Now, this season of Seven Deadly Sins is about Meliodas' rebirth and his will to save Elizabeth from a curse they share. However, things gets quickly worse after the appearence of several demons who want to bring Meliodas back to the dark side, much to the dismay of his comrades.
What I liked about SDS was the fact that it was a very simple shonen anime in a fantasy setting, but that it also gave a lot of space to its characters. The plot is luckily not too protagonist-centric, as after even the first season, you could see a change in all characters. Even members of the supporting cast such as Griamore or Gilthunder grow and become different character from what they were in the beginning. There are some problems, indeed, with the plot twists, that sometimes are a bit too Deus ex machina-ish, or absurd (such as the one with Merlin in the previous season), but for the most part they didn't bother me.
The problem with the third/fourth season is, to me, that it's not only veeeery slow, but also that, unluckily, it jumps the shark.
While making a plot not too linear is the basic of writing a long story, what happens to Meliodas and the death of certain characters are a bit too much. They all seem way too sudden, and it does not seem to matter that much. A character dies? Oh well, ok, he died. A good guy becomes evil? Well, sh*t happens.
It seems like, despite these things, the plot will remain the same. "Despite that dead of an important character, the ending will still be the same, so don't worry about it!", but then, why should I care?
All in all, the third/fourth season seems to be there just to elongate the plot, and nothing more.
While the soundtrack remains superb, way too many times it seem badly utilized, which leads us to the following problem: the direction.
Many are disappointed by the lame animations that Studio Deen provided, but i feel that, instead, the real problem comes from a direction that wants only to give us the scene as they are presented in the manga, rather than give them some strength and impact. The One Piece anime is slow and criticized for stretching way too much its episode, but sometimes they add very beautiful action scenes, with spectacular animations and a lot of frames. Instead, what can we say about this season of SDS? The fight scenes are static and uninteresting, like if they were there just because they had to put them in.
I can only hope that the final season will be better. But this one has lowered my enthusiasm for an anime I was really loving.
