Nanatsu no Taizai (The Seven Deadly Sins)

Alternative Titles

Japanese: 七つの大罪

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 41

Chapters: 364

Status: Finished

Published: Oct 10, 2012 to Mar 25, 2020

Genres: Action, Adventure, Award Winning, Fantasy

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Magazine (Weekly)

Authors: Suzuki, Nakaba (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.48¹ (scored by 90,881 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2985²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #43

Members: 176,840

Favorites: 7,238

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7.48

Ranked #2985Popularity #43Members 176,840

MangaShounen Magazine (Weekly)Suzuki, Nakaba (Story & Art)

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Chapters: /364

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The Seven Deadly Sins
Volume 1
$10.99

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Synopsis

In a world where injustice prevails, the Holy Knights of Britannia protect their homeland with their unparalleled magic and strength. Their most sought-after targets are "The Seven Deadly Sins": a group of criminals once regarded as the strongest of Britannia's Holy Knights. Their supposed conspiracy to overthrow the Kingdom of Liones led to their defeat at the hands of the Holy Knights, but rumors persist that the seven infamous knights still live.

Ten years later, the Holy Knights ironically stage a coup d'état themselves and capture the King of Liones, installing themselves as the new rulers of the kingdom. Elizabeth Liones, the third princess of the kingdom, sets out on a journey to find the Seven Deadly Sins and request their aid when she stumbles upon a bar owned by Meliodas, the Dragon's Sin of Wrath and the former leader of the disgraced knights. The pair sets out to find Meliodas' old comrades, but will it be hope or despair that awaits them in their travels?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Nanatsu no Taizai won the 39th Kodansha Manga Awards in the shounen manga demographic category, alongside Yowamushi Pedal.

The series was published in English as The Seven Deadly Sins by Kodansha Comics USA from March 25, 2014 to January 26, 2021; in Spanish by Norma Editorial since September 26, 2014; in French by Pika Edition since March 19, 2014; in Italian by Star Comics since March 29, 2014; in German by Carlsen Manga since March 17, 2015; and in Brazil by JBC since March 21, 2015.

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Related Manga

Alternative version:	Nanatsu no Tanpen
Spin-off:	Mayoe! Nanatsu no Taizai Gakuen!, Nanatsu no Taizai Production, Nanatsu no Taizai: King no Manga Michi, Nanatsu no Taizai: Seven Days, Nanatsu no Taizai: Hajimari wo Sasou Ame no Mori
Other:	Fairy Tail x Nanatsu no Taizai Christmas Special, Nanatsu no Taizai: Bangai-henshuu "Genzai"
Side story:	Nanatsu no Taizai Gaiden
Sequel:	Mokushiroku no Yonkishi
Adaptation:	Nanatsu no Taizai: Seisen no Shirushi, Nanatsu no Taizai: Imashime no Fukkatsu, Nanatsu no Taizai: Eiyuu-tachi wa Hashagu, Nanatsu no Taizai: Kamigami no Gekirin, Nanatsu no Taizai, Nanatsu no Taizai: Funnu no Shinpan

More characters
Characters

Ban

Main

Meliodas

Main

King

Main

Hawk

Main

Gowther

Main

Diane

Main

Liones, Elizabeth

Main

Merlin

Main

Escanor

Supporting

Zeldris

Supporting

Reviews

Jan 10, 2021

Ananta_98

Recommended

(Ultra compressed version at the end of the review).

Nanatsu no Taizai's greatest strength is, I think, in the way it sincerely expresses emotion. It doesn't matter how messed up a character arc, the power levels or the greater narrative are - a look, a few words, a short backstory are all it really needs to make you resonate with the character at a deeper level than before.

Actually, for all its structural and narrative weaknesses, to me this manga makes more sense than most mainstream shounen. It's just that the author himself held it back by insisting on making everything seem like the biggest deal ever ... and you only realize it wasn't nonsensical shounen crap by the later arcs, thus everything looks way dumber and more inconsistent than it would have been if the author had taken any writing classes.

Had it possessed a more proper structure on top of its natural ability at creating hype and sentiment it might have been able to stand among some of the better battle manga - and even like this there's plenty of things in which it puts other mainstream series to shame.

Surprisingly enough, what makes Nanatsu no Taizai shine the most in comparison to its peers is the notorious "power of friendship" which is usually seen as a plague.
Most of it has to do with how natural the character interactions are. The Sins feel similar to groups such as the Straw Hats from One Piece, but with the advantage of their friendship being on the forefront: being a character-centric story, the progression of its protagonist is central rather than being diluted due to the overwhelming presence of a major all-important plot, which in 7ds is the one forced to take a backseat.

As someone who cares much more about characters and feelings and much less about the greater plot, and as someone who would've still been a huge fan of the series if it was just them journeying mindlessly, 7ds works wonderfully when it comes to sheer enjoyment - and the bonds between the main group feel especially heartwarming. Each of their character arcs puts an huge emphasis on emotion, but it rarely felt fabricated precisely because of how honest each of them was and because the author made it look like he cared about them instead of throwing them away in the later arcs to give more space to new, bigger things; even the final saga, the great big total war, was nothing more than a succession of character arcs, even if tainted by the derailing of the power levels.

