Character · Saint Seiya
Pegasus Seiya
Bronze armour shaped like a winged horse, and a franchise that is far bigger in Paris and Sao Paulo than it ever was in English.
In Otakana the clue reads: Bronze saint of Pegasus
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Saint Seiya
- Letters
- 5 · Hard
Saint Seiya sends teenage fighters, called Saints, into battle wearing Cloths: armour keyed to a constellation and awakened by burning something the series calls Cosmo. Seiya wears the Pegasus Cloth. He trained in Greece, won the armour in a tournament, and joined the Saints sworn to protect the reincarnation of Athena, mainly because he was looking for a sister who had been taken from him.
Masami Kurumada ran the manga in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1986 to 1990 and Toei animated it immediately. The structure it made standard is everywhere now: a ladder of stronger opponents in matching armour, each fight ending with a named attack shouted at full volume, and a hero who gets back up considerably more often than his injuries allow.
Outside Japan the reach is enormous. As Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque in France and Os Cavaleiros do Zodiaco in Brazil it was the anime for a generation, and it still supports new series, films and a whole industry of collectible armour figures. English-speaking fans usually arrive late and are surprised by how much of later shonen it got to first.
Spelling SEIYA
SEIYA is five letters and the EI pair is the one to place, since two vowels together in the middle of a word narrow the field fast. The kanji, 星矢, means star arrow, which would suit the archer's constellation rather better than a horse. The game wants the given name, and Pegasus is a title rather than a surname.