⭐ Forty years after the saga began, and two decades after a stalled film series promised it, the Heaven Arc arrived. On May 14, 2026, Weekly Shonen Champion #24 hit Japanese newsstands with Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen on the cover. The first run was six chapters. Saori is back, Seiya is back, and there is a new figure called Kale.

The day Saint Seiya fans had been counting down to

When Akita Shoten announced Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen (the Heavens Arc) on March 12, the Japanese trade press treated it as a heritage event. The same issue carried an all-color Kurumada short, Saint Seiya THEN III: Resolve. Two months later the series itself arrived: issue #24 of Weekly Shōnen Champion shipped on May 14 with the cover slot and a color opening, the first time in years the magazine put Pegasus Seiya front and center.

Weekly Shonen Champion issue 24 cover, featuring Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen

Source: Weekly Shonen Champion editorial / X

The issue retailed for 400 yen and shipped with a double-sided "Galaxy Mythos" poster in the print edition. Digital readers got two exclusive digital posters instead. The anime-and-manga chain Gamers added an exclusive illustration card at its branches. The publisher clearly treated it as a commemorative issue.

For long-time readers, all of that was the warm-up. The news was inside.

What Chapter 1 actually contains

The first installment, titled "Phase 1: Memory of Erasure," introduces Saori (the human incarnation of Athena), Seiya, and a new figure described in Japanese press materials as Kale, the Evil God. Kurumada has confirmed nothing further about Kale's mythological positioning, and readers are taking the introduction as a setup beat rather than a final reveal, possibly a herald for the Olympian gods rather than the headliner.

The cover composition drew its own discussion: Seiya and Shun in the foreground with Athena behind them, which several Japanese fan accounts read as a deliberate visual rhyme with the original series. Authorial intent or wishful reading, it lands at a milestone moment.

"Six chapters" is the most important detail

Buried below the celebratory headlines is a number that has split the Japanese fanbase: the first run will be exactly six chapters. The magazine's own listing labels it as a shūchū rensai (集中連載), which translates loosely as "limited serialization", a short, defined arc rather than an open-ended weekly that simply keeps going.

The framing is officially "First Series, all 6 chapters." Veterans know what that can mean. Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, The Myth of Hades, the previous Kurumada-helmed sequel, ran irregularly from 2006 until it finished in issue 31 of 2024: eighteen years for sixteen volumes, with long hiatuses and full-color pages that pushed each tankōbon past 1,000 yen. Six chapters at weekly pace lasts a month and a half. Six chapters at Next Dimension pace could mean another decade.

In a thread on Japan's Yahoo! Chiebukuro board, one fan did the math bluntly: at Kurumada's typical rhythm of three color bursts a year, seven to eight years for around fifteen volumes, assuming the author can sustain that pace into his late seventies. Born in 1953, Kurumada was 72 when the series launched.

The first series is already over

Update, July 2026: the first series ran exactly as advertised. Six chapters, from issue #24 on May 14 to issue #29 on June 18, closing with "Phase 6: The Legend of Elysion." Five weeks, start to finish. The magazine's endnote states that the next series is scheduled to resume in winter. The fear that six chapters might stretch across a decade proved unfounded, at least for this run.

The launch issue also carried one other confirmation: a Saint Seiya 40th Anniversary Original Art Exhibition in 2027. Venue and dates remain unannounced, but the show itself is official, and it is likely to overlap with the Heaven Arc's return.

The reading question: where can fans abroad actually read this?

This is where the international situation gets awkward, and where readers in Brazil, Mexico, France, Italy and elsewhere need to set their expectations carefully.

Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen is published in Weekly Shōnen Champion, which is an Akita Shoten magazine. That matters because the major global simul-publishing platform, Manga Plus, is operated by Shueisha, the publisher of the original Saint Seiya manga back in the Weekly Shōnen Jump era of 1986–1990. Akita Shoten titles do not currently appear on Manga Plus. So unlike a Jump series, Tenkai-hen will not show up in the official free-and-simul reading app most international shōnen fans default to.

For the original 1986 to 1990 manga, Viz Media holds the English license under the title Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac. All 28 volumes were released between 2004 and 2010, and Viz later put the digital edition into its Shonen Jump subscription service. Spanish-language readers have been served by a rotation of regional publishers across Spain and Latin America, among them Norma Editorial, Planeta Cómic and Distrito Manga. French readers have Editions Kana. Italian and German markets each have their own licensees. None of them has announced a license for Tenkai-hen or for the Next Dimension sequel.

Which leaves practical options that vary by how patient you are:

International fans who read Japanese can buy the issues digitally via Cmoa or BookWalker Global, both of which carry Weekly Shōnen Champion. Those who want print can order through Japan-import services like JapanGoodz, which offers magazine subscriptions. Everyone else waits and hopes that a regional publisher, most likely a Spanish-language house given the franchise's grip on Latin America, or Kana in France, picks up the license once the six chapters are collected. Given the franchise's commercial footprint that seems more likely than not, but the timing is anyone's guess.

There is also the unofficial-translation ecosystem that has historically served Saint Seiya fandom, particularly in Spanish, when official releases lag. Readers can make their own call there. Buying the licensed editions when they appear is what keeps regional publishers willing to bid for future arcs.

What this means for the franchise

The Tenkai-hen launch arrived at an active moment for Saint Seiya as a property. The Netflix CG remake Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya released "Battle for Sanctuary, Part 2" in April 2024. The 2023 live-action film drew mixed notices abroad and disappointed commercially. Next Dimension closed in 2024 after eighteen years. Spinoffs continue under other artists. Through all of it, Kurumada's own canonical sequel output amounted to three eight-page color shorts in the THEN series. Tenkai-hen is the full-length version of that authority.

In the end the six chapters read as a prologue to a longer Olympian war rather than a self-contained mini-arc. The open question is how fast the story moves once it resumes this winter. Remembering the eighteen years of Next Dimension, fans are right to brace.

What is undeniable is that on May 14, 2026, the manga page the franchise's most devoted fans had wanted for forty years finally got drawn.

If Saint Seiya shaped your childhood, on TV Asahi, on TF1, on Globo, on RAI, on Antena 3, or somewhere else entirely, where did you first encounter the Saints? And does the news that the long-promised Heaven Arc is finally underway pull you back in, or are you bracing yourself for another long wait?

References