I recently watched The Seven Deadly Sins and I have some thoughts about this first season that I'd like to discuss before the series gets a continuation. Bearing in mind I enjoyed most of what I saw and the stuff I didn't enjoy as much were pretty minor in comparison to the overall picture. I just want to lay out my thoughts on this show to give you an idea of how much I personally enjoyed it.
The story follows a man by the name of Meliodas, the leader of a group of Holy Knights known as The Seven Deadly Sins. After being framed for the murder of the previous Holy Knight Grand Master and a coup against the King of Liones, the sins separated and fell off the face of the planet for ten years. After this, a woman by the name of Elizabeth goes searching for the Sins in the hopes of bringing down the Holy Knights who she suspects were the ones that were up to no good.
Now, I really hate to start off on a bad note but there's one thing in a lot of anime, manga, and TV shows that really bugs me, particularly about a lot of pilot episodes. A lot of series will start off a show without making it clear who the main character is until after the show is about five or six episodes in. This is usually in the form of putting a lot of focus on one character but then have that focus gradually readjust itself onto the character it's supposed to focus on.
The thing I would prefer in a lot of shows is to introduce us to the main character and reveal his identity pronto so that we get an idea of who we're supposed to be rooting for. And The Seven Deadly Sins does kind of do this but it takes until the end of the episode to make that clear. The show does start off by showing us the main character first, Meliodas. However, who he is or what role he's going to play are not made all that clear until after the introduction of Elizabeth and several other mooks who think they're hot shit.
It's not terrible but the show's title has already made it clear that the show is going to be about the Sins so who the main one is among them should've been made clear a lot sooner. Again, it's not bad, but it could've been done better.
In terms of the characters introduced in the first episode, only three of them stick around for the entirety of the show, which leads into a specific problem I have with the last episode that I'll get to later. For now, let's talk about these characters.
As I stated, Meliodas is the protagonist and is also the leader of the Seven Deadly Sins. He is the Sin of Wrath and the Dragon Sin. He is an interesting character in the vein that he is quite powerful but not entirely unrelateable. Of course he does do things that many in my life wouldn't attempt, such as groping, squeezing, or stealing the panties of young women, though there are two things to remember about this: first of all, the woman he's doing this to probably has some affection for him and thus probably enjoys it to a certain extent. Not to say that every woman would put up with this behavior, I know many who wouldn't, but I'm very well aware that when a woman feels feelings for someone and those feelings are strong enough, they'll put up with and/or enjoy more of the behavior that said person does. Battered housewives are a pretty strong example of just how much a woman will justify if she feels strongly enough about the man in question and Meliodas never goes that far.
The other thing to consider, though, and this is pretty important, even if Elizabeth took issue with his behavior, there's not much anyone can really do to stop him. He's the single most overpowered character in the show and the only characters that have movesets that can counter his still end up coming up short, pun completely intended. While I admit Elizabeth should have spoken up once or twice about his behavior if it really bothered her, there's not really all that much she can do about it in the short term.
Speaking of Elizabeth, she is the deuteragonist of the show, also known as the second primary character. Though she does struggle to keep her wits about her in a lot of situations, she's quite kind and really easy to like. Though I don't think everyone will agree with me on this, I think Elizabeth benefits from not being a fighter. I've seen a lot of arguments over a lot of characters in the past where they complain that a lot of female shounen characters are useless. However, when they say they're useless, they usually mean in a fight, which doesn't necessarily fit every character. While I agree that a character designed to fight should be competent against at least some of the opponents they battle, Elizabeth is a princess and princesses, by and large, are not fighters. If a character is not designed to fight, they really should not be rated by how many faces they can bash.
That said, Elizabeth does get a fair amount of characterization all things considered. Bearing in mind, this is a twenty five or twenty six episode show, surrounding a lot of characters, so you have to make the most of your run time. And Elizabeth does make it clear that she's compassionate, determined in a non-aggressive way, and she seeks to help everyone around her grow and prosper. This isn't necessarily ground breaking or deep stuff but, I want to point out, that all of this is shown, not stated, at least not all that much.
This is one of the positives about the anime as a whole. It shows us a lot without really telling us a lot. Sure exposition is around, it's not gone completely, but this show follows the "show don't tell" rule very well. However, one thing I like about this show is the particular word choices it uses.
One character, a Holy Knight with pink hair by the name of Gilthunder (just go with it) starts hunting Meliodas and tells him something. "I am now stronger than the seven deadly sins." Initially, this struck me as odd. I'd heard from outside sources that Meliodas was overpowered and that the only times he gets injured are when he does so on purpose. When I started watching the series I just thought Gilthunder was cocky and a villain that needed to be taken down a peg. A choice of visuals that leads into this that I just thought was stylistic initially was the use of a red eyed Raven that was watching Gilthunder in his tower and again in the Forest of White Dreams. At that point, I was getting a very strong Marluxia type of vibe from him, namely that the show seemed to think of him as a grim reaper or a god of death.
