didn’t just list all his moves in the top ten, because they are clearly superior to anything else in the series.
I really should not be enjoying this as much as I am. It’s not good. It is, however, extraordinarily entertaining.
3 tomes left and you’re done. :P
Anyway : Shaka doesn’t come back from nowhere since it was hinted as soon as he died.
However the manga doesn’t explain it very well.
Basically he got killed but awoke to the 8th sense thing. Which grants you the ability to wander free in the underworld. So since they’re in Hell Shaka is able to walk free there, without becoming a mindless slave to Hades, even if Shaka is dead already.
Also I have a question : You seem to only have read the manga, have you ever seen any of the Saint Seiya anime?
Because nowadays Seiya has become a classic in Europe & South America thanks to the popularity of it’s anime. The anime tends to make stuff a bit more dramatic, cause the manga is very fast paced and never stops to think too much. :p Also the OST is brilliant and it’s usually what people remember about this show.
I don’t know if you have any interest in Lost Canvas. It’s pretty interesting cause the formula isn’t the same as the usual shonen.
I have to admit, Lost Canvas sounds pretty interesting, and I read a fairly girly chapter/short story of it that appeared in Princess Gold not too long ago. I liked it, though I wasn’t sure if it was representative of the rest of the series.
I haven’t seen the anime, though it seems like a lot of people have a really good first impression of the series from it. As you say, the manga moves a little fast, and I can see it benefiting from the way anime usually stretch things out. I ought to look around and see if I can’t snag a few DVDs just to see, or the OAV you mentioned.