Saint Seiya

In wikipedia the tecnical infos says:

<<Saint Seiya (聖闘士星矢, Seinto Seiya), title also known as Knights of the Zodiac, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masami Kurumada, serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump from 1986 to 1991 and adapted into an anime TV series by Toei Animation.

The story follows five mystical warriors called the "Saints" (or "Knights") who fight wearing sacred armors named "Cloths" which designs derive from the various constellations the characters have adopted as their guardian symbols.>>

Basically the main character is Seiya, along with his friends Shiryuu Dragon, Hyoga Cygnus, Shun Andromeda and Ikki Phoenix. Their job is fight in the name of the goddess of justice Athena, and protect her reincarnation: Saori. They were chosen among other Bronze Saints in a tournament that was organized personally by Saori to find her personal guardians and warriors who will help her defend justice from evil (even if actually there is no defending justice during the series, but mostly they have to go and save/revive her in all the sagas), and that leads them to fight, almost impossible battles, with other Saints who normally have superior strength.

When I was a child I spent most of my childhood watching Saint Seiya and I was simply amazed by the style of the armors and also the fighting techniques. However I was never really fond of Athena since most of the time she was there doing nothing or being simply dead, killed, captured, kidnapped. I was always waiting with anticipation for the next episode, simply because I was curious to see what would the Bronze Saints do and if they would manage to save Saori from certain death. I could never actually understand, while I was little, why was she always near death if not totally dead, but then growing I came to a personal conclusion: because people try to destroy justice and the fact is that she is personification of the concept and that lead to the fact that she was always sick or dying because they tried to make her vanish. Saori has a difficult job, it's not easy being the personification of the concept of justice. However this is one of the few series where I preferred the evil side.

Kurumada's master piece is not popular only in Japan but also in Europe, having fans among older and younger population. The series was/is so loved that Kuramada asked two new young mangaka to create two new series, that are actually prequel to the original story, I'm talking about Saint Seiya Lost Canvas, dedicated to the past Saints and Athena, and Saint Seiya G, that is dedicated to the Gold Saint Leo Aioria and has it's focus on the Gold Saints.