Why You Shouldn’t Watch Seven Deadly Sins S3 – Read Manga Instead

Season 3 or by Netflix standards, season 4, of The Seven Deadly Sins, marks its fall from grace as an amazing shounen with more to offer.

If you’re halfway through season 3, you can gauge the motive behind this article. But if you’re on the fence about it given the reaction or warnings, we have advice for you: go read the manga instead.

Do not actively engage in tarnishing whatever respect you had for the anime by judging its butchered continuation. Here’s why. 

The debut of Seven Deadly Sins season 3 in October failed to impress fans due to deterioration in animation quality and botched censorship. Hence, season 3 is certainly not good and a waste of your time.

The matter of concern is that the arcs being adapted are top notch and are a road to a great climax in the manga. It is strongly advised to start reading the manga from chapter 197. 

NOTE: Netflix labelled some of the OVA episodes of The Seven Deadly Sins as season 2, therefore making the new season, the fourth instalment. Yet, by original standards, the season is actually the third and will be referred to as the third to avoid confusion.

Below I have given my complete review of Seven Deadly Sins Part 3 and why is it so bad.

1. Why you shouldn’t watch it?

I. Studio Change

The Seven Deadly Sins left on a note of promise with the climax of season 2. Anime-only fans expected more wow-factor and some intense action scenes. In contrast, manga fans expected a great adaptation of some crucial events from the upcoming arc.

Hopes began faltering when studios changed from A-1 Pictures to Studio Deen. This was due to A-1 Pictures who backed out after Prisoners of the Sky movie failed to do well in the box office. The animation committee was in a fix and ultimately, found itself at the hands of Studio Deen. But reports emerged of Studio Deen outsourcing the entire animation to a lesser-known studio ‘March Jack’ for season 3. 

These decisions cemented the fate of the anime. The processes behind the making of an anime to its completed stage take arduous work and time. For those unaware, it is entirely reasonable for a Studio to take 1-4 years to make even a 12 episode anime depending on the budget.

II. Animation Quality

The quality of animation depends on still frames, lighting shots and painting frames which were not given the required amount of attention due to lack of time.

[SPOILER ALERT FOR ANIME FANS] Fans were increasingly let down by the much-anticipated fight between Meliodas and Escanor from the manga as it came about on screen.

The fight looked stiff and quite off in terms of the brilliant potential the source material provided.

Studio Deen possesses fluctuating credibility – it has shown the potential to create great anime such as Konosuba if prioritized. Still, it has become increasingly evident that Studio Deen was unable to prioritize this anime and the significant moments of the season.

III. Censorship

Another reason for the disappointment is the odd censorship within the anime to which the reasons are unknown. It is unknown whether the studio made the censorship or whether it was an edit to conform to the TV Tokyo Broadcast guidelines.

But fans were appalled by the censorship of a substantial amount of blood from red to white. There were also blatantly obvious black spots used to cover gruesome scenes.

IV. Tone

Fans were also unapproving of the change in focus from shounen to romance regarding the tone of the show. They began growing impatient with the heavy underlying romance and lack of an action at the beginning of the anime.

The manga, however, manages to balance this quite well. The anime fell into hot water when it butchered one of the best fights the show had to offer despite switching the tone back to shounen.

2. Why should you read the manga instead?

The true trajectory of the Seven Deadly Sins franchise in terms of quality is growing in a positive direction. Due to lousy production decisions, this trajectory was thrown off for the anime, and in the process, the story suffered.

The arc adapted in season 3 and the content yet to be adapted is genuinely some of the best the Seven Deadly Sins has to offer its fans – it will definitely reestablish itself as a fantastic shounen.

Therefore, we must indulge in a medium that does justice to it. Bad production can be a hindrance to your access to good stories. If you take our advice, do begin from chapter 197 of the manga and keep reading!

3. Things to Note

This article in no way blames the animators of the studio. The time crunch, lousy production decisions, and unforeseeable circumstances are the bane of the anime industry. It does not speak of the potential these animators are capable of.

It is actually impressive that they managed to create 24 episodes within a year in whatever condition that they did. It is merely an acknowledgment of the downgrade in the quality of the anime and the reasons behind it.

4. About Seven Deadly Sins

The Seven Deadly Sins is a fantasy manga series written and illustrated by Nakaba Suzuki. The manga began being serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine in 2012 and continues till the present with around 39 volumes published. Studio A-1 Pictures adapted the manga into an anime in 2014 with the third season currently being produced by Studio Deen.

The Seven Deadly Sins takes place in the Kingdom of Liones’ where The Holy Knights of Brittania defeated the alleged traitors of the kingdom – The Seven Deadly Sins – during their coup. Ten years later, the very same Holy Knights stage a coup and begin a tyrannical rule in the kingdom. They forced the third princess Elizabeth Liones to go in search of the Nanatsu no Taizai to bring back peace to the kingdom.