Nanatsu no Taizai is starting to get very serious. The strange dragon handle on Meliodas's broken sword is actually a high value magic item which can be used as part of a magical ceremony to open a gate to the demon world. That's what the top "Holy Knight" means to do. But they also require Elizabeth to do it. One of their mages kidnapped Elizabeth, and got Hawk as well by accident. Elizabeth was put into a prison, but Hawk destroyed the cell door, so the two of them were wandering the halls. Elizabeth met her oldest sister, who is also imprisoned there, and then Elizabeth was recaptured. Meanwhile, the five Sins we know about are angry and have invaded the city. But the idiots have separated and allowed themselves to be defeated in detail. A bunch of things: Diane is badly wounded and well on her way to dying. Gowther has been run through with a sword, and likewise is on his way to dying. Diane, already badly hurt, saw a boy who was about to be crushed by a falling building and jumped in to shield him, and that was enough to make Hauser do a heel-face-turn. Also, the boy in question was Guila's brother, so she switched too. That battle is still in process; several of the bad guys withdrew, and right now it's King versus Helbram, who it turns out is actually an elf and an old enemy of KIng, a fairy, a rivalry going back 700 years. Meanwhile, the sixth sin, Merlin, has shown up with Arthur Pendragon and is also operating alone. We've only seen a bit of them but they're certainly going to get more involved.

Meliodas and Ban are still running around loose, unhurt, but seem to be moving towards where all this is. There was a hint earlier in the series that Meliodas can magically heal drastically serious wounds in other people, and I suspect he's going to show up and save Diane and Gowther. And Gowther used his special memory power on one of the two lead bad guys, and it's going to be interesting to see what kinds of land mines he placed inside the guy.

I've given up on Absolute Duo. Episode 6 wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it still wasn't very good. Episode 7 is a swimsuit episode, and that's enough. Lilith is still ruining things, and I don't want any part of her. (Even when she's in a bikini.)

The Fairy Tail manga tosses in one-chapter stories occasionally, just for fun, and the last two episodes of the anime were based on two of those. Ep 44 was based on manga chapter 378.5 and ep 45 was based on chapter 376.5. (That's the official numbering scheme, and not my fault.)

The next arc they haven't animated yet is the one about the frozen village of giants and I suspect that's what's coming next.

The manga itself didn't end after the Tartaros arc, the way I expected it to. He pulled nearly all the Chekhov Guns off the wall for the Tartaros arc, but he left Acnologia alive (who is apparently the next big-bad) and Zeref is still out there.

He reveals (to us) that E.N.D., which all the demons in the Tartaros arc were attempting to activate, stands for Etherious Natsu Dragneel and it'll be interesting to see what that means. It seems that all of this has been a very elaborate suicide plot by Zeref, who is immortal and doesn't want to be.

The guild broke up and scattered to the winds. Natsu and Happy went away somewhere to train and left no word. Lucy spent the year working at that wizard's tabloid, originally as a gravure model but now also as a reporter, working for Jason. Jason seems to be a flake, but he may be more savvy than that. Certainly he understands Lucy pretty well, and there's no indication that he's been doing anything improper. (Good thing, too. If he tried, Loki would show up and kick his ass.) Natsu just showed up again, and he and Happy grabbed Lucy and headed back out on the road -- without giving her time to tell Jason. But I think Jason won't be surprised, or particularly upset. He knows Lucy wants Fairy Tail to return. He knows she hasn't been really happy as a reporter and that she wants to go back to being a guild mage. Lucy has been keeping track of rumors about the activities of all the (former) members of the guild and it looks like Natsu wants to find them and pull the guild back together. We'll find out more about that tomorrow in the next chapter.

Hatsuyuki stopped subbing the new season of DBK about a month ago, but that's OK; it's now in the worst part of the entire canon, and even if they were doing it I would still probably have stopped watching.

WhyNot still hasn't released the sub of the Mouretsu Pirates movie. The "status" popup on their blog hasn't changed since mid-January. I don't complain (to them) because beggars can't be choosers, but the sheer lack of responsibility being demonstrated here is almost beyond belief. What's the subbing equivalent of vaporware?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:00 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 333 words, total size 5 kb.

1 the sheer lack of responsibility being demonstrated here is almost beyond belief.

So, you're getting upset about one or more unpaid volunteers using their own time and money to bring you free ice cream not getting it to you fast enough... is that what's going on here?

Posted by: Wonderduck at February 15, 2015 10:53 PM (jGQR+)

2 Commitments have meaning. I don't demand that they do anything except live up to the promises they made.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 15, 2015 11:43 PM (+rSRq)

3 I don't demand that they do anything except live up to the promises they made.

I see nothing on their website promising anything.  I do see a new update, though: "I will try to spend what little time I get off this week and finally complete this. Happy?"

Yep, that'll teach Quattro and WhyNot? to take on a project that nobody else is doing AND try to have lives at the same time.

Posted by: Wonderduck at February 16, 2015 12:19 AM (jGQR+)

4 Why are you getting down on me for expressing frustration? I didn't post anything like this on their own site, and the odds of any of them ever seeing my post are negligible.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 16, 2015 03:42 AM (+rSRq)

5 I think Steven is in denial about how influential he is.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at February 16, 2015 06:02 AM (L5yWw)

6
Nanatsu is the surprise of the season for me.  I thought it would be geared towards kids because of the art style, but it has solid characters, decent humor and action, interesting villains, and some clever dramatic twists here and there.  Not a whole lot of filler, either; the plot moves along briskly while incorporating character backstories only when it makes sense to do so.

As bad as Absolute Duo is, World Break is worse, and Unlimited Fafnir is so bad I forgot that I even watched it.  The animation of some of these "action" series seems especially poor this season.  Way too many stills are used, and the animation that's there is lifeless (I'm looking at you, too, Tokyo Ghoul Second Season).

I tried watching the raw of the Moretsu Pirates movie, but I can only catch about every 10th word of dialog so I haven't been able to finish it.  From what I've seen of it and what I can understand, I'm not enjoying the plot as much as what we saw in the various arcs of the TV series. I'm sure part of that is due to my limits in Japanese.

Posted by: wahsatchmo at February 16, 2015 09:02 AM (r4uXE)

7

When Nanatsu no Taizai originally began, I thought it was going to be a continuing franchise, like Fairy Tail or Bleach. But the way they're moving through the plot, it's evident that's not going to be the case.

The manga it's based on is only 113 chapters (I think)as of yet.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 16, 2015 10:12 AM (+rSRq)

8 Episode 7 is a swimsuit episode...

Turns out it wasn't, and the character from Ep01 is back.

Posted by: Wonderduck at February 16, 2015 06:43 PM (jGQR+)

9 Ah. I looked at the frame grabs on Tenka Seiha, but didn't read his write-up.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 16, 2015 08:03 PM (+rSRq)

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