Review of The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of the Commandments
There aren't great many things that make Nanatsu no Taizai a good anime or even worth of watching. There still are some, and I have personally been able to enjoy this season --or at least most of it-- better than I ever thought was possible. The main characters are not among these reasons. Our mc is pretty much the most boring and uninteresting shonen lead there has ever been. On the other hand, he is also so bland and empty character that he isn't very annoying either. Outside the fact that he is voiced by the same guy who did the main lead in Guilty Crownwhich is always a minus. Elizabeth brings exactly as much to this series as Orihime did to Bleach. Pretty much all the rest are so forgettable that I had to spend 30 minutes reading FAQ's before even starting this season just to get some sort of recollection of who is who... only to see that it literally does not matter if you don't know who anyone is. Practically anyone can be criticized with more words than they can be praised with. The series is amazing like that.
The story certainly does not make this series worth of a watch for anyone. Or if it does, then I surely am not among these fellas who watch this series for its story. One could say the story makes it hard to enjoy even (especially during the 2nd half of this season), but it doesn't require all that much effort to look past most of its problems. If you have the tendency to pinpoint flaws and count how many times a series aimed for 13 years-old youngsters chooses the most obvious outcome, then this show most likely is not for you no matter what I will say few paragraphs after this one. Smart choices have still been made here in terms of writing. For one, the series doesn't constantly rely on powerups, asspulls nor friends who come to save the day on the very last second. Even "the best anime ever", Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, did this constantly. In fact, being a cliche shonen story, Nanatsu no Tanzai has abandon surprisingly many of the common cliches and tropes. Few of the romantic subplots and the heart-warming conclusions to drama are actually pretty well-written, and the show can be praised for how well it succeeds in terms of the given drama and past stories.
The art, sounds and overall production of this series are not the reason -- or even close to the reason -- why I considered this to be entertaining. In fact, the art is often eye-catchingly bad. Especially the character design on most of our main dudeouses seem to be the visual representations of their uninteresting personalities. The animated mouth movements seem the worse the more you pay attention to it. It's hard to unsee once you do. The OST is nonexistent, but during some of the drama moments, makes the series seem better than it is. Powerful, good songs right there. Otherwise the OST rarely serves the series, but on the other hand, it is fairly original and has practically no similarities with tracks commonly heard in FTS series. This is, at the very least, worth of noting. Now that all the reasons on why this show is not the best thing ever are over with, let's talk about why I was able to enjoy it: Let's talk about two amazing characters.
"Apologize to me that you were born into this world."
The not-even-a-bit-arrogant Escanor is the epitome of 3 things: badass, manly and bro. This fella is the manliest character I have seen in anime since the muscular, mute and shirtless Freddie Mercury seen in the anime 'Cromartie'. Escanor speaks, has manlier mustache and occasionally even wears a shirt. Are you part of the Armstrong cult from Full Metal Alchemist? I have good news for you: You are now part of the Escanor cult. Remember that guy from Saint Seiya who only ever trained his grip power? Running around in the forest, strangling bears to death. Frankly, that fella couldn't even shake Escanor's hand. Overall, Escanor is the most interesting character I have seen in shonen anime since Hisoka (Hunter x Hunter). Man so manly, he is able to carry pretty much any content with his personality.
"This must be the nest of humans."
Galland is the other great character and also a real bro. Only cares about destruction, sees humans as parasites or insects. I admire this character. He does great job on creating the illusion that our main characters are in real danger and might as well die at any point. Without spoiling if this happens by his hands or not, he really does manage to convince me upon his introduction that this might as well be the faith of any character who is not protected by plot armor. The way he manages to corner our main characters is just really badass. It's surprising even to see how the author challenges his own writing skills by creating such hard-to-overcome situations around Galland. To put is simply: Galland is so merciless that if he had a role in Fairy Tail, I would still be convinced that he can actually kill someone of importance in it.
As a conclusion, these 2 characters make this season highly enjoyable. The former season + OVA are air to me, I never cared about this franchise until now. The 2nd season of Taizai does one thing right, it is this thing, and it does in a manner which I can give it credit for. Despite all the problems the show has, this season was still of high caliber for approximately 70% of the time.