Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas – The Myth of Hades, also known as simply The Lost Canvas, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shiori Teshirogi. It is a spin-off based on the manga series Saint Seiya, which was created, written and illustrated by Japanese author Masami Kurumada. The Lost Canvas was published by Akita Shoten in the Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine since August 24, 2006, concluding after 223 chapters on April 6, 2011, with twenty-five tankōbon released. The story takes place in the 18th century, and focuses on an orphan known as Tenma who becomes one of the goddess Athena's 88 warriors known as Saints and finds himself in a war fighting against his best friend Alone who is revealed to be the reincarnation of Athena's biggest enemy, the Underworld God Hades.
The manga The Lost Canvas originated when Shiori Teshirogi's works attracted the attention of Saint Seiya author Masami Kurumada who gave her permission to write a prequel to his work while he was also writing his own prequel Saint Seiya: Next Dimension. Both Teshirogi and Kurumada often exchanged ideas that their works would have. Teshirogi in particular faced difficulties since she previously wrote shōjo manga and had to adapt her writing and artwork to the male demography. Teshirogi also started releasing a spin-off series from Lost Canvas two months after the main serialization ended. Titled Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas – The Myth of Hades - Anecdotes, the spin-off focuses on short stories related to several Saints before the events described in the main series. On April 23, 2012, it was announced in the Shōnen Champion magazine that The Lost Canvas was to change from a weekly to a monthly publication the following June, and shifting to the newly created magazine Bessatsu Shōnen Champion, supplementary to Shōnen Champion, resuming publishing of the remaining Anecdotes chapters in that date.
In June 2009, TMS Entertainment started adapting the manga in original video animation format, producing 26 episodes, which followed the source material closely and occasionally expanded on it with Teshirogi herself writing these new scenes.
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas was a commercial success in Japan, reaching a total of 6.7 million copies sold. Although the critics noted the manga uses heavy recycling characters from Saint Seiya, they believed a given a bigger appeal, most notably the Athena's twelve Gold Saints who play a major role in the narrative in contrast to the ones from the original series. While the plot was still felt simple, the artwork was still praised. The anime adaptation met similar responses by critics who enjoyed Tenma and Alone's relationship but still felt the aimed demography would be shocked to see apparent simplistic moves result into notably violent results. The fact that TMS Entertainment never concluded adapting the manga led to disappointment to its critics
Plot
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas tells the story of the previous Holy War, taking place in the 18th century, 250 years before the original series, in the Saint Seiya universe. The story centers on the fight between Tenma, one of the 88 Saints following Athena, and Alone, the reincarnation of the God Hades. While the two were close childhood friends in Italy alongside Alone's sister, Sasha, the trio separated when Sagittarius Sisyphos recognized her as Athena. Sasha was sent first to the Sanctuary and then, a short time later, Tenma was sent to the Sanctuary too; while Tenma had the Cosmos, the Saints' energy, awaken, his talent was recognized by the Saint Libra Dohko who sends him to become the Bronze Saint. As years passes, everything that Alone paints is destroyed, and he is convinced that death means salvation by the god Hypnos and his follower Pandora. Alone then gathers Hades' soldiers, the 108 Specters to start a war against Athena.As the Saints and the Specters face off, Piscis Albafica protects the Sanctuary and a near town from Alone's forces but dies in combat. Virgo Asmita sacrifices his life to create a rosary that seals the Specters' souls and prevent Alone from reviving them. Alone starts making the "Lost Canvas", a vast painting of the earth, in the sky, so that after he finishes it, the entire world will die. The two Gods are sealed by the former Saints Pope Sage, and his twin brother Altar Hakurei, Alone invites the few remaining Saints to the Demonic Temples located in the Lost Canvas. Tenma reaches Alone with Dohko's help but they are defeated and Dohko stays behind to make time so that Aries Shion teleports Tenma. Sasha sends Scorpio Kardia and Aquarius Dégel on a mission to find an item to find the energy to make a flying ship to reach Alone. Though both die in battle, Degel's friend Sea Dragon Unity bring the coral to Sasha. The Bronze Saints led by Sagittarius Sisyphos and Leo Regulus make the ship but the former dies fighting the Specters opposing them. The Saints continue their mission while Gemini Defteros gives a surviving Dohko Athena's Cloth to give him to the Goddess while he dies fighting his revived brother Gemini Aspros. A guilty ridden Aspros tries to kill Alone but he is defeated by Tenma's father, Mephistopheles Yōma. Yoma reveals his desire to turn Tenma into his weapon while his wife Owl Partita appears as a Specters in the Temples to force her son to transform his protective Pegasus Bronze Cloth into the most powerful armour, God Cloth. With the God Cloth, Tenma and his future reincarnations will be able to fight the Gods and aid Athena in ending all wars. While Tenma kills Partita, Aspros sacrifices himself to defeat the god-like Aspros and seals his soul in Asmita's rosary. Although Hades' side remains superiors, Alone reveals he always was controlled Hades and kills most of his forces to destroy world on his own rules.
