Happy Birthday, Milo

27 years have passed since 1985 when Shueisha started to serialize Saint Seiya (SS) by Kurumada Masami, one of the most influential comic artists in his days. Five years later SS was animated and won hundreds of thousands of young audiences in China after the CCTV bought the its copyrights. In days when Chinese cartoons were far less developed, SS attracted many Chinese children with its glaring pictures and extraordinary characters. Almost every student in my class watched it, and knew fictional things like "burn my cosmos" or could do a few fighting moves. I was one of the kids, and inevitably I got obsessed with SS for years. But my dad didn't allow me to watch SS too much for fear that the glaring pictures would hurt my eyesight.

20 years later, Chinese cartoons were still as poor as two decades ago, but Japanese cartoons were much more developed, and many of them were introduced to the Chinese market. The new cartoons made the SS look like a rough and childish one to its old audiences, who were young adults now. But the SS as part of our memories of childhood, is always missed. That was why they made Saint Seiya Hades, a new series of SS with better computer-made stunts and more gorgeous pictures. (Actually it was the most expensive TV- animation at that time.) In comparison to the old SS which was mainly about Bronze Saints, the new episodes were more about Golden Saints who are also stronger and prettier. This time I was a college student. I watched SS Hades with other SS fans, not worrying about its glaring pictures. The new SS Hades created a strong reminiscent mood among SS fans. New online forums, clubs, cosplays, fan comics and novels could be found everywhere. Even I ordered a SS T-shirt from the fan club in Peking University.

After the SS Hades, Golden Saints beat their Bronze peers and lead the popularity rankings, and one of the most popular Golden Saints is Milo, the Scorpius Saint. He is the youngest one in all the twelve (and later thirteen) Golden Saints, and is also viewed as one of the most emotional and caring saint in the SS. His fans always celebrate his birthday on Nov 8, based on officially released bios. In 2004, I drew a short comic about his birthday, the only comic I've ever made. One year later, I put all my fan novels of Milo into a book, and then decided it's time for me to grow up.

The moment of SS has largely gone. Its following episodes never became popular as the SS Hades. Now most SS online forums are closed, few people are still drawing or writing about SS. Days when we got together to celebrate Milo's birthday will never be back. But Japanese cartoon fans are still growing, with more new animations showing every season and old ones never coming to an end. As long as this industry grows and the Chinese cartoons continue sucking, there will be more Chinese children and teenagers becoming Japanese comic fans, and crazy about the characters in them. You can call this a cultural invasion, but I need to say cultural products like this are truly powerful.

Scorpio Milo