Nanatsu no Taizai: Kamigami no Gekirin Episode 1 [First Impressions]

Wow… just wow… Nanatsu, what have they done to you?! I cannot believe what happened to this series. It literally got the One Punch Man Season 2 treatment by switching animation studios with worse animation. And while I have complained about about A-1 not having the best animation at times, it was still bearable and would have preferred that over what we got from this season. The main problem unfortunately would have be that Studio Deen is outsourcing its animation to a smaller studio, giving us this problem child of a sequel.

Now let’s get down to the nitty gritties. The pacing of this episode… wasn’t good. It wasn’t the worst but some of the cuts and transitions felt so jarring that it felt noticeable and unnatural. And oh the animation… So many of the characters looked super derpy most of the time and would constantly go off model. Not to mention how the amount of stills throughout the episode was alarming. Some of them felt so off putting, especially with that close up of Estarossa in his healing chamber where everything was just a still frame, even the bubbles that were still supposed to be moving. Shot compositions were also very generic and basic most of the time, which screams cheap and low effort to me. I was actually expecting better than this since Studio Deen has put out some well animated anime before. I guess this is what happens when studios outsource… It honestly is reminding me a lot of the Persona 5 anime animation and that is far from a compliment. Though it hasn’t reached THAT terrible of animation yet, but it’s definitely toeing the line right now and it’s only episode 1.

And don’t even get me STARTED on the censorship. I was actually really confused when I saw glowing white liquid come out of that one guy at the start. At first I thought that the demon was poisoning him or something and then after they started fighting I realized: Oh… oh no… this censorship. This had to be the first series I’ve watched that has had THIS bad of censorship. Now I know there are far worse examples like in Tokyo Ghoul and Terraformers, but what was really jarring was that the first two seasons did show blood. I wouldn’t have been put off as much if the series started out with the censoring. Maybe it has to do when it’s airing. They even did the disservice of censoring the scene where Meliodas was stabbed in all of his seven hearts. Either way that is definitely a big thing that will bother me as I continue watching.

After watching the episode, I sat back and thought: “This didn’t feel like a Nanatsu episode.” I wasn’t quite sure why at first. But after thinking about it, I feel like it had to do with the fact that most of the episode wasn’t really focused on the main characters. Yes we got to see them throughout the episode, but it didn’t feel like they were the main focus. The main focus seemed to be on that one kid, Perio. After seeing how much spotlight he had I honestly thought to myself: “Am I supposed to know this kid?” The episode treated him as if he were a central character and almost like we were supposed to already know who he was. I had to look him up and rewatch the episode he appeared in. He was HARDLY in the series, only showing up for a little bit in one of the OVA episodes. I was like “Wow, I literally forgot about this kid.” He seemed to have a little more highlight in the manga, but even then, I’m sure I still wouldn’t care all that much for him. Not to mention he has already met Gowther, but then when he saves him, he asks who he is. Continuity errors at their finest here. But man, I can’t believe they took this one off character and tried to expand upon him… I don’t think anyone really cared about this guy in the first place. Studio Deen, what are you doing???

Though I think the main reason this episode felt off was that some of the demons didn’t feel like they belonged in this world. I don’t know how to explain it, but something about them felt really off. Kind of like how you can immediately tell when a filler character shows up in Naruto. You can just tell that they don’t belong. The demons felt more like One Punch Man monsters with the “cackle cackle I’m gonna kill you!” type of personalities. Not to mention, the foot soldier demons don’t even seem to speak in a language we can understand or at all. Like the red, gray and bird demons just make noises. So it felt off to have a couple of the low leveled demons talk. That one demon with all the tongues felt SUPER unnerving. Something about him made me feel really uncomfortable whenever he talked and showed up on screen. Not to mention the continuity error of killing him by taking out one heart despite it being made known that demons have seven hearts.

Yeah this episode was pretty much filler, save for the last few minutes of the episode when Howzer was named as the new Great Holy Knight to lead the other holy knights, which was pretty surprising. You’d expect Gilthunder to be the one to take up the mantle as the next Great Holy Knight considering what he’s been through and being the son of the former Great Holy Knight. However, the King brings up a good point on how Howzer was able to lead people and be able to make quick decisions in the heat of the moment while Gilthunder is shown to be very emotional and will act on impulse a lot of the time. Though it is hilarious that Griamore comments on how Howzer is just Gilthunder’s stand in.

As of right now, I’m not even sure if I should cover this if all I am going to do is complain. I REALLY want to be able to talk about an upcoming event between my OTP, but at this rate, I don’t think I can put in a nice word for how this series is being done. I’m willing to give it a couple more episodes and I’ll see if I’m still complaining because if so, I’ll have to drop it. And that’s something I really don’t want to do considering how this is one of my favorite series. It’s great to see all the characters I know and love again… but not like this.

Also can we just talk about how they shoved in a scene that we’re not even supposed to see until way later?! WAY TO RUIN IT.

Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed (despite my gripes)

Possibility of Blogging: Low (we’ll see how I feel about it after 3 episodes)