The official sequel to the Saint Seiya classic series. Currently it is being written, drawn in full color and released by Masami Kurumada.
Please note that if you have not finished the original manga, then massive spoilers follow.
During the final battle between Athena's Saints and Hades, Seiya took a direct attack from Hades's cursed sword in order to defend Athena and give her the chance to destroy the dark god once and for all. As a result, Seiya fell into a catatonic state, and in three days' time, the sword will pierce his heart and kill him. To save him, Saori takes it upon herself, with Shun by her side, to travel back in time to the previous Holy War, in order to destroy Hades' sword before it can be used on Seiya in the future.
However, once they arrive Saori is de-aged back into a baby, while Shun is separated from her and lands outside the Twelve Temples. Soon, he meets Tenma, the previous Pegasus Saint and a dead ringer for Seiya. With the Pope plotting to kill Athena, together the two Saints (and eventually the other Bronze Saints from the future) must fight their way through the past era's Gold Saints to reach Athena. But things aren't so simple, with Tenma's old master Suikyo now fighting as a Specter of Hades in the past, while in the present Seiya's life is under threat from the fallen Angel Toma. Eventually, time itself starts to distort, heralding the resurrection of an ancient threat: the cursed thirteenth Gold Saint of Ophiuchus...
Tropes:
- '80s Hair:
- Subverted with the Golds. The characters have shorter and more practical hair. Compare the beauty of Pisces Aphrodite with Pisces Cardinale.
- Played straight with Callisto.
- 10-Minute Retirement: Shiryu initially refuses to join Hyoga in going back to the past to save Seiya's life, choosing instead to live a peaceful life with Shunrei and their adopted baby Shoryu. After he's thoroughly beaten and called out for his cowardice by Toma, though, he opts to rejoin the fight for the sake of his friends.
- Action Girl:
- Saori/Athena fights in person for a few issues, then she's de-aged into a baby. Then she's back at that in Chapter 61.
- Shaina's still got it.
- Marin too.
- Art Evolution: The women in the book have curves and look quite feminine unlike the classic series.
- Badass in Distress: Seiya is Cursed by Hades and Callisto even sends Toma to murder him.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The armies of Hades, the Pope of Sanctuary, and Ophiuchus Odysseus with the soul of Asclepius possessing him all work independently of each other, and all want to kill Athena for their own purposes. And while that's going on, in the present day the angel Toma is out to kill the comatose Seiya on orders from Callisto.
- De-power: In two ways. The Bronze Boys lose their God Cloths and are downgraded back to their third version. Saori on the other hand gets reduced to a baby. For a while, at least.
- Due to the Dead: When Suikyo dies (and confesses why he became a Specter), Dohko dresses his body in his old Crateris Cloth, presenting him as the Saint he always was.
- Dysfunctional Family: The Olympians, just as they were in Greek Mythology. Apparently Athena gets a lot of flak for fighting against her family members, despite this being a result of her simply trying to stop many of them from wiping out humanity.
- Evil Is Bigger: The Ophiuchus Temple, belonging to the cursed Ophiuchus Gold Saint, is noticeably larger than any of the other Twelve Temples.
- Fallen Angel: For as yet unknown reasons, Toma was banished from the heavenly realm and imprisoned on Olympus.
- Forbidden Zone: Within the Sanctuary is an area known as the Cursed Area, which no-one (not even the Pope) can enter. Inside is the Tartarus Pit, a deep hole leading to an eternal prison in which Athena imprisoned Asclepius in mythological times. Although located in the Underworld, supposedly not even Hades wants to go near it.
- Forced Sleep: When the Ophiuchus Temple appears within Sanctuary, it emits healing waves that force everything inside into a state of deep sleep. The only ones not affected are the Bronze Saints from the future, animals, and Odysseus, who can grant/revoke the ability to stay awake to others.
- Four Is Death: The Four Doors of the Buddha, as the most potent barriers of the Virgo temple, impose ill outcomes against intruders. One of them is even called the Door of Death.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: Next Dimension jumps back and forth between multiple characters and plotlines, with each of the Bronze Saints, Suikyo, Shijima and Athena, the Gold Saints, Odysseus, and others each having their own storylines; to say nothing of the series jumping back to the present day to catch up on Toma and the other characters there.
- Future Me Scares Me: When Dohko sees what his future midget self will look like, he's not happy to learn he'll be old and wrinkly. Later on, it helps to act as evidence that Shiryu is telling the truth about him being Dohko's future pupil.