Following several battles in the Temples, Tenma faces Alone one-on-one with the former managing to defeat the latter, causing the Lost Canvas' destruction. Shortly afterwards, Alone is possessed by Hades. Hades is forced by the souls from the deceased Saints to escape to the last Demonic Temple, and Tenma, Sasha, and Alone decide to follow him. The three manage to defeat Hades but they never return to Earth after their apparent deaths. The two surviving Saints, Aries Shion, then prepare for a possible future war against Hades. Weakened by his battle with Bennu Kagaho, Libra Dohko has his body sealed by the power of Sasha and is assigned to permanently watch over the seal of Hades and 108 specters in Asmita's rosary, while Aries Shion reconstructs and leads the Athena's Sanctuary. In the epilogue, an elder Dohko hears from Shion's student, Aries Mu, that his master appears to have been killed but Dohko is optimistic that Tenma's reincarnation, Pegasus Seiya, will save Athena's reincarnation.
The Lost Canvas Gaiden
While most stories of Lost Canvas Gaiden are prequels focused on each Gold Saint, Aries Shion' story takes place fourteen years after Hades' defeat with Tenma's father Kairos returning to the Sanctuary. Kairos realizes that his son Tenma is alive and wants to keep using him against the Gods from the Olympus. Kairos attacks the Sanctuary and exiles it from other lands with Shion and Dohko also realizing Tenma survived. With the Saints defeated by Kairos, Shion leaves his position as Pope and transports Kairos and himself to another land. Tenma and Sasha then appear and defeat Kairos. While both of them disappear afterwards, their Cloths return to the Sanctuary which returns to peace after Kairos' death.Development
Shiori Teshirogi always wanted to draw manga, ever since her childhood where she mainly followed Rumiko Takahashi's works. What sparked her desire to become a professional was when his little brother bought Saint Seiya manga when she was in elementary school. Teshirogi liked the manga as well as the comments at the end of the volume by Masami Kurumada, as he she could really feel the passion the author put into his world. She was impressed by the work and wanted to become a character designer. She particularly enjoyed the Sanctuary arc for Gemini Saga and Acquarius Camus' battles against Pegasus Seiya and Cygnus Hyoga but ended favoriting Libra Dohko. The Saint Seiya manga made her want to read works on Greek mythology. A few years later, when the publisher Square Enix organized a competition called the game fantasy manga grand prize, she participated and was selected. Teshirogi then participated in a second Square Enix competition which was called the 21st Century Manga Grand Prize. Here again she was selected and awarded. From there, Teshirogi had a publisher who supported me and allowed me to make her debut in the manga industry. Teshirogi's fame within Square Enix nearly made her write a Final Fantasy VII manga until meeting Kurumada.Teshirogi met Kurumada in a public event she once visited during the time she was a new manga author. In such event, Teshirogi sent Kurumada the first manga she made as well as a letter which made Kurumada ask her to write The Lost Canvas. Although she was happy with such proposal due to the fact Saint Seiya has always been her favourite manga, she found troubles writing it since she used to write shōjo and Lost Canvas was meant to be from the genre shōnen. In order to do that, Teshirogi had to change various things from her style such as the narration and getting used to how to draw fights. Before the manga started, Kurumada sent Teshirogi a general version of the manga's story, but as long as the series continued, she started changing some parts after discussing with people from Akita Shoten. Additionally, the characters designs and Cloths were based on the second season from the Saint Seiya anime adaptation, but she combined them with her own style. When Teshirogi was purposed to start The Lost Canvas she was informed that the series would last a few volumes. However, when the tenth volume was published, she was surprised by the series' length which she found amazing. Every time Teshirogi met Kurumada see each other, they talked for a long time, and exchange ideas, and sent each other emails. The author found challenging properly displaying the characters' armors and fists while remaining true to her own style. In