DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ActionNanatsu no Taizai: Imashime no Fukkatsu
MANGA ActionNanatsu no Taizai
ANIME ActionNanatsu no Taizai: Funnu no Shinpan
ONA ComedyHawk no Onayami Soudanshitsu

REVIEWS

• 

  JaguarJack

  70/100
  A working sequel to the Nanatsu no Taizai adaptation

  When the 3rd season of Nanatsu no Taizai aired, I was shocked to find out about the drop in quality. Originally, I decided to skip out on this season, as the change of studio after season 2 apparently ruined the anime. Now with the wake of the 4th and presumably last season I decided to give it a try finally and hype myself up for the finale. Turn out I got a lot to talk about.

  ---

  Visuals: 5/10

  So, let’s start with the animation & visuals part of the review as it is the main problem.

  And at first glance it didn’t appear as bad as everyone was making it out to be. One thing was immediately obvious though, the “censoring” of blood. It’s drawn white, which honestly doesn’t fool anyone and does makes it worse in certain scenes where the white color could be interpreted as a different bodily fluid. Thankfully as the episodes progress, the color of blood gradually shifts back to red in more and more scenes. Once you get over the first couple episodes this problem does solve itself and even makes for some funnily ambiguous scenes.
  Visually this season doesn’t look much different than prior ones. Even the art style apparently didn’t change noticeably despite change of studio, which is a nice surprise. The characters still look like they always did, with the same visual quirks that give Nanatsu its playful art style. The backgrounds are stunning, and the characters are drawn well enough to make them look good.

  _Spoilers form here on out_

  Now the real problem and the ultimate downfall of this season is the poor animation quality. As I said, initially it wasn’t that noticeable which made me wonder if the heavy critique was an overreaction but approaching the middle of the season it became apparent. When the plot became more and more action-driven, the animation fell flat on its face. The fights where animated so poorly, that it became hard to follow the action. It became glaringly obvious in the Escanor vs. Meliodas fight, where I’ve seen fan-made animations that did a better job. Without checking back on the manga, it’s probably a bad case of panel-to-panel animation, as there are bits missing that progress the fight and the individual frames lack any kind of animation. And this poor quality sadly is to stay for the rest of the season, you’ll notice more and more glaringly obvious cases of still frames with minimal animation or repetitive frames and overuse of backgrounds or scenes to fill a timeframe. You’ll get a bit of a break when in the last third or so when the story becomes more dialogue driven. The final against Estarossa is animated decently again, just to end the season on a high note.

  So unfortunately, the animation is mostly as bad as the rumors make it to be, making it hard to follow the story during combat scenes. These glaring issues are distracting enough to break the emersion.

  ---

  Writing: 7/10

  This season profits from the plot it adapts from the manga. It features a lot of reveals and some of my favorite plotlines, which more than make up for the poor animation. I was surprised how far the story progressed; I remember the reveals around Merlin to be in the final strokes of the manga. Maybe this indicates some pacing issues.

  Season 2 left Nanatsu in an awkward spot that season 3 struggled to pick up again. Meliodas has just reawakened and the 10 commandments have now taken Camelot. We’re introduced again to the main squad with what appears to be a filler episode featuring some mindless clashes between the sins and some fodder demons. Thankfully, we quickly move on to King and Diane who are confronted by the commandments Dolor and Gloxinia. They get sent on a trial, inhabiting the bodies of the former King of Giants and King of Fairies 3000 years ago during the holy war. While this setup is a bit wanky, it’s really not different from the manga. The payoff is excellent though: We get a drawn-out flashback arc into the happenings of the holy war and are treated with some of the best reveals of the series.

  When the sins reunite towards the middle of the season, the writing does suffer as it gets a bit hard to follow the exact course action. Still, the adaptation does its job as it helps to clear out a few ambiguities the manga left, getting a better sense of where and when the story progresses.

  We get some taste of poorer writing when Dolor & Gloxinia help the sins by fighting against a new threat, the demon Chandler who is sent to retrieve Meliodas for the demon king. Their fight lacks any choreography and makes their efforts look very pointless, resulting in their death without putting up much of a fight.

  The final plot threat revolves around the retrieval of the commandments and Estarossa’s journey into madness and the end of Derieri and Monspeet, who probably got the most development of any commandment up until this point. Estarossa wants to outcompete his brothers and absorb the commandments himself to become the demon king, so he confronts the renegade demons. While the impact of this storyline was still there, it felt just a bit cheap compared to the manga. When Estarossa absorbs some of the commandments he starts to go insane, resulting in a clash with the revived archangels. This fight is probably the best animated one of the season, but still barely passes my standards for a good fight.

  We are left off with Estarossa abducting Elizabeth and Ban entering purgatory to retrieve Meliodas’ emotions. I’m a bit dissatisfied with Estarossa’s plot line being split between the seasons, as the biggest plot twist regarding him is yet to come, especially with all the built up we received in the last couple episodes. There’s a lot of plot to tackle still and I’m curious how it’ll work out in the last season, but at the very least this one managed to get me hyped about Nanatsu again. In that regard, even with some poor writing and lacking execution this season does work as a sequel for the anime adaptation.

  ---

  Voice Acting: 7/10

  I have to address some issues in voice casting. Its not entirely the fault of the 3rd season though.

  Zeldris’ voice actor was casted in the previous season, so I can’t blame it on the new studio. They chose Yuuki Kaji, who already voices his brother Meliodas. It wasn’t a problem prior, as the cheerful Meliodas has a completely different tone as the more sinister sounding Zeldris. We are left in an awkward situation when Meliodas reawakens as a member of the commandments though. He assumes the same sinister tone as Zeldris, so the conversation between the two was just confusing to listen to.

  Another weird choice was having Diane and King retain their voices in the bodies of Dolor and Gloxinia. This results in Aoi Yuki voicing a decidedly masculine looking primordial giant… which is just absurd. It does make for some funny scenes, but for the most part it sounds distracting.

  Funnily though, when the same happens later with Ludociel inhabiting Margaret’s body, Ludociel primarily speak in a female voice instead of his original male one. Maybe they realized their mistake by then, and this case works so much better.

  _Spoilers end_

  ---

  Summary

  Overall, it’s hard to excuse some of the glaring issues of this season so I do understand the bad reputation it gathered. As a fan of the Nanatsu no Taizai series though, I think this season works quite well as a sequel. The story had me invested in the characters well enough to make my way though the whole 24 episodes of mediocre animation quality. Some of the quirks like white blood and a squeaking giant even made for some surprisingly funny moments. Even looking past that, I had a genuinely good time watching it. It was a treat seeing the story from the manga unfold to paint the finale of this fantasy epic. I’d say if you’re just looking for some action driven anime spectacle, skip out on this one. But if you’re a fan of Nanatsu and its fantasy adventure, give it a try.

  Continue on AniList

SIMILAR ANIMES YOU MAY LIKE

• ANIME

  ActionFAIRY TAIL (2018)
• ANIME

  ActionBlack Clover
• ANIME

  ActionFAIRY TAIL
• ANIME

  ActionMagi: The kingdom of magic
• ANIME

  ActionBLEACH
• ANIME

  ActionFAIRY TAIL (2014)
• TV SHORT

  EcchiNanatsu no Bitoku
• OVA

  AdventureTsubasa: TOKYO REVELATIONS