Saint Seiya: Next Dimension

Plot

The story in "Next Dimension" starts shortly before the end of Saint Seiya where the main characters are fighting against the god Hades. The god is reminded of his past incarnations and starts reminiscing about the events that occurred in the last war between Athena and himself 243 years earlier. During this period a boy named Tenma was one of Athena's warriors, the Saints. He was also the previous incarnation of the main character, Pegasus Seiya. He was best friends with a boy named Alone who was Hades' chosen vessel to inhabit of that era. As Alone became possessed by Hades, Tenma ventures to Athena's Sanctuary to train in order to be able to save his friend. In the present time, Pegasus Seiya is under a curse from Hades that will kill him in three days. Athena decides to save Seiya and is accompanied by the Saint, Andromeda Shun. They travel back in time with the aid of Chronos, but are sent further back than intended so that they end up during the previous holy war. They are separated and Athena is turned into a baby, but she is saved from harm by a Saint as it turns out the leader of the Sanctuary is in league with Hades. Tenma meet Shun and is convinced of the situation and they race to rescue Athena. On their way through the twelve houses of the zodiac the meet and fight against several of the powerful Gold Saints and also Specters, warriors of Hades. They are also joined by Shun's comrades, Ikki, Shiryu and Hyoga. Another looming threat is revealed to be coming in the form of the 13th Gold Saint of Ophiuchus.

Characters

Main article: List of Saint Seiya characters

The following are some of the characters that have a prominent role in the chapters released to date. As the story progresses, some more characters have been introduced, and are expected to be developed further in future chapters.

Production

Masami Kurumada first announced the start of the follow-up to his famous Saint Seiya series in 2006. On April 21 he posted an image of Hades, Lord of the Underworld, on his blog. Short chapters came to be published once or even trice per month due to its sporadic release until January 4, 2007 when the next chapter did not get released until August 2, 2007. The series have kept up sporadic releases, with brief intervals of week-to-week publication, but Masami Kurumada updates his blog after a longer interval to show the next upcoming chapters. In Volume 2, in his personal message, Masami Kurumada apologies for the delay of the second volume; revealing that he was sick for a long time in the spring of 2009.

Saint Seiya Next Dimension was conceived by Masami Kurumada as a prequel to his Saint Seiya manga, parting from elements revealed in it but never further developed and explored then, hence, he started writing and drawing Next Dimension by opening the storyline in a prologue, with a flashback to the last battle of his original manga, contained in vol. 28. Additionally, the original concept of the prequel was to work simultaneously with Shiori Teshirogi's Saint Seiya : The Lost Canvas as a multi-angle interpretation of the storyline, but this approach was quickly abandoned, as both works greatly diverged. At the release of the first collected volume (tankōbon) of the series, Next Dimension was confirmed to be canonical within the universe and chronology conceived by Kurumada for Saint Seiya.

Following Masami Kurumada's traditional writing and drawing style, the storyline unfolds in typical shōnen manga narrative. In addition each chapter is presented in full colour. The first chapter was initially called Prologue ①, however, the "①" was removed in the collected first volume. During the first 14 chapters, the borderline of the pages was coloured to look like a starlit night sky, this was changed to standard white in part 14 and further chapters as well as a standard in compiled volumes. Parts 15 and 16 were published in a black & white format complemented by one colour image each. The following parts have continued being released in black & white accompanied by various colored pages. The parts published in black and white will be available in full colour in their respective volume compilation. Certain objects and pieces of information that was previously published in the Saint Seiya Encyclopedia are used in the story such as one of Athena's 88 armours, the Crateris Silver Cloth, albeith with a new design. The characters Artemis and Tōma were created by Masami Kurumada and first introduced in the fifth Saint Seiya movie which would have served as a continuation for the storyline. But the film did not receive the planned sequels, thus Kurumada incorporated the characters into Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, hence becoming the canonical incarnation of said characters.

Media

A prologue, 81 chapters and two special chapters have been released to date since 2006, and are being collectively published in tankōbon form. The most recent compilation, 10, was released on June 6, 2016. The first special episode for Next Dimension was published on June 19, 2014 to commemorate the release of the animated film Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary. The second special chapter was released the year after on July 16, 2015. Both special chapters were compiled in the tenth volume. The eleventh compilation has been scheduled for a midsummer 2017 release.

Chapters not yet in tankōbon format

Reception

During its first week, the first volume of the manga sold 30,618 copies in Japan and stood on the 22nd place of most sold in February 2009. The following week it had sold 57,426 copies, but had gone down to 27th place of most sold that month. After its first week the second volume lay on 9th place of most bought manga volume of march in Japan. During its first week, the third volume of the manga sold 44,200 copies in Japan and stood on the 17th place of most sold in December 2010 During its first week, the fourth volume of the manga ranked at the 8th place of the 30 most sold titles in December 2011, according to Comiclist.jp. Also, according to the same source, the fourth volume of Next Dimension ranked 6th in the 10 most sold shōnen manga in December 2011. Oricon.jp ranked the fifth volume of Next Dimension in the 23rd place out of the 30 most sold titles, in its first week of sales. During its first week, the sixth volume of the manga sold 61,525 copies in Japan and stood on the 30th place of most sold manga in December 2012. During its first week, the eight volume of the manga sold 62,500 copies in Japan and stood on the 28th place of most sold manga in December 2013 During its first 3 days, the ninth volume sold approximately 40,000 copies, coming in 7th place among the top selling Shōnen manga in Japan; 67.215 copies sold in the first 12 days. In Japan, the tenth volume of Saint Seiya Next Dimension has sold 46,000 copies in its first week, reaching the 19th position of the best-selling manga of the week.

Merchandise

As of June 2014, no merchandise related to Saint Seiya: Next Dimension has been released. Aside from the tankobōbon compilations, only a few promotional cards have been published, included in the Champion magazine issues. The cards feature selected characters from the Saint Seiya universe illustrated by the author Kurumada and occasionally a message from him and his signature. In addition, numerous promotional posters with illustrations from the series have been released together with several of the publications. A skin for the interchangeable protective cover of the Iphone 5 was released in June 2014 with an image of Athena and Seiya.