The Tower of Specters

At the heart of the Saint Seiya universe stands the mysterious Tower of Specters of Hades, located in Rozan, China. It is within this imposing structure that the malevolent power of the 108 stars resides, escaping and incarnating into the souls of specters at the beginning of volume 29 of the series (the Hades arc).

During the previous holy war in 1743, Athena sealed the souls of the specters in this tower so they could reincarnate later into new warriors. She placed her sacred seal there to delay their release as long as possible, dreading the conflicts and misfortunes that would follow — like opening Pandora's box.

However, Athena knew that this seal would not hold its effectiveness forever and that one day, the forces of Evil would resurface. This is why she dispatched Dohko, the venerable Gold Knight of Libra, to watch over this tower in Rozan from afar. His role would be to sound the alarm on the fateful day of the release of this calamity.

This strange monument is inspired by the famous Angkor temple, located in Cambodia. In Saint Seiya, the Tower of Specters recalls the «Bayon temple», a Khmer temple also known as the «temple-mountain». The rough forms of this structure evoke a mountainous relief, giving the impression that the Tower of Specters is a mountain in its own right.

Between 802 and 1432, many temple-mountains were erected during the golden age of the Khmer Empire in Southeast Asia. The first ruler to build such structures was Jayavarman II (802–850), who established a cult around his divinity as a deified ruler. The Bayon, built later under the reign of Jayavarman VII, is distinguished by its more than 200 faces turned towards the cardinal points.

Masami Kurumada clearly drew inspiration from this unique and mysterious architecture to create one of the most iconic structures in the Hades arc of Saint Seiya.