[Next Dimension] Volume 1

Oooh, I'm gonna have so much fun with that one...

Ahem, so, some of you will have heard of the "joke" that is Saint Seiya Next Dimension. Those who haven't, here's a little summary. Back in July '06 there were great shaking news about a new Saint Seiya project from no other than Masami Kurumada himself telling the story of the Holy War of 1743 where Shion and Dohko fought (and were the only survivors, incidentally...). At the same time, another Saint Seiya Project, Lost Canvas from Shiori Teshirogi, was released and it was telling... well pretty much the same story. The fact that it was called Next Dimension, while it takes place in the past notwithstanding, one can hardly call this revival a success

Proof is, now in June 2007, 11 months after, Lost Canvas is a thorough, coherent, beautifully drawn and interesting story which is down to chapter 42 and is waiting release of its 4th bound volume. Next Dimension, although all done in colour, is tasteless, has no interesting dialogue, a draft of a scenario mostly incoherent with the original story and which was only published 8 times. The last of which was in early January, nearly 6 months ago.

Well, perhaps in an attempt to scrounge more money from the fans (what? me? cynical?), there is a bound volume due to be released of this "story" on 27th July. I'm not sure how it'll all fit in as there's about 60 pages of story at most (each ND chapter is only about 7 or 8 pages...). Personally, seeing how utterly abysmal the proto-story behind Next Dimension is, I really fail to see the point of even bothering. As I said, other than to make more money, I don't see what Kurumada's playing at.

Shame really. Well here are the promotional images, thanks to Trevor at All4Seiya forum ;)