The Seven Deadly Sins were once an active group of knights in the region of Britannia, who disbanded after they supposedly plotted to overthrow the Liones Kingdom. 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.
Spoilers ahead if you have not seen the first half of the season. You can catch our review of part one of The Seven Deadly Sins here. We have met 4 of the sins so far, but we get to meet a few more before its all said and done. We meet the sin of lust, Gowther who turns out is not the one in the giant rusty armor. Instead he disguises himself as a young bookworm type boy when in fact he is a bit older and has pink hair. He has the ability to mess with peoples minds, which comes in handy.
The last sin we meet in Merlin, the sin of Gluttony. She shows up in the company of, you guessed it, young king Arther of Camelot. Go figure. As the final battle for Elizabeth and the kingdom draws near, King finds himself fighting a familiar foe, his best friend Helbram who was reanimated after having been killed a long time ago by a holy knight.
There are a lot of plot points going on in the second half of the season. Each of the sins are brought to near death as they attempt to fight the holy knights and more is revealed about Meliodas past through a horn. Ban finds this horn, learning that it may be able to bring his love back, King’s sister Elaine. However, the spirit inside knows Meliodas well and tells Ban he must kill him to get what he wants. At this point we can safely assume Meliodas is of the demon race but we don’t learn much more than that.
It also turns out that little Gil was not a bad guy, but was under a spell and played a long game to get Meliodas help. The final fight between the former holy knight turned demon and the sins was for lack of a better word, insane. At some points in a good way and at other points not. It was clear we turned it into a power up over unlimited times 10 at several points. The sudden reveal of Elizabeths power was interesting. Its too bad that all of the foreshadowing happen as a flashback after the fact. Had it been peppered in throughout the season a bit more, it might have played off better.
All in all its a lot to wrap your head around and might warrant a second watch to catch up. The series did get a second season of sorts to continue the story but its only 4 episodes. The 4 episode special, titled “Signs of Holy War” just aired in Feb on Netflix. There seems to be a lot of confusion on whether a new season is coming or if the new season announced last year was the 4 episode special.
Netflix has received a lot of heat for the way the announcement was made and the lack of a response to whether the 4 episode special was season 2 or not. For now, if you want to continue the story, you will likely have to pick up the manga.
Verdict
There are a few plot points that stick out as troupes but for the most part the anime is fresh and fun. The twist on the classical mythological characters is a lot of fun to unravel. The writers did a good job of keeping the majority of the secrets to the sins back stories from being revealed too early. Though you could probably figure some of it out if you were paying close attention.
For the first season of the series we would give it an A-. The series is currently streaming dubbed on Netflix and is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Funimation.
