Part 1: Abyssus Abyssum Invocat I heard the voice of the fourth beast say Come and see. And I looked and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him. The Seven Deadly Sins is an anime that makes me vomit blood. I originally saw a few episodes of it in 2021 back when I wasnt into anime. They were so abhorrent that they made me despise anime as a medium for a year and I didnt even think of touching the series with a ten meter pole. It is an utter failure of a show from beginning to end and I have not enjoyed a second of my time watching it. You may ask yourself or me why I decided to put myself through all of it today and the answer is simple. I do not know. Maybe I had something to prove. Maybe my morbid curiosity wanted to know if my original overtly negative thoughts from two years ago were unfounded or not. Or maybe deep down I thought that I had simply deserved it. Either way I have spent eight hours of my life on this show and this is not time that I will ever be gifted back. Part 2: The Story if You Can Call It That Ever since the myth of Arachne and Athena it was a trope in storytelling to portray the traditional force of good as actually evil and vice versa. This is a trope that was around for millennia and is present in many classic works of fiction. The Seven Deadly Sins attempts to execute this trope ATTEMPTS and fails utterly. The main premise is that a group known as The Seven Deadly Sins is good and a group known as The Holy Knights is evil which is meant to be a subversion of expectations and it is revealed to us in the first episode. The problem is that this diarchy lacks any sort of nuance whatsoever. The Knights are cartoonishly evil and the Sins are daring badass heroes which are not once portrayed as flawed. At that point why have any sort of subversion? You could easily replace the names of these groups and nothing would change. There is no depth to the relationship between the groups except that one the Knights is evil and viewed as such by the people and the other the Sins is good and viewed as such by the people. As for the plot itself its extremely generic. The Knights overthrew the kingdom and the Sins want to bring back the monarchic status quo. They assemble a team of old friends. They fight the Knights in a boring inconsequential magical battle and they win. The good guys live and the bad guy dies. The end. Part 3: The Characters or Lack Thereof There isnt a single character in this show that I liked. Lets begin with Meliodas the protagonist. Hes the captain of the Sins as well as the Sin of wrath. He isnt actually very wrathful throughout the show in fact a lot of the characters describe him as kindhearted. This ties into what I said in the previous part of the review You could easily replace the names of these groups and nothing would change none of the Sins encompass traits that one would associate with their mark. Back to Meliodas being the captain hes extremely overpowered. He defeats all of his opponents extremely easily and possesses a large healing factor that makes all of his encounters with the Knights very much nonthreatening. Being a part of the demonic race he is multiple millennia old and his love interest is a teenage girl that he consistently sexually harasses. Hes never shown to actually care about Elizabeth as a person he keeps groping her and his pet Hawk is genuinely worried that he might rape her not an unfounded worry but Elizabeth is all over him simply because he fed her once. How sweet. Speaking of Elizabeth shes just kinda there except for one scene in ep. 24 in which she pulls inherited overpowered healing magic out of her ass. For the rest of the show shes completely useless. She exists for Meliodas to grope and have someone to care for even though any one of the Sins couldve just as easily served that role. Shes in that regard very similar to Diane the Sin of envy. The first time shes useful is when shes really angry that Meliodas their golden boy was hurt and other than that shes just in the show to be a walking fanservice balloon. Her cleavage is showing perpetually and she wears no pants which Im sure was vital for her character development. All the women and girls in 7DS are there to serve that same purpose to look attractive without actually having any characters of their own. As for the other Sins theyre extremely unremarkable. Ban the Sin of greed is sexually attracted to an ageless being with the body of a 12 year old and you cant argue that shes older than she looks. She looks like a kid and Ban finds that hot end of story hes also immortal which takes away any tension that the fights involving him couldve had. King the Sin of sloth is present. He sure is one of the characters. So are Gowther and Merlin lust and gluttony respectively. Though King was in the show for much much longer than the other two and his lack of narrative anything is absolutely inexcusable. The villains are all singlenote and practically all the same. There is absolutely no difference between Gilthunder Hendrickson and all other Knights whose names Im quickly forgetting. Some and later all of the Knights switch allegiances near the end of the story which carries zero emotional or dramatic impact considering that they have taken no ones life and are now invincible good guys. If youre gonna pull that shit you mightve as well made them heroes since the beginning literally nothing would change. Thats it for the heroes and the villains but theres also one more party in this and its Arthur Pendragon king of Camelot? Wow ingenious naming there more on that later. Arthur shows up during the final arc to speak to the king he then fights the villains a bit and fucks off. What an amazing character Im sure his inclusion was absolutely necessary. And thats that for the characters. Theyre boring at best and awful at worst which is coincidentally how I feel about their designs. If you call this good character design I swear by Allah I will shoot myself right here. