Already rather popular as a manga series, The Seven Deadly Sins franchise has since skyrocketed after the launch of it’s anime with a video game adaptation released and an anime film. Seven Deadly Sins follows a young woman named Elizabeth who needs to locate the titular group in order to liberate her kingdom from demons masquerading as humans. When she meets leader of the Seven Deadly Sins Meliodas, the two go in search of the remaining six to complete the group and restore order to Britannia.

The Seven Deadly Sins is a 2014 shounen anime series, it is produced by A-1 Pictures, and licensed by Funimation. It is currently available on DVD & Blu-Ray in English.

Editor’s Note: Near complete to complete spoilers of The Seven Deadly Sins may be present within this review. An Amazon Affiliates link for this title will be present within this review.

Meliodas as he appears in the anime.

Seven Deadly Sins is growing in popularity every year, currently it sits as the Seventh (ironic I know) best selling manga series and with Netflix distribution in addition to the Funimation home media releases, sales for both the anime and manga are super strong at the moment. Bandai Namco recently released the “Knights of Britannia” video game which was released a few months back and there’s a ton of spinoff material.

The first four sins in order of appearance: Bane, Meliodas. Diane, and King.

THE GOOD: At first glance The Seven Deadly Sins looks like a rather light-hearted anime series akin to Fairy Tail (another A-! Pictures production), but after awhile things get very dark. Most notably in the action scenes. One minute people are comically falling off cliffs then the next they’re losing limbs and dying. This uncanny ability to mix light and dark tone shifts is one that’s not shown too much in shounen, though when it’s executed in a way that genuinely surprises with the direction change even if it’s a slight one it can make a big difference in a series.

Meliodas with love interest Elizabeth.

In Seven Deadly Sins a Princess named Elizabeth is looking for the titular heroes to liberate her kingdom of Britannia. The first ‘Sin’ she meets is Meliodas who just so happens to be the Sin of Wrath and the leader of the group. He along with his pig companion Hawk have, like Elizabeth been searching for the remaining Sins to learn what caused them to become enemies of Britannia as they were once members of the Britannian army. Over time the trio reunite with sins Diane, Bane, King, Gowther, Merlin, and Escanor in that order. After freeing Britannia from the demons, Meliodas, Elizabeth, Hawk, and the sins come face to face with the demonic Ten Commandants; powerful dark warriors looking to overthrow the human world. The Commandments easily defeat Meliodas, killing him, but he’s revived and granted most of his full power back using it to kill a few of the Commandments. This portion of the anime ends with the Sins preparing to face off against the remaining Commandments in the future.

Despite it’s initial charm, The Seven Deadly Sins can get very dark and bloody.

THE BAD: It’s initially a bit of a slow start, but after a few amount of episodes it really sinks its teeth into you. There’s ecchi present in the earlier episodes, so be wary of it if that’s not your thing.

The hilarious pig Hawk is often used for comic relief due to his arrogance and self-delusions.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: The Seven Deadly Sins’ charm and initial direction may take some getting used to for the first group of episodes, but things quickly pick up and it becomes easy to see why this shounen series has grown on so many fans. Otaku Dome gives The Seven Deadly Sins an 85 out of 100.