One battle shounen which I feel tried to do something similar was, obviously, Fairy Tail. A lot of it has its heroes mostly looking like a bunch of shitposters, bringing chaos and adventuring and giving so much space to their "family" narrative, and I even felt like it worked for quite some time. I also feel like they ended up mostly targeting the same fanbase (and the same haters).
One thing that made FT fail for me, however, was how much they just beat you over the head with it. After hundreds of chapter with the same rycicled scenes and big friendship speeches it starts feeling fake, especially because of how absurdly possessive and unreasonable they were and because, even with all that, the cast was simply way too big and it was inevitable to throw away so many of them.
While Nanatsu had its fair share of "shounen moments", they rarely passed the line and managed to stay hype as fuck until the very end - with Escanor's big moment especially shining.

It's also worth noting how they usually don't gain random protection from evil or further boosts in strength because they want it so much, or because their friends believe in them even more than how they were believing in them before.
The only such case is King, who is a non factor because of how much thought went into him: first, it's established very early on that his strength is dependant on his emotions, and growing from immature forms to more mature forms in desperate situations is a characteristic of his whole species; second, there are only two cases in the whole manga where he solves an hopeless situation with such a power-up, making them way more meaningful; and finally, it complements incredibly well what his Sin is and how it affects his character arc. As the Sin of Sloth, King's whole deal is that he needs to become more proactive and stop holding back both himself and the others with his attitude; it goes without saying that he can only unleash his true potential when he puts all of himself into accomplishing something, and in his case the only trigger which can make him surpass his limits is not wanting to lose any more people because of his weakness.
This ties in with the overall point I wanted to make: the friendship and comradery between the Seven Sins isn't so powerful because it gives them the strength to fight tremendous enemies, but because it gives them the strength to face themselves and overcome their own weaknesses - which is why they're then able to stand against such enemies with renewed pride and courage. They're all "sinners", broken people who managed to find comfort in each other, and it didn't happen in a cheesy way nor did it require lengthy flashbacks to justify their friendship. They just met each other and started hanging out, like in some kind of safe space, having fun while never judging the others for their past, slowly forming their bonds. The "friends" in Seven Deadly Sins act as some kind of anchor, a comfort zone which gives them the support they need to overcome themselves.

The only reason this worked so well is because of how much the author himself seemed to care about their relationship. It's an old story in this genre: "friends" are the most important, the protagonists care so much about friends they would sacrifice everything for them, they're the most precious thing in the world... and yet it's rare to have all that much space dedicated to them just being themselves and acting as actual friends. This is mostly because battle shounen tend to favour advancing the plot of the arc, or reaching the fights as fast as possible; the slice-of-life scenes are easily forgotten and left behind as soon as the author really gets into telling his story, and all those so precious friends really only matter for dramatic moments or for their usual gags, at times not even seeming to care about each other by saying things like "it's him, I'm sure he's all right" or "let him do whatever the fuck he wants I don't care about him", no matter if they're facing God itself.

This approach is definitely what I prefer too see in such shounens, and combined with the sheer hype of the fights made me enjoy this manga way more than I should have.

TL;DR: Nanatsu no Taizai is a mess, but its strengths such as the natural way it shows emotion and friendship make it stand out compared to other battle manga which are more dedicated to the narrative.

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Apr 25, 2022

vikkikat

Mixed Feelings

A pretty good story that went on for too long and ended poorly. There was one point where I thought oh this is the ending, but then it continued on for at least twenty more chapters. Then when everything seem concluded and was finally ready to end, they created a side storyline that seemed to come out of nowhere and then didn't even finish explaining it. Overall it wasn't a bad manga. Art is hard to understand sometimes but not badly done. Characters are fairly interesting and parts of it were a fun read, but the ending was severely disappointing. It honestly felt like the ...

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Sep 10, 2020

DA-TN

Not Recommended

I genuinely liked nanatsu no taizai for a long time, first 100 chapters were a silly and fun battle shounen worthy of praise (even with the problematic way that Meliodas treated Elizabeth), but from then on it started to get lost.

Even with the arrival of Escanor, a character that worked very well for being the essence of what the manga should always have been, the author was unable to maintain the level of the first arcs, leaving aside everything he had done right, opting for a narrative more and more convoluted and uninteresting, trying to be something bigger and more epic than it should.

What started ...

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Poll: Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 230 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 21, 2017	12 replies	by Morcombe1990 »» Sep 23, 8:56 AM
Poll: Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 41 Discussion Nidhoeggr - Aug 5, 2013	11 replies	by TheGrandVizier33 »» Aug 23, 11:09 PM
Poll: Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 37 Discussion live2win - Jul 14, 2013	11 replies	by TheGrandVizier33 »» Jul 24, 10:03 PM
Poll: Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 29 Discussion live2win - May 18, 2013	11 replies	by TheGrandVizier33 »» May 18, 9:12 PM
Poll: Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 24 Discussion Zhou - Apr 16, 2013	13 replies	by TheGrandVizier33 »» Apr 28, 11:07 PM

Nanatsu no Taizai
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