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1126202123282038874/image.png?ex=65e8a6f6is=65d631f6hm=44c3d1c485819c105a1eacfb8ea58489d95490e66c6361199fadbcc94a899ce3 Half of the Sins are literally just people wearing normal clothes. Then there are the women whose only purpose is to look hot and Ban who looks like a male stripper. The Knights only fare a little better. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1126204334250676314/image.png?ex=65e8a905is=65d63405hm=f19a5aa4c61413923d7cb7daf1a56553d1356041170205f64c1553bc92042d1d Their armours are fine I suppose. Theres nothing offensive about them but much like the Sins theyre all too boring. I also included Griamore in the above picture because I wanted to bring up how his proportions are royally fucked. Part 4: The Writing and Worldbuilding Theyre Very Bad 4.1 Worldbuilding The show predominantly takes place in the Kingdom of Liones in the land of Britannia which is an extremely boring location that barely tries to expand on its world. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1126206030020366429/latest.png?ex=65e8aa99is=65d63599hm=e4a08c9c1215328f4ac888f00ed0859a30d5b9c8baa48ef8d2aab2a441eed6f6 The author took a lot of inspiration from medieval Europe which Im not against. However we never get to see more of the Kingdom outside of Generic Medieval Setting 24376587. The names are also very uninspired I mean Britannia? Really? Theres also a place called Edinburgh and a neighboring kingdom called Camelot ruled by fucking Arthur Pendragon because of course it is. I guess the author couldnt be arsed to come up with more fantasy names so he literally just took names of places and people that already exist. Another location that we visit is the afterlife which the makers of the series couldnt make interesting if their lives depended on it. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1126207138193223810/1000.png?ex=65e8aba1is=65d636a1hm=d6f4ee72b76d789c1f8a194408e1d7150c1c69388747cc2597466a021eda295a Its literally just a bunch of crystals. This is where you go when you die. This empty crystally place. How riveting. The way they get to it is equally stupid. The characters go to a bed of flowers think really hard about dead people and a tornado shows up that takes them there. Mind you people that didnt think about the dead can also jump into the tornado and come along how fun 4.2 Things Just Kinda Happen That method of getting to the afterlife is a good example of this criticism. They didnt actually know thats how you go there they just think about the dead and luckily for them it works and luckily for them it progresses the story which I put in quotation marks because it would hurt my soul to acknowledge that 7DS has a story. The reason why they want to go there is because its the only lead they have on finding King another member of the Sins. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127543271137226832/image.png?ex=65e44d80is=65d1d880hm=d2cc3a56cf5c28808c15b11e499b8038244e269cb9069dcddb99fb0710e4650b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127543271414038528/image.png?ex=65e44d80is=65d1d880hm=0ca0ffb358a178e9ea172bd60922685e771b5a3721094c8aebfd26edc2fc067e Why is it their only lead? It just is They have no reason to believe hed be there but he is which is extremely lucky for our heroes. This second example is my least favorite one I hate it to my very core: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127578759738970142/image.png?ex=65e46e8dis=65d1f98dhm=420786ac4e1d4edbe105c84a8878d8567c981a95a70cadfef7bf6785f07bc56b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127578760019972186/image.png?ex=65e46e8dis=65d1f98dhm=29d9949bf8a475e0862b93f4a0f72ee1b32518a259d23bedcd528e3a87ab77a0 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127578760321970309/image.png?ex=65e46e8dis=65d1f98dhm=429eed6fd3355695edd9343fbe84a672d975410a605ef59aaecb1c6c4337e14a Basically Meliodas was accused of destroying an entire kingdom on his own and murdering countless innocent people as destroying entire kingdoms usually goes. He tells old man Cain nuhuh and he immediately believes him. This scene is supposed to tell us that Meliodas isnt a murderer but rather a good man who tried to help people. This wouldve worked if Meliodas worked hard to clear his name and prove that he is a good person instead of just saying I never destroyed that kingdom trust me bro. Why does Cain believe him? He just does The final example Ill give is near the end of the story: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/878333835505442846/1127622065667702814/image.png?ex=65e496e2is=65d221e2hm=5d6037b88dcd383568672c2e62f00676d7abce9501d2f6b6d694d815eafe2726 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127544393516204073/image.png?ex=65e44e8cis=65d1d98chm=07bc06539d5480709056b3f04aab86425c660442079a48480af5f759584dc9e6 The woman in these frames is Veronica Liones episodes 12 and 23 who stepped on a landmine and died. We saw her die not that she looked particularly injured we saw her utter her final words and draw her final breath. Why is she alive? She just is Death isnt permanent at all dont question it And the fact that death isnt permanent ties well into the next segment: 4.3 Action to Bore You Out of Your Mind The stakes of this show are nil. In the very first episode we see this man fall off a cliff: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127548055042936902/image.png?ex=65e451f5is=65d1dcf5hm=cf6ef0edc495a349fa607a14545398fa6aa1a7462757acf4340bdb014c8a7fec A few scenes later here he is: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127548055336521839/image.png?ex=65e451f5is=65d1dcf5hm=84fcd77f16b7b6eb948d25bb141a3507195a8894b578dbca28a66a92878965e6 The flimsy excuse is that Meliodas saved him even though he fell much later and realistically had no time to save him. This may seem like nitpicking because it is but please think about what this shows us. It shows that characters can die on screen and with zero explanation come back. This makes it so the viewer is never worried about anyone in a fight because they know that if anyone is hurt it literally doesnt fucking matter. And the viewer would be right None of the protagonists ever die. Im not saying you need people dying to make your story interesting but what you do need to do is make it seem like a possibility that they could die because otherwise the viewer has zero investment in the fights. Here Ill bring up a scene near the end in which Diane and King are fighting one of the holy knights. