If you like Shounen, of any kind, if you love Fairy Tale, if you watched Bleach back in the day, if you are currently watching One Piece, if you are saddened by the ending of Naruto or rather it's temporary hiatus, then The Sins is what you want. So let's get into it shall we? Today the 2014 anime directed by Tensai Okamura, produced over at A-1 Pictures and based on the original work by Nakaba Suzuki: The Six Deadly Sins. Oh I'm sorry did you think I miscounted? I assure you.I didn't Let's Jam. Seven Deadly Sins is a series that I'm probably going to start pointing people towards for you know those who aren't into anime and what to know what a good shounen is without having to make the commitment of a show with several hundred episodes. It's got everything you could want from a Shounen: The staples, the clich's, the overpowered characters fighting each other with excessive amounts of violence. Everyone brings something familiar to the table, like this is a Shounen potluck and every character brings their best dish. It's not a series that tries to be original, but it's not lazy in its execution, instead doing its best to be THE BEST with everything it does.
The story is fairly simple, Princess Elizabeth of Britannia¦ Ok I'm good. Elizabeth's family has been subject to a military coo from the kindom's Holy Knights. Her father and sister imprisoned were imprisoned, and the blame for everything was placed firmly on the kingdom's strongest fighters: The Seven Deadly Sins. Elizabeth believing this to be false, heads out on her own to seek out the Sins who have been in hiding for the last 10 years since all this shit went down. Eventually she finds Meliodas, who was the former Captain of the Sins despite his childlike appearance, and the two of them set off to find Meliodas's former comrades and save the kingdom. All of the Sins and the Holy Knights have been imbued with various super powers that you would expect from a shounen and most arcs revolve around various characters duking it out for dominance despite death never really happening. What I really liked about the show, epically its introduction was how quickly it got good. Normally when you talk about shounen anime, it's fairly common for there to be a particular number of episodes or arcs that you need to get through in the beginning before the show becomes actually enjoyable. For example back in the day when people told me I needed to watch Bleach, I was told specifically that I'm not allowed to say that the show sucks until I got to the Soul Society Arc, which doesn't kick in until episode 21. Conversely by episode 21 of Sins the show is almost over. What made it grab me so well is kind of hard to explain, it's more like a feeling. Like you know you've been grabbed by a show when the ending credits of an episode kick in and you could swear you only just started that episode. It's that kind of thing. Another example would be to say it's like popcorn, you have this big bag of popcorn, and you start eating it, but suddenly your like, damn it's all gone, where did it go? But also like popcorn, as enjoyable as it is, there are only certain times that you feel like having it. So let's look at some of the problems.
Starting with Meliodas as a main character. It's mostly in the early arcs where is this apparent, but he's too over powered. Like I've complained in the past about characters who never fail at what they do, but at least most of them you can see trying their hardest at whatever it is. Meliodas doesn't often look like he's breaking a sweat. Even the few times he takes an actual beating it's usually on purpose. He never end up facing an opponent that he cannot defeat. He's not given any real challenge. He has this demonic trump card that's used a few times sure, but even then the trump card is powerful enough to just end fights outright, which is disappointing. Next is his attitude. On the one hand it is kind of refreshing that he's not the super serious kind of protagonists that common in shounen. He's the most nonchalant and laid back guy ever. He's not doing what he's doing for revenge, or for answers despite his backstory being wide open for such a motivation. He's merely doing it because Elizabeth asks him too. Sure it's probably because Elizabeth reminds him of his former flame with the same name but her explanation gets so little time she's barely a factor in the show at all.
Also, heh, the groping. Meliodas is a self-proclaimed panty stealer and serial groper. chest and quite often he performs what can only be called sexual harassment against her. Main difference is that, it always feels forced. Like it's not really a part of his character but an act that he does to appear more human. Which may well be a thing, we'll see if the show continues. The other, kind of disconcerting thing is how the harassment is actually handed. Normally in any other show such actions would be responded immediately with a slap, beatdown, or heavy object to the face Lupin the 3rd style. But that never happens here. Mostly because I actually think Elizabeth actually enjoys it. The closest thing Meliodas get to a reprimand is usually an anger induced attack from Diane the Sin of Envy, but that's kind of her character description and she's only doing it because she's not the one getting the harassment. Princess Elizabeth is the second problem I have character wise. Mostly in large part because beyond being a weak driving force for the plot, her actual use in the story is minimal. I would just call her the Token fan service character of the series but that depresses me considering how badass most other Shounen fan service characters end up being. Her job in the show is usually relegated to being an onlooker to the action at best, damsel in distress at worst. Oh yeah and she works as a waitress at Meliodis's bar. That's good princessing work right there.
But back what I said about the originality thing. There are other examples that just work. For example, Ban, the sin of Greed. Why does he work? Because he's Greed from Full Metal Alchemist. Which is fine, because he plays it off so well. He's not a direct copy of Greed obviously, he has several motivating character traits that differ from Greed, which is what make him work. The Greed of FMA would have no want or desire to really fight with the sins of this show, it doesn't benefit him. But Ban, well he is able to work outside of his greed, even if at times to others he still looks selfish. The only negative I have for him is similar to Meliodas. Ban is immortal and it's rare that he ever has any real kind of challenge. The best challenge the show gave him was when he and Meliodas fight off in the tournament arc. Oh yeah, and there's a tournament arc that's used as another excuse for the Sins to fight each other. Not that they really need to give a reason as they already did it so much. WHICH IS ANOTHER THING! I don't mean to beat on this show as much as I am, it's just fun to do. But the sins are the only characters that can really fight each other on an equal playing field. So, the show comes up with every possible excuse to get them to fight. From Misdirection, to the tournament, to everyone having collective amnesia on what each Sin looks like. It's kind of a running thing that the wanted posters of the Sins look nothing like the sins usually do, to the point where even the sins forgot what each other look like. It's something that got old quite fast for me honestly.
BUT BACK TO THE GOOD BITS. A-1 Pictured did a phenomenal job with the action animation. It kind of reminds me why If I ever had to pick a long running shounen to watch it would be Fairy Tail, another show that they did, just because I liked how they handled the production. Also because the music in Fairy Tail was amazing, which side track, I didn't know that Hiroyuki Sawano did the music for Seven Deadly Sins until I looked it up. It sounds nothing like his other work! Though I think I didn't recognize him because the series is missing that one overused vocal track, with that one beat drop that he uses all the time always. You know the one, you do. Anyways back to the animation, I was quite impressed with that they did and also just the direction of all the action. It's something I didn't expect coming from Okamura. Like this is the guy who CREATED Darker than Black, who directed Wolf's Rain. Not the guy I would have thought to do an amazing job directing this happy go lucky shounen, but damn did he do a good job. Like I'm just going to have some of my favorite action bits playing for the last little bit because hot damn were they fun to watch. Shame that there were some animation dips occasionally when action was not a thing happening at those moments. SO FINAL THOUGHTS, like I figure that me saying that I would recommend it to people to watch it earlier for those who have never watched shounen before kind of gave my recommendation away. But yes, it has its flaws but those flaws don't take away from the final product enough to make me say it's not worth the watch because it definitely is.
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