However, as the show was coming to an end, Meliodas killed a random demon that was near Margaret, which struck me as odd, until the show started explaining itself. Specifically with the magic words that Meliodas told Gilthunder to say when he feels alone and can't rely on anyone. These things were subtle and likely to be missed on a first viewing, but all of these hints were given too much focus to have not been planned from the beginning.
Speaking of Holy Knights, the main antagonist for these two seasons seems to be one of the current Grand Master Holy Knights who was experimenting with demon power to become strong and amass an army he could completely control. And the entire time, he was the one controlling everything. Every other Holy Knight shows some level of morality that he simply doesn't.
Of the Seven Deadly Sins, only six are seen in the show at all as of the end of Season 1, and only four of them get major focus. The other two, Gowther and Merlin, are introduced so late that it's as if they were afterthoughts. This left a lot of questions that I bet will be resolved in a potential second season but, as of this blog post, have yet to be dealt with. The major complaints are two fold.
Firstly, why did Gowther need that armor to contain his magic? Merlin made him that armor to contain his power, that much is clear. However, throughout the series he shows enough control over his magic and his magic is of a type that such a seal is not necessary, and while you could argue that he may have gained more control in ten years, flashbacks suggest that he always had that level of magical control. So why was that armor necessary?
The second question, which was brought up late and never given a resolution, likely begging for another season, why did Merlin knock out Meliodas after they were framed for killing the Grand Master Holy Knight? A possible explanation might be that she didn't want him going berserk with rage but I doubt that's all there is to it. This was a deliberate decision that the author made that I'm curious about.
So of the seven sins, only four actually get any real level of characterization. These are, in order, Meliodas the Sin of Wrath, Diane the Sin of Envy, Ban the Sin of Greed, and King the Sin of Sloth. First, I'll talk about the remaining sins in as much detail as I deem necessary, and then I want to get into why they're called the Seven Deadly Sins because that choice was also deliberate.
First is Diane, who is a giant. And I don't just mean she's tall, although she is 30 feet in height. She is actually of the Giant Race, a species that has a strong connection to the earth and is able to manipulate it for their own purposes. Diane is capable of turning crystals into sand, however the fuck that actually works, as well as general earth bending, however, she is also capable of turning her body into earthen materials. So far, the only time she did this was during the Festival Tournament for her hammer, where she turned herself into iron, though it is likely she can turn herself into stone and other metals as well.
Diane also has a notable infatuation with Meliodas. She thinks very highly of him and wants to be the focus of his, um, "affection" if you wish to call it that. She can also be quite kind and energetic. However, because she's a giant, and one of the sins, she's designed from the ground up to be a fighter and not a supporter. Because of that, she lives and dies by her ability to fight, pun also intended.
Next is Ban, the sin of Greed, who has two notable abilities that make him only slightly less overpowered than Meliodas. The first is that he's immortal, maybe. We're not exactly given a lot of detail on what he actually has, even if it shows us how he got it. His immortality means that he can almost instantly regenerate from any injury, even injuries that would kill anyone else. However, it's not very consistent. While the series does suggest that this immortality is negated by demonic power, this isn't all there is to it, since he has fully regenerated from attacks from demons that, by all rights, should have killed him if that were the case. One instance this happened it was suggested he used a healing spell from one of the Holy Knights but the other time he got his entire torso obliterated and he just got back up like nothing happened. His other ability is to steal things from his opponent, from body parts to stats, from weapons to magical power.
Ban has one desire and one desire only: to bring back the Fairy girl that died at the hands of a demon after she gave him immortality through the fountain of youth. This is the main source of conflict with him and King, who is her elder brother and the King of Fairies.
Speaking of whom, King the sin of Sloth, is the King of the Fairy people whose real name is Harlequin. His only desire is to protect those he cares about because he usually fails. He himself doesn't really have a lot of power but his spear does. As far as we see it has several configurations that each have their own abilities: increase (number, not size), petrify (translated as fossilize in the English Version), Sun flower (think Solar Beam from Pokemon and you get the idea), and Illuminate (a glorified flashlight). There's also one other ability which is a protective barrier that heals what's inside of it but I don't remember what that's called.