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/878333835505442846/1123160809816719452/image.png?ex=65e6d104is=65d45c04hm=204aa58e2f5bc1fb3d36a11e836c6bc18b2657e3748aa4509021cfd55bd9812e As you can see she has a massive hole in her chest and is perfectly fine. Sure the anime tries really hard to get you to be worried for her but this never works because weve established that characters were supposed to care about simply cannot die. Why would anyone be worried for her in this scene? King later heals her completely and its treated as some awesome emotional moment but I havent felt anything in the slightest. I havent felt any good emotions at all throughout any of the 24 episodes. 4.4 There Is Zero Emotion In This Pile of Rubbage I havent felt anything watching this show except for anger and anguish if I didnt already make that painfully obvious. The most emotional scenes are relating to Elizabeth and her sisters so those are the examples Ill use. In episode 12 the aforementioned Veronica Liones dies. We never actually got to know her as a person and Elizabeth as I mentioned isnt actually a character. What we were witnessing were two fictional strangers one of which was dying. For fucks sake Griamore was sadder about Veronicas death than Elizabeth was not to mention that the animation didnt help at all. Veronica on her deathbed looked bored out of her mind I was too and Elizabeth looked mildly content. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127589036068970637/image.png?ex=65e4781fis=65d2031fhm=3f8567c39a4cb6126a689fcde17cadb5d39187b401a1f359b46adfe5d02f4f05 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820764119820926986/1127589504920846356/image.png?ex=65e4788fis=65d2038fhm=b27e5ee1712ba973ff094d05870d1ce9e215de132615fc4cad58a0f8a5f9c770 No part of this scene moves a person. It was tedious and all I could pray for was for the episode to end as soon as it could. In episode 18 Elizabeth meets up with her sister Margaret for the first time in God knows how long. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/878333835505442846/1123164309036486807/image.png?ex=65e6d446is=65d45f46hm=2aa19530de418659cee05edbfb09a9f1d88dc5272f9f52cd5bd86b98189adb0a Wow I sure am glad that this woman upon seeing her lost sister for the first time in ages exudes as much emotion as a dead horse. How amazing thank you so much animators I love this show yaaaaaaaaaaaaay. 4.5 The Antagonists Are Extremely Stupidly Written Im not even gonna touch on this one for a long time because Ive lost all the energy required to do so. Basically the main villain Hendrickson wants to bring about a prophecy. The prophecy states that there will be a big holy war between good people and evil people and Hendrickson wants to summon the extinct race of demons to fight them. Basically he wants to have a very destructive battle to fulfill a prophecy which doesnt even predict anything except for the fact that one group of people will fight another. Theres also some lame reveal about covering up a murder but you really can do that without starting a religious war. Oh also he gets the idea for it because some kids run past him giving him that idea completely unprompted. Isnt that convenient? No its lazy. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/878333835505442846/1123167015964770304/image.png?ex=65e6d6ccis=65d461cchm=84d1eb62d4022c3634e5167aba996d952405601cf4e1f79b0f350eed90c9e885 4.6 Three Romances That Are Impossible to Root For I love a good romance anime and because of this I despise everything that the couples in 7DS stand for: 1. Meliodas and Elizabeth Ive already stated that Meliodas keeps groping Elizabeth not to mention that hes thousands of years old and Elizabeth is 16 making their romance extremely weird. One could argue that Elizabeth is just a reincarnation of Meliodas wife but that doesnt excuse the sexual assault. 2. Ban and Elaine Elaine looks like a 12 year old child and Ban himself says so. There is also zero chemistry between them as Ban tries to rob her of her most valuable possession eternal life juice and Elaine simply falls in love with him. She does try to kill him a few times but inexplicably gets over it and falls in love. 3. King and Diane the only one that isnt weird from an age perspective even though Diane acts like a 6 year old kid when she first meets King but its still utterly boring. He finds her hot and she I dont really know. He saved her life once. I guess thats enough for a woman to fall in love with you. What a tired and sexist trope. Part 5: My Suffering My Suffering Is Finally Over I knew fully well that The Seven Deadly Sins would be absolutely irredeemable and I still watched it. Did I learn something? Other than the fact that I was too harsh on Demon Slayer not really. I feel empty. You know usually when I finish a bad piece of fiction I try to find a way to spin it to be funnybad. The Seven Deadly Sins isnt funnybad. Its badbad. Its not so bad its good its so bad its genuinely the worst thing Ive seen in my life and I never want to think about it again. In summation all the characters are awful there is no one to root for the world is uninteresting the animation is insulting the writing feels like something Id come up with for my LEGO Ninjago fanfictions when I was 7 and the action is mindnumbingly boring. Thank you for reading and good night.