- Generation Xerox: Many of the past Gold Saints have strong similarities to their modern-day successors, be it in physical appearance, personality, skills and powers, or quirks. Tenma meanwhile looks and acts identically to Seiya, effectively filling in for him while he's wheelchair-bound and dying from a curse.
- Healing Potion: Drinking water from the Crateris Cloth (representing the cup Athena drank from after a battle) will heal the drinker's wounds and restore their strength.
- History Repeats: The events of the past Holy War play out remarkably similarly to those of the original series: a Pope tries to kill Athena; a Gold Saint witnesses said act and flees with the baby while mortally wounded; the Pisces Saint is in on the Pope's plot; the Taurus Saint dies standing while protecting his temple, and so on. It should be noted that many similarities ultimately end up subverted, and that the situation is nowhere as simple as it seems to be, in big part because the present day has been messing with time.
- I Did What I Had to Do:
- When Shion and Dohko attempt to kill Alone before he can become Hades' vessel, Shion isn't too enthusiastic about the task, and hopes that Alone will be able to forgive them. In comes Tenma.
- Suikyo's reason for becoming a Specter is that when Athena arrives from the future, by killing her he will not only prevent massive temporal distortions and the return of Asclepius, but will also gain favor with Hades, allowing him to get close to the god and kill him. Alas, he's killed by Dohko before he can do this, with him admitting the truth to his old friend as he dies.
- Important Haircut: Saori cuts her hair short to trade it with Hecate for directions. She admits that she wanted shorter hair afterwards.
- Impossible Task: The entire mission, according to Chronos, is a fool's errand because fate cannot be changed.
- Invisible to Normals: Hades' cursed sword is still in Seiya's chest, but it can only be seen by Athena and other godly beings.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: While on his way to the Scorpio Temple, Shiryu falls into a distortion in time and space, where he lives a peaceful and happy life with Shunrei, raises a family, and is about to die as an old man. However, thanks to Dohko's cane, he escapes by declaring that he is a Saint of Athena, and will die on the battlefield to protect the Earth.
- MacGuffin: Hades' Sword is the cause of the plot, so they have to break it in the 18th Century.
- Meanwhile, in the Future…: The story keeps going back and forth between past and present as if everything was happening at the same time. The most jarring example being Shun in the 18th century having the feeling that something bad is about to happen to Seiya in the 20th century/ next page.
- Might be handwaveable by the fact they explicitly created a tie between the past and the present day that will hold only for three days.
- This would explain why the resurrection of the Ophiucus Gold Saint in the past affects Shaina in the present, and also why Aiolos' testament disappears from the wall in the future to reappear in the past to drive a point home to his predecessor.
- It is more or less now confirmed that Athena's time-travel shenanigans will cause universal disruption if unchecked, which prompts a lot of the Gold Saints in the past, Odysseus first, to kill Athena (the one coming from the future) to protect their era.
- Moon Rabbit: Artemis' Satellites.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Saori's decision to travel back in time to save Seiya's life is shown to have dire consequences as the manga progresses. Time is warped and distorted, putting the stability of the universe at risk. The cursed Ophiuchus Gold Saint is resurrected, with Asclepius using said distortions to escape his prison and try to conquer Earth. And it's hinted that the Olympians (who already don't like Athena for her actions against Hades and Poseidon) aren't going to be happy with this.
- Non-Action Guy: Seiya has been demoted to this, as he's pretty much comatose and dying.
- One-Winged Angel: Touma's scar on his back as well as his armor design.
- Present-Day Past: In order to avoid Comic-Book Time, the "present day" portions of the story take place in 1990, around when the original manga ended.
- Race Against the Clock: This is Saint Seiya after all, it just needs one like for every one of its arcs. Here, the heroes and Athena have three days to go to the past and break Hades' sword to save Seiya from certain death. Later on, Athena gets struck by a poisonous snake and only the soon-to-be-resurrected Odysseus can cure her (though one of his gold serpent servants encases her in an egg that stops the poison from progressing, effectively hitting pause on the timer).
- Rank Up:
- Kurumada accepted the concept of Saints of Athena being able to be promoted to higher Cloth Rankings, Shion and Dohko apparently were Bronze Saints prior to the story itself; oddly enough this wasn't brought up in the original series, going by how many times Seiya, Hyoga and Shiryu (and Shun and Ikki next to the very end) wore Gold Cloths, one would think they would be promoted by now.
- The dregs of Shaka's soul outright state to Shijima that Shun is his successor as bearer of the Virgo Cloth.
