Yes, this is him, the one saint I absolutely find the coolest one around over all the series. Had the Lost Canvas not been producedm Hyoga would have been standing here, and Deathmask would barely, if all, have made the top-10, but being a Cancer, it was a great relief to find the Gold Saints in that storyline at least to be all loyal to Athena (no traitors like in about every other series), and the fact that the Cancer saint was not a psychopathic killer like in all it`s other incarnations (Deathmask, Schiller in Omega, that goofball coward in Next Dimension...).
No, Manigoldo is of a whole other brand. Young and impulsive, he has been trained by the Grand Pope of the 18th century himself, Cancer Sage, a survivor of the previous Holy War. He is seen as one of the strongest Gold Saints who wisely uses his powers to transfer between to the realm of the dead and our world, and has set one goal at the beginning of the war: to fight, strike and defeat the God of Death, Thanatos.
He follows Tenma into the Forest of the Dead to watch out for him from afar, but when they face Veronica, he interferes. This Spectre with the power to animate the dead soon proves to be no match for the Gold Saint, and suddenly he appears during a game of chess between Thanatos and Hypnos, challenging the God.
Infuriated by this insolence, Thanatos tries to make short work of the Saint, but when he fails to do this, he opens an extradimesional portal to suck the young crab in. This however is interrupted when Sage appears, and together they start taking on the fearsome God.
Sage soon reveals that Thanatos real body still lies in Elysium, and attacks the host body`s soul. Manigoldo in the meantime gets gravely injured by physically striking the God, something he always dreamt of doing and considers the best moment of his young life. Infuriated, Thanatos drags him into the portal, costing Manigoldo a leg and damaging the cloth and is left for dead. But just as Thanatos seems to get the upperhand over Sage, a second soul extraction is felt, and the young Saint starts helping out his master to overcome the god.
Manigoldo, about to be drawn in the portal again, orders his cloth to return to it`s rightfull master Sage, and then gets sucked in but grabs the physical body of Thanatos and dragging it with him, both his and the hosts body being destroyed to the last atom. Sage, grieve stricken, overcomes Thanatos though by luring his soul into his own body, then sealing Athena`s Chest by the means of the cloth of his brother, the Altar cloth of Hakurei.
When the Cosmo is felt at the Pope`s palace, Hakurei and Athena are witness of how the now sealed chest appeared on the Pope`s throne, knowing at once Sage is dead. Shion rushes up to the palace, but at the Cancer house he is met by... Manigoldo, who grins and offers the Pope`s helmet to Shion, stating it as `a gift from my master to yours`... and then dissolves in thin air. Shion, now holding the helmet of the fallen Pope, realises he just witnessed Manigoldo`s soul returning from the realm of the dead one final time...
Manigoldo has more techniques then his 20th century counterpart Deathmask, as bar the Sekishiki Meikai Ha, which transfers a person`s soul to the edge of Yomotsu Hirasaka (the Gateway to the Underworld), he also has Sekishiki Kiousen which generates a blue foxfire that directly burns a person`s soul, and Sekishiki Konsou Ha which makes souls explode.
He also has a technique called Acubens, named after the big claw of the constellation, in which he latches on with his legs around a person, snapping them in two like he did initially with Veronica.
The Lost Canvas saints haven`t been released in Myth or other forms bar Tenma and Kagaho, but if they ever restart producing this line, he will be HIGH on my shopping list. And now let`s just pray they finally finish producing the anime...
And so ends my first attempt ever to try and do some sort of countdown on my blog, and I hope you liked it and might inspire some to actually start watching Saint Seiya if you haven`t done so in part during your youth.
If you did, there is a lot of new material out since `Club Dorothee`, so it is certainly worth your while!
Ciao ciao
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