Nanatsu no Taizai (The Seven Deadly Sins)

**Nanatsu no Taizai**, also known as **The Seven Deadly Sins**, is an action, adventure, drama, fantasy, comedy,

    Shonen Battle anime series Shotaro Suga, written by Tensei Okamura, musically composed by Hiroyuki Sawano and Takafumi Wada, and produced by A-1 Pictures.  It was adapted from a manga of the same name written by Nakaba Suzuki and published by Kodansha in Weekly Shonen Magazine.

## Plot

The Seven Deadly Sins were once an active group of knights in the region of Britannia (ブリタニア *Buritania*), who disbanded after they supposedly plotted to overthrow the Liones Kingdom (リオネス王国 *Rionesu Ōkoku*). Their supposed defeat came at the hands of the Holy Knights, but rumors continued to persist that they were still alive. Ten years later, the Holy Knights staged a coup d'état and captured the king, becoming the new, tyrannical rulers of the kingdom. The third princess, Elizabeth, then starts out on a journey to find the Seven Deadly Sins and enlist their help in taking back the kingdom.

## Why It Rocks

1. Great art style and character designs.
2. Incredible musuic due to Hiroyuki Sawano, one of the best composers in all of anime, being on the soundtrack.
3. The characters are some of the most fun, likable, and entertaining in all of Shonen.
4. The motif of the Seven Deadly Sins is unique for this type of anime and well fleshed out.
5. Despite how cool the characers are, this isn't an anime that solely relies on that, as the characers are deep and interesting, although you may need to watch for awhile to find the interesting qualities in some of them and for some of them to get said depth.
6. A lot of the themes are similar to Fairy Tail, except with almost none of that show's fatal flaws.
7. Good voice acting in both sub and dub.
8. This show actually has pretty good female characters, which most shows like this falter on tremendously.  The three biggest standout ones are Merlin, Elizabeth Liones, and Diane.
9. Great fight scenes.
10. Excellent, gripping drama at select points, the best one being with the story of the Fairy Helbram.

## Bad Qualities

1. This series introduces power levels in season 2, which is one of the worst things that a Shonen Battle Anime can have becuase they're completely pointless.
2. Most of the villains are rather one, (sometimes two), dimensional.

## Reception

As of August 2014, the collected volumes of *The Seven Deadly Sins* had 5 million copies in circulation.[26] By January 2015, this number had grown to 10 million sold.[52] The first collected volume of the series sold 38,581 copies in its first week, ranking number 13 on the Oricon manga chart.[53] Its second volume ranked 5 selling 106,829 in its first week,[54]while its third debuted at number 4 with 135,164 copies.[55] The thirteenth volume had the manga's best debut week to date, selling 442,492 for first place on the chart.[56] The series was the ninth best-selling manga of 2014, with over 4.6 million copies sold that year.[57] For the first half of 2015, *The Seven Deadly Sins* was the number one best-selling series.[58] It finished the year in second place with over 10.3 million copies sold, behind only *One Piece*.[59] It was the sixth best-selling of 2016, with over 5 million copies sold, and the seventh of 2017, with close to 3.6 million copies sold.[60][61] The 2014 edition of *Kono Manga ga Sugoi!*, which surveys people in the manga and publishing industry, named *The Seven Deadly Sins* the fifth best manga series for male readers.[62] The title was named Best Shōnen Manga at the 39th Kodansha Manga Awards alongside *Yowamushi Pedal*.[63]It was also nominated for the 2014 Manga Taishō award and as Best Youth Comic at the 42nd Angoulême International Comics Festival in France.[64][65]

The North American releases of volumes two and four charted on *The New York Times Manga Best Seller* list at number seven and nine respectively.[66][67] Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network (ANN) gave the first volume a B grade, calling the art interesting and the story a "neat take on the basic knights-in-shining-armor." She saw influence from Akira Toriyama in Meliodas and 1970s *shōjo* manga in the female characters. However, Silverman felt the art had issues with perspective and commented that Elizabeth lacked character development.[68] Both Silverman and Danica Davidson of *Otaku USA* warned that Meliodas' perverted actions towards Elizabeth, which are used for comedic relief, could possibly be misinterpreted by some readers.[68][69] In a brief review, Jason Thompson claimed that the series follows common *shōnen* manga elements, making its plot twists and dialog predictable. He did however like the art and the series' European setting.[70]

The first DVD volume of the anime debuted at number one on Oricon's Japanese animation DVD chart with 3,574 copies sold.[71] With 32,762 copies sold of the five volumes released at the time, *The Seven Deadly Sins* was the 30th best-selling anime of the first half of 2015.[72] Reviewing the first anime for ANN, Theron Martin felt that the series has a slow start with generic *shōnen* action fare but the storytelling picks up significantly in the second half. He had strong praise for the music and enjoyed the main cast and their interactions, but not the common archetypal villains. Martin noted that the art has a "semi-cartoonish look" that one would expect in a series that "skews a bit younger," but *The Seven Deadly Sins'* graphic violence and minimal fan service prove its "anything but a kiddie show."[73]

The novel *The Seven Deadly Sins -Gaiden- Sekijitsu no Ōto Nanatsu no Negai* was the 33rd best-selling light novel of the first half of 2015, with 61,939 copies sold.