- Implied to inverted, and was about to played straight again, that the Ophiuchus Cloth was a Gold Cloth. The Ophiuchus Gold Saint was even said to have already obtained divine powers, which is why the Gods banished him away. As the Ophiuchus Temple re-emerges in the past when said Ophiuchus Gold Saint, Oddyseus, was about to resurrect, meanwhile in the present, Shaina got Brainwashed and Crazy and perhaps is possessed by Oddyseus.
- After a test of character, Kaiser acknowledges Ikki as the successor to the Leo Cloth.
- Likewise with Mystria who acknowledges Hyoga as his successor.
- It is now confirmed that Shiryu and Dohko's tattoos are the mark of the Keystone, effectively designating and destining them to be the keystone to Athena's army, the Libra Gold Saint, and the one who must remain impartial at all times to retain the judgement required to decide when to use the Libra weapons.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent:
- As the Ophiuchus Gold Saint begins to return, hordes of snakes swarm the Sanctuary to tell people to side with him or die. Ironically, in-universe snakes are thought to be the noblest animal in the Sanctuary due to their status as a medicinal symbol.
- The villainous Asclepius is depicted as a giant ghostly serpent, and intends to rule the Earth and get revenge on Athena for imprisoning him in ancient times.
- Sadistic Choice: The Four Doors of the Buddha that Shijima sets up as barriers imposes this upon intruders. There are four doors (the Door of Old Age, the Door of Disease, the Door of Life, and the Door of Death), but all of them incur bad outcomes upon those who enter through them. The dregs of Shaka's soul spells it out for Shun and Tenma after pulling them back as they're on the verge of opening one of them at one point.The dregs of Shaka's soul: Do not touch that door. Those four doors are the greatest barriers of the Virgo temple. You will be running in circles no matter which door you choose. And it's impossible to beat for untrained people like you.
- Saved by Canon: Shion and Dohko are established to be the sole survivors of the previous Holy War in the original series, and so are safe from mortal harm. Thus, when Dohko tries to kill Odysseus with the Rozan Kō Ryū Ha, it doesn't take and the two of them survive.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The whole reason they are going back is to destroy Hades' Sword that is in Seiya.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Saori believes she can save Seiya, Chronos tells her the fate "of the man in the wheelchair" can't be changed.
- Time Crash: As a result of Athena's time travelling back to the past, time around the 18th century Sanctuary begins to go out of whack, with the sun remaining still, the planets taking on an unusual alignment, and large temporal distortions appearing. This all leads to the return of the mythological Ophiuchus Temple and Gold Saint, and according to the Pope, eventually all of creation will be destroyed.
- Time-Delayed Death: Virgo Shijima has a white rose in his heart.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: It's shown that Athena's time travel has created ripple effects that altered the past even before the moment she arrived; namely, Suikyo, Odysseus, and the Pope all saw she would be arriving years beforehand, and Asclepius began plotting to make his escape as a result of it. Thus, Suikyo became a Specter, and Odysseus killed himself in a failed attempt to stop Asclepius from using him as a vessel.
- Tragic Keepsake: Shiryu keeps the late Roshi/Dohko's cane with him, even taking it with him into the past. Thanks to it, he's able to escape from a Lotus-Eater Machine, and in his fight with Scorpio Écarlate, the handle is shattered, revealing Ryujin's jewel which appears on Shiryu's back tattoo, symbolising his mastery of forebearance.
- Unperson: In the distant past, all evidence of the Ophiuchus Gold Saint's existence was scrubbed away by Sanctuary after he earned the ire of the gods and was banished.
- Visions of Another Self: Seiya and Tenma, the only real example of perfect look-a-like between the two periods... Chekov's Gun for the impossible mission anyone?
- The Voice: Chronos/Khronos
- You Already Changed the Past: Before Saori/Athena was sent to the 18th century, there was no Athena present at this period; yet, in the 20th century's main story in the original manga, we learnt that during the previous war in the 18th century Athena was there with all her Saints. Therefore, Saori had already been taken into account as the Athena of the 18th century when the events are told to us in the 20th century even before we actually see her time travel. Thankfully, this has all been resolved as of chapter 62, when Kid!Saori tells Cardinale and Shijima that she is not their Athena, and that the Athena of the 18th century should be arriving at Sanctuary shortly.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Chronos tells Athena before she travels back in time that "the fate of the man in the wheel chair cannot be changed."
- You Shall Not Pass!: The 18th century Gold Saints to the Specters, and later on, Ophiuchus Odysseus.
