Andromeda Shun - Conception and Creation

Conception and Creation

As Masami Kurumada uses the Osamu Tezuka's Star System technique (a stable cast of characters which play a different or similar role in the author's various works, sometimes with the same personality and sometimes with an entirely new one), he gave Shun a design closely resembling Jindai Naoto from Otoko Zaka, the manga he wrote and drew one year before Saint Seiya, and Kirikaze from Fūma no Kojirō, written and drawn several years before Saint Seiya.

Many newcomers to the series have mistaken Shun for a female character, since Andromeda is a feminine constellation and the anime adaptation feminized Kurumada's original design of the Andromeda Cloth. A similar reference was made by Kurumada in the manga, before it was adapted to anime, when Ikki befriends a girl named Esmeralda whose only difference from Shun is her gender and her blonde hair.

His hair is brown in the manga, but was modified to green in the anime adaptation to generate a better color balance. Kurumada explained in interviews that he gave the Andromeda Cloth the same color that identifies the Andromeda Galaxy found in the constellation of the same name.

As Masami Kurumada was a practitioner of the martial arts in his youth, he used his knowledge about traditional Japanese martial arts weapons in his concept for Shun. The Chains of the Andromeda Cloth were a formidable weapon, perfectly suited for both defense and offense, sharing these traits with the traditional Manriki-gusari, a chain-based weapon used in Japanese martial arts.