One other notable thing about him is his infatuation with Diane. An episode late in Season 2 explains it as "Because he promised he would" before erasing her memory of their time together but this seems like a copout to me. Having him develop feelings for her overtime during their tenure as Holy Knights would've been just as believable and probably been more effective. Sometimes, simpler is better. The fewer details something needs to be made clear, the harder it is to fuck up. As much as I tend to love intricate narratives and complexity because simplicity bores me sometimes, I will admit, that complexity has no reason to exist if it has no reason to exist. Or, in other words, if you don't have a reason to make something complicated, don't complicate it.
Now that all that's out of the way, I want to talk about why the characters are called the Seven Deadly Sins because I feel like that issue is more important than a lot of people who watch the series seem to think it is. You see, at first, I thought they were called The Seven Deadly Sins because there are seven of them, they're all really frickin' powerful, and the title just fits these kinds of characters. However, after watching the series, I've learned that each of these characters commits some act that represents the sin they are assigned.
The most obvious one in this regard is Ban, who initially I thought was called that because of his ability. However, as it turns out, his greed ends up causing the destruction of the home of the Fountain of Youth and the Death of King's sister Elaine. Though the show suggests that these particular things were not really his fault, he does nonetheless claim responsibility for these outcomes.
Then King, the sin of Sloth, is called that because he's always late. And by that I mean he always shows up to a battle or event after the event has already claimed its outcome. This is the case with his best friend, his sister, and an event from 700 years prior that never really gets a lot of focus, they kind of just gloss over it a lot of the time.
Meliodas is called the Sin of Wrath seemingly because his anger caused the destruction of an entire city. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen but, clearly, there's something to be said about the calm ones. Never easily angered but, when they do get angry, they're a force of nature.
Of course Gowther and Merlin haven't been given enough screen time to speculate and the sin of Pride hasn't even been introduced yet but I want to take the time to speculate about Diane's disposition as the sin of Envy because, of all of the top four sins, she's the only one whose crime is left vague, by which I mean never actually revealed. However, I wonder if her sin has anything to do with her loneliness. Though a lot of her background is never really explored, as far as we are shown, she is the only Giant shown in the series and is treated differently because of it. I don't have enough solid evidence to form any conclusions, though.
Finally we have Hawke, also known as the Pig. Hawke is, in his own words, The Leader of the Order of Scraps Disposal. I wonder who came up with that to be perfectly honest because while it does sound like something Hawke may have made up himself, it's also possible that Meliodas came up with it or, someone else we don't know about did prior to the founding of the Boar Hat, since Hawke and Meliodas have only known each other for ten years. Hawke is a relatively useless character and he complains a lot but he's a lot more endearing than I initially gave him credit for. His best scenes are the ones he shares with Ban, because their relationship is really quite charming.
That said, there is one particular moment in the last two episodes that really soured me on the ending, not enough to be a deal breaker but definitely not something that I would respect. At the end of the series, the Holy Knight Grand Master who was experimenting with demons injected himself with the blood of a gray demon's corpse. He then gained the ability to cause instant death. During this time, he shot a ball of instant death at Meliodas and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was unable to move and Meliodas didn't want to risk her dying.
Hawke, however, gets in the way of the blast and stops it, becoming a completely necrotic corpse in the process. This is what caused Elizabeth to awaken her druid powers as an Apostle of the Goddess, something that we just have to go with I guess, and she uses her magical power to heal everyone that survived but took injuries. This allowed Meliodas the stamina he needed to take damage from every other Holy Knight there so he could use his ultimate ability, Revenge Counter, to defeat the Gray Demon.
After it ended, everyone looked at Hawke's dead body and part of me wanted Hawke to be dead, not because I disliked him but simply because too many shounen anime treat death as if it has no meaning. If only disliked characters die, death has no impact. If a character you like dies but is then resurrected, death has no meaning. And if some characters can come back to life but your favorites can't, that's a slap in the face.
However, Hawke ends up coming back to life apparently as a baby with all of his memories and is now being treated with Ban's Kitchen God cooking, the show's words not mine. This bothers me about a lot of shows because shows that don't have the guts to kill off a character and keep them dead really don't deserve to be treated as something that does what no one else does.
And I know why most series don't kill off liked characters. By killing a character that a lot of people like, you risk alienating the ones that were watching it specifically for that character. You lose viewership and possibly a lot of money.
However, part of killing a liked character will also result in people wanting to see what happened to the killer. Because many people may want to see that character's killer see the punishment that they deserve. Both outcomes are likely, however. Thus, when building a series, it's something that should be accounted for.
I'm pretty confident this show will get a second season and, when it does, I hope I'll get to see it. I did have some complaints about the show but the watch was ultimately worth it. It left me with a lot of questions that I want resolved in a second season. This wouldn't be good if the show wasn't being continued but it's popular enough that I probably don't have to worry about that.
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