Knights of the Zodiac CCG

Knights of the Zodiac CCG adapts Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya manga and anime franchise (known as Knights of the Zodiac in the English dub), one of the foundational shonen properties of the 1980s with lasting cult popularity worldwide.

The game

Released by Bandai, Knights of the Zodiac CCG is a two-player duel where each player picks a Bronze Saint (Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun, Ikki) or Gold Saint (Aiolia, Mu, Aldebaran, Saga, and the full twelve-Gold-Saint roster) and fights through Cosmo-powered combat. The Cosmo mechanic is the resource system, reflecting the manga's signature psychic-energy combat.

The context

Saint Seiya has enduring popularity across Japan, Latin America, France and Italy (markets where the 1980s anime dub created multiple generations of fans), with a modest English-speaking following. The CCG is primarily a Japanese-market and Latin-American-market product.

The collector angle

Foil Gold Saint cards for each of the twelve zodiac-house knights are the iconic chase pulls and the definitive collector-set-completion goal for Saint Seiya fans. Because Saint Seiya maintains a substantial merchandise market internationally, the TCG cards are often cross-collected by Saint Seiya figure and memorabilia collectors rather than by active CCG players specifically.