I have to say, I used to love this show. I bought 22 volumes of the manga and was planning on buying more until I saw this chapter. I was losing interest from when Mael received the commandments a few chapters ago because he isn't a threatening villain to me. the reason why I think this is because one of the ways a villain is threatening would be to try to take over or otherwise fundamentally change the world they are in, see overlord, youjo Senki, death note, etc. while I do accept that this is not always the case in anime and manga at all because it is sometimes fun to see a villain who "just wants to see the world burn", Mael does not at all fit in the narrative as a villain who could possibly succeed in doing so.
this is because NNT is a comedy shounen anime/manga. it isn't a horror, it isn't a dystopia or a psychological horror. there is no way the story could possibly end with Mael destroying the world, the end. he has to be destroyed because he has no goal. Mael is, currently at least, an empty shell of a man, simply trying to kill almost everyone in the main cast (who of course will not die, or the story ends quickly), thus leaving the battles with no stakes because any battles he takes part in will be essentially rendered moot as soon as he is defeated.
I thought that there would be two ways he would be defeated:
1) escanor and ludoshiel and Merlin et al. team up to defeat him
2) meliodas finally, FINALLY wakes up and takes him down, which he definitely could do, 140K plus five commandments will definitely be higher than 60K plus four commandments plus whatever powers Mael unlocked with his memories, after a long battle in which Mael absorbs the last commandment in Merascylla and the whole team of good guys has to take down Mael with Meliodas, with this likely being the end of the story.
I knew there would have to be a deus ex machina in this section in order to save the characters due to Mael's stupidly high power level, but I thought it would be one of the above, a deus ex machina meliodas returns or something. I am honestly shocked. I never in a million years thought Nakaba would pull such a dirty trick as to have the Deus Ex Machina be Diane having essentially her own Counter Vanish technique hidden within her Sacred treasure, Gideon. let me repeat this: Diane has had an ability called Lightning Rod, which allows her to absorb any magic attack into Gideon (seeing as how it could absorb Mael's 200K Lightball of Love, it doesn't deem to have a limit) and channel it into the ground, almost completely nullifying the magic, with the only downside being quote "damage to the creatures that live in the earth".
that quote above, by the way, is Nakaba's excuse for not revealing this Deus Ex Machina and I have to say, it is an extremely poor one. it is such a weak excuse, in fact, that it almost seems Nakaba is giving me at least a giant middle finger. if there was some kind of limit to how many times she can use it before Gideon was destroyed or something then, yes I would still be somewhat angry, but the Deus Ex Machina would not seem as brazen, but there is not, just death for those who live in the ground. there have been numerous times when she could have used it to save others or her self and deliberately chooses self-harm over using lightning rod. what about when Diane was fighting Howzer, or Dreyfus, or Hendrickson's dead end, which was going to kill meliodas or Hawk (though they are main characters, so it was foolish of me to actually believe either of them would die so easily.) I know you want to protect the creatures of the land, but it's worth killing a few bugs to save yourself or others isn't it?
I'm just so... so angry. I feel betrayed because not only was there a Deus Ex Machina like I knew there would be, but it was one that makes Mael completely a non-threat now. there's no need for king to awaken his power now (another issue ill talk about in a minute) because Diane can just absorb all the damage. what about in chapter 278, where Mael launched lightball of love and Diane did nothing!? it's poor writing, poor writing to force the readers to care and to wring tension out of this dried up fight which has no stakes anyway cause the main characters cant die and whatever Mael's plan is (if towel head even has a plan right now) cannot possibly win anyway. there's no tension, no drama, the only ones who could die are pointless pure cinnamon characters (bye Oslo) who have practically no impact on the plot anymore since Merlin can teleport everyone anywhere anyway,
in short, the last few chapters have been, ever since Monspiet died, boring, bland and predictable with spectacle and power boosts galore to distract you from the plot that is eroding away second by second. the characters are being stupid for the sake of the plot and I hate it. I can't take any more of this. Monspiete died because derieri got him killed. derieri died because stupid... stupid Tarmiel let Mael go, despite the fact that he was clearly evil... then Sariel and Tarmiel die by being betrayed by Mael, which we all knew was coming, leading to OP towel head using lightball and Diane doing diddly squat when she could've lightning rodded, Oslo, the only dispensable character left on the island (besides the two archangels of course, who by that point had already served their purpose so were just chucked in the bin cause why not? they were two of the most powerful angels in the world, but I suppose strength is what the supreme deity valued, not brains, not loyalty to the goddess clan or to the world in general, just loyalty to a guy who was clearly evil and had killed countless of goddesses, who, if he was on their side would just surrender and offer to help or surrender the commandments inside him, but no, he keeps fighting, proving he's evil and can't be trusted).
and, to add insult to the incredible mortal wound to my interest in and loyalty for this show, in the end, King gets a powerup. wow. amazing. never mind that every time he and Diane have ever had a permanent powerup, they have been curb stomped by their opponent. never mind how there's no way this side of Liones that King can defeat Mael with his 200K, hell probably go to 70 or 80K, maybe more to 100-odd K but there is no way that he will get to 200K when Mael needed four commandments, which are fragments of the demon king's power itself, might i add... hold on, quick maths. one commandments raised Mael from 60,000 to 88,000, so one commandment= 22,000 power. the demon king's power was stated to have been split 50% for him and the remaining 50% was split among the commandments, so one dommandment= 5% of his power. 5% times 20 gives 100% so 22,000 times 20 gives 440,000. (this should be the full power of the demon king) at 200k, Mael is half as powerful as the demon king (it's actually above 200k, but still). for King to have a snowball's chance in an oven of even matching Mael now, he would have to be more than half as powerful as the demon king was originally? around as powerful as Meliodas (142,000 plus (22,000 times 5 commandments)= 252,000) either King has no chance of getting this strong immediately, and judging from his horrific track record, I'd say this is almost certainly the case, or he somehow does get this powerful, which would be a Deux Ex Machina in itself as to how a normal Fairy could go from 4,190 to 41,000 to 2650k? no way. plot convenience. when Arthur had "great potential within him" and he showed even an inkling of his possible power, he was one-shotted by Cusack. now King is gonna go up against half of the demon king? no way. no freaking way. never mind that though, never mind that when king grew his wings he was destroyed by Chandler (at least he got a fight; Diane just shrunk, making her almost completely useless... but she was too small to carry Gideon, which was how Nakaba got her out of using lighting rod against him, wasn't it? I'm catching on to this. so instead of Diane being able to fight, she was taken out of the fight as easily as Ban was. pathetic. truly. what would have been good would be if she had used Lightning rod against Chandler, making his attacks useless and showing herself to be worth a damn against an enemy more powerful than her, until they were both crushed by true form Chandler, but then the readers would know that Mael's magic would be worthless and so this fight now would have no tension... OMG. the whole series has been engineered like this, deliberately either making Diane and King just as powerful as the plot needs them to be and easily crushed when the enemy needs to win. it's so transparent. I'm in awe, truly, at how duped I've been with this whole series. It's so transparent. the characters are the only redeeming part of this whole show, that and the actual physical fight scenes, like with meliodas vs Galan, or Meliodas vs the Ten Commandments.
if you like this show, please, go ahead and like it. I have nothing against you, but as a fan who has sunk two years of my life into this show to be rewarded with this stab in the back? I'm putting my foot down. I'm ending this now. I refuse to sit here watching, reading a show that is infinitely worse than many other shows. Youjo Senki, Overlord, FMA, Death note, Psycho-pass are just a few of the shows I would recommend other than this.
I just can't, I really can't care anymore about this show. Good luck and I hope you enjoy this series. I'm done.
