Toyzinger
The first figure collection of Saint Seiya was released by BANDAI in the year 1987, practically at the same time as the premiere of the TV series. This collection was originally called Saint Cloth Series although nowadays we all know it as the vintage collection.
Vintage figures had a very novel design for the time, a 12cm articulated plastic figures that emulated the characters of the franchise. But, what stands out the most is the amount of metal pieces included to form the armor. This armor can be mounted both on the character and on its object (stand), which is the appearance of the armor before it is worn by the characters.
Undoubtedly, for the time, they were among the most desired toys by all children fans of the series Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya, obviously, very few considered these figures as collector’s items.
In addition, the fact that they had dozens of small pieces to form the armor, made it very easy to lose some of those pieces. So, for those children, today converted into collectors, it is difficult to find these figures complete with all their pieces. Unless they are still in their box.
Children in Europe and Latam were not able to enjoy all the figures in the collection, as some of them were released exclusively in Japan. Over the years, and with the advent of the internet, collectors have been able to know of the existence of these pieces and can be purchased online, yes, there are some of them, that today reach prohibitive prices.
The following is a list of all the figures that are part of the collection of Saint Seiya – Vintage:
The bronze knights are the 5 main characters of the series: Seiya (Pegasus), Hyoga (Cygnus), Shu (Andromeda), Ikki (Phoenix) and Shiriu (Dragon). Two versions of these figures were released, v1 (version1) and v2 (version2). This is because at one point in the series the knights were able to upgrade their armor and it changed aesthetically.
In addition to the two versions with the armor of the series, we can also find other figures of the same knights, limited editions released exclusively in Japan. The “Memorial” version, with golden armor, and the version with black armor, both versions being the same figures as v1 but painted differently.
In addition to the 5 main characters, the Bronze Saints, there are also a number of secondary characters in the series that help them, in this case we have the Steel and Silver Saints, and as expected, figures of these characters were also released.
The Sanctuary saga is, without a doubt, the most mythical saga of Saint Seiya, it features the Golden Knights, protectors of the twelve houses and charged with protecting the Patriarch and Athena, are the adversaries the protagonists must face to save Saori. The armors of these golden knights represent the 12 symbols of the zodiac.
The figures of the twelve golden knights, went on sale in Japan in 1987 and later came to Europe and Latin America, making these 12 figures the most desired for the children of the time.
The Asgard saga was a series of filler episodes on The Knights of the Zodiac anime, where the bronze knights traveled to Asgard and faced the warrior gods. Even being filler chapters (invented story, not taken from the original manga), fans value very positively this saga, there are even voices that say it is the best filler of all anime.
Obviously, BANDAI released figures with the characters of this saga, thus adding 8 more figures to the vintage collection of Saint Seiya, of these 8 figures, only 4 were released outside Japan, the other 4 being exclusive to the Japanese market, which makes them a bit more expensive and complicated to obtain.
God Poseidon is awakened from his lethargy and abducts Saori with the intention of ending her and the whole world, fortunately, once again, the knights of Atenea are willing to go to the world of Poseidon and rescue her, but not before fighting with all the guardians of the god of the seas.
In 1988 BANDAI released this wave of figures as part of the Saint Seiya, this wave included the figures of all the characters of Poseidon’s army.
At this point, we have already seen all the figures released to the market in the late 80’s from the collection Saint Seiya vintage (53 pieces), but there is even more, as we can see on the back of the Japanese boxes, there was a coupon that served as proof of purchase of such figures.
For a limited time, anyone (in Japan) could cut out those vouchers, and send them to BANDAI by mail. These people were entered into a contest where they could win exclusive figurines or accessories, which they would receive by mail. This is the reason why so many boxes in this collection are mutilated with the voucher part cut off.
These pieces are known as Presento which comes from “present” with the Japanese pronunciation. All these pieces stand out for coming in a very minimalist white box with instructions on the back of the box. The following is a list of these parts:
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