Saint Seiya - The Lost Canvas - Meiō Shinwa
 

Surprised no one has posted a thread about this yet...

http://h1.ripway.com/hikarub/snapshot20090910021727.jpg

TMS Entertaintment has started showing 聖闘士星矢 THE LOST CANVAS 冥王神話, the new 13 episode Saint Seiya OVA series depicting the LOST CANVAS story arc - the previous Holy war between Hades' Specters and Athena's Saints back in the 18th Century, around 200 years prior to Seiya and Saori's time.

The story takes place in 18th Century Europe. 3 youths: brash and reckless Tenma, the pacifist and gentle Alone, and kind and loving Sasha; grew up together in an orphanage. The 3 were inseperable friends, until one day Sasha was adopted and taken away. Before she left, she made flower braclets for herself and her two friends, together making a promise that one day they would all meet again. Unfortunately, meet again they do, but not in the way any of them expected.

http://h1.ripway.com/hikarub/snapshot20090912024604.jpg
Sasha protecting Alone

http://h1.ripway.com/hikarub/snapshot20090912024652.jpg
Tenma protecting Sasha and Alone

The first OVA was released in June but there wasn't an english sub for the series until just recently, when Darksoul-Subs subbed episode 1 and 2. So far, 4 episodes are out in Japan. It looks pretty good, with clean animation (while different to the Seiya animation series) being consistent throughout the 2 episodes. I hope Darksoul-Subs continues their subs for the rest of the series.

For those familiar with the Sanctuary/Mekai-Hen/Elysion arcs, you will be happy (and not surprised) to see a few familiar faces:

Voice casting seems solid, though having Sasha sound like a completely opposite Haruhi (Aya Hirano) felt weird to say the least. But I was happy for the choices made for Tenma (Tetsuya Kakihara - Fujioka in Miname-ke; Kazuki in Dragonaut) and Alone (Hiro Shimono - Dan JD in Basquash!). Other voice acting seems good too. I haven't read the manga so I really don't know what to expect in terms of the story, but I can imagine that it won't disappoint, as long as the animation stays as good as it is and doesn't suffer what befell the Mekai-Hen arc.


You can download Darksoul-subs versions here:

The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 1
The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 2


EDIT: Okay, I guess I didn't check that thoroughly after all.... There is another fansub group called gleam who have subbed episodes 1 - 4 of the OVA series in English. You can download them via bitorrent here:

The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 1
The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 2
The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 3
The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 4

With gleam gone, another group Reviser have stepped in and subbed OVA episodes 5 and 6

The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 5
The Lost Canvas OVA - episode 6

Some random images from the 2 episodes:


Is anybody watching this?

Thanks Hikarub for posting the english sub version. I've been looking for the english sub for a while now and finially I found it.

However, I do have one question, what player will I need to play the mkv file??? Right now, I tried using VLC player but it's very choppy.... Can you let me know what to use?

Thanks

Windows Media Player will play .mkv files fine. Just use Google to find and download the Matroska pack.

I just tried it Tritoch....it lags really badly still and I had to restart my comp. It there a min requirement?

I'm run on Window XP.

Episodes 5 and 6 have been released and subbed by another group calling themselves Reviser. Looking at gleam's website, I find that they've now halted all projects so I guess they won't be releasing anymore episodes for a while. Reviser's subs for episodes 5 and 6 are now included in my first post above.

A screenshot from episode 5
http://h1.ripway.com/hikarub/snapsho...0-17595823.jpg

The subs compared to gleam aren't really that great. The words on screen are pretty huge and they seem to spell names differently; "Shion" is spelled Cion, just for example. Well, can't really complain at this point as they are probably the only group subbing the series at the moment....

Well, the first season has ended with the 13th episode, aptly titled Journey. Suprisingly, gleam came back to sub from episodes 5 onwards til the end. They say they may sub the second season if they're still interested by then.

Didn't add the links cause I can't be bothered....but you can just go here to download them if people are still seeding. :eagletear:

http://h1.ripway.com/hikarub/snapsho...5-00321750.jpg

http://h1.ripway.com/hikarub/snapsho...5-00332275.jpg

http://h1.ripway.com/hikarub/snapsho...5-00333515.jpg

Looking forward to seeing the second season!