Saint Tail

Saint Tail (怪盗セイント・テール, Kaitō Seinto Tēru, also known as Mysterious Thief Saint Tail,) is a phantom thief magical girl manga and anime series. Originally a twenty-four part manga by Megumi Tachikawa, the story was adapted into an anime television series by producer Tokyo Movie Shinsha, with forty-three episodes and one short, broadcast by ABC. Tokyopop translated the manga series, and subtitled and partially dubbed the anime series.

Video Games were released for the Sega Saturn and Sega Game Gear in Japan, and are considered collectors items by Saint Tail fans.

The Tokyopop book summary states that it is "Robin Hood meets Sailor Moon!"^[1]

Story

The story of Saint Tail follows a simple formula: school girl Meimi Haneoka transforms into the mysterious thief Saint Tail, and steals back what was stolen or taken dishonestly. She's assisted by a classmate and sister-in-training, Seira Mimori, whose position in the church after school each day allows her to hear the troubles of those who have been wronged and have come to pray to God.

While Saint Tail steals to right the wrongs done to innocent people, she's a thief to the police force. Her classmate Daiki Asuka Jr., called Asuka Jr., and son of Detective Asuka, is hot on her trail. Saint Tail delivers notices of her planned capers to Asuka Jr., to give him a fair chance to catch her.

Characters

Meimi Haneoka / Saint Tail (羽丘芽美 / セイントテール, Haneoka Meimi / Seinto Teiru)

Voiced by: Tomo Sakurai (Japanese), Mela Lee (English)

The main character of the series. Meimi is a typical cheerful orange-haired fourteen-year-old student at St. Paulia's Private School. By night she transforms into the mysterious (yet magical) thief, Saint Tail. In this guise, she takes back what bad people have stolen. She is given information by her classmate, and nun-in-training, Seira, of misdeeds. And she likes Asuka

Daiki Asuka Jr. (飛鳥大貴 / アスカＪｒ, Asuka Daiki / Asuka Jr.)

Voiced by: Kousuke Okano (Japanese), Joshua Seth (English)

Daiki Asuka is a detective boy fourteen-year-old student at classmate of Meimi, and is a top student in his class. But in the anime Asuka likes Meimi.

Seira Mimori (深森 聖良, Mimori Seira)

Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (Japanese), Anjuli Cain (English)

Seira is a quiet and mature, fourteen-year-old student classmate and best friend of Meimi. She is a nun-in training at the school's church. she is the only person who knows the real identity of Saint Tail.

Anime dubbing

Only the first five volumes (15 episodes) were dubbed to English. Volumes 6-8 were released on DVD with English subtitles only.

The first two volumes (seven episodes) of the English dub removed references to God in a possible anticipation of a TV broadcast. This is especially awkward, "considering Seira Mimori spends half of the time in a nun's habit, one wonders why they thought they could do Saint Tail without references to God". According to producer Kenneth Lee, who took over starting with Volume 3, the remaining episodes will not have this restriction.^{[citation needed]}

In the Italian dub, when Asuka Jr. reads a notice from Saint Tail, rather than display the notice written in Japanese, a short scene of Saint Tail running in the dark is shown while her voice reads out the notice's message. The notice scenes are cut from the Korean dub, presumably due to the Japanese text. In Korea, several episodes were cut entirely (they had not been broadcast) because there was so much content with Japanese culture or text. The 12th episode was broadcast just after 3rd episode to match with the real Christmas season when it was broadcast in Korea.

Title names in dubbed versions

References

External links

• Saint Tail (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Saint Tail (manga) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Saint Tail at TV.com