retrospect, Teshirogi believes Lost Canvas changed the way she herself did illustrations and thus thanked Kurumada for giving the opportunity to give her this work. Alone's design originated from Kurumada's ideas but still gave her freedom. Lost Canvas started as a story about Tenma and Alone's relationship but advices from her editor resulted in further writing the Holy War, especially the popular Gold Saints which shocked the audience. Tenma's father concept of a man who is responsible for most of the Holy War conflicts was created as a major plot twist Teshirogi used to further surprise the readers. For this she researched Greek mythology, resulting in the inclusion of Chronos' brother, Kairos. Scorpio Kardia was noted to be highly popular by Teshirogi due to the dynamic she gave to his personality as well as the contrast she gives Sasha. The latter was written to contrast Kurumada's take on Athena's reincarnation, Saori Kido, as both have different personalities as a result of being born and raised in different places. Meanwhile, Pandora was written to be more feminine than Kurumada's take.
Although Kurumada gave Teshirogi freedom with what to write, Teshirogi had problems across the entire serialization with one of her first three editors; She cited demands of more pages per chapters and ideas to make battles more interesting she found difficult like a Buddha statue fighting Athena's when the narrative involved the Gold Saint Virgo Asmita or how the Bat Specter could defeat Taurus Aldebaran. In regards to the characters' names, Teshirogi never tried to canonize elements from the original Saint Seiya like all Taurus Saints sharing the same name as Rasgado uses the alias Aldebaran like Kurumada's Taurus Saint. The other editors gave Teshirogi more freedom with her writing since not much was known about Saint Seiya by them. The only reason such name was written was because the author wanted to make an emotional scene with his student Teneo. Ever since the series began, Teshirogi always had two assistants. Among Hades' Specters, Wyvern Rhadamathys stood out as one of the strongest in the manga. As the manga artist liked his character, she found it sad killing him. Méphistophélès Yoma remained as one of the hardest characters to write. It was also awful to kill the characters since the fans loved them. Furthermore, this affected Teshirogi's health, leading to times of depression was horrible because I went through phases of ups and downs: when I killed one of the characters, she was plunged into depths of depression. This improved when Teshirogi started taking a liking to a new important character but once again had to kill him.
In the making of the series, emotions are what Teshirogi pays attention the most when she is drawing which makes remake several of the illustrations she makes. In both Saint Seiya and Lost Canvas, her favorite character is the Pegasus Saint, who has become the one she likes drawing the most. When creating Tenma, Lost Canvass Pegasus Saint, Teshirogi checked if Tenma's words would be like the ones from Seiya, but she realized that both characters had different personalities. The Cancer, Pisces and Taurus Gold Saints were developed with Teshirogi's idea of what she could do with the ones from the original series. When she received comments that these three Lost Canvas Gold Saints are more interesting than the ones from the original series, she answered that she did not mean to give them any special treatment. The characters' names are created according to their origins and constellation such as Pisces Albafica whose "Alba" portion of his name was developed when Teshirogi was thinking of roses' names. After the manga ended, Teshirogi started writing the prequel manga Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas: Gaiden. As she reached the end, she also sought to start her own series and while she dealt with Gaiden at the same time. When the Gaiden moved to a monthly serialization, Teshirogi believed that her way of writing stories improved due to the time she was given with each chapter but had problems with portraying bishonen archetypes like Albafica's design. The Gaiden primarily involved character relationships and she avoided repetition. Once the series ended, Teshirogi felt a sense of emptiness and expressed a desire to explore Yuzuriha and Yato's characters more as well as that Tenma did not have too many appearances despite being the hero.