Suddenly this series seemed to become a sports anime, right? Well, no. I've been looking ahead at the manga, and that isn't the real story. The Tournament part of the story isn't going to last all that much longer (maybe three or four episodes) and its main function is to introduce several new characters.

The actual story has always been Einhart's memories she inherited from Klaus Ingvalt, and that's what it continues to be. I'm pretty confident now that this is going to be a 2-cour series and will end in a satisfactory way.

Massive spoilers (and a bit of NSFW) below the fold.

Our four girls do really well, considering how young they are and the fact that it's their first tournament, but after several victories each they all eventually lose. None of them shamed themselves. Even in their last matches, all of them put up a good fight. Corona surprised me with how well she did, and Rio was amazingly good. (It's clear that she's going to be a top-class contender in a year or two.) What was most surprising about Vivio's fight is that she couldn't land a decent blow. She hit her opponent a lot of times, but only did small damage each time.

Einhart lasted one more round than the others, but she was also defeated.

Miura beat Vivio. Hallie beat Rio, but only just barely. Einhart beat Corona, but not easily. And then Einhart lost to Sieglinde, who was the champion two years ago.

The girls all put up brave fronts, but eventually have a good cry.


Which is OK; they were all due.

Some surprising fan service: Hey, let's all visit Sieglinde and Hallie in the bath, shall we?

So the tournament goes on, but our characters are no longer involved so it isn't part of the story any longer.

I'm not going to tag this, but it's a huge spoiler: There are a lot of people who are haunted in one way or another by the events that Einhart remembers.

As we know, Vivio is cloned from Olivie.
Einhart is descended from Klaus Ingvalt and has a lot of his memories.
Ixpellia was actually alive at that time and spent a lot of the time since in some sort of suspended animation.

And now the new reveals:
Sieglinde is like Einhart; she has the memories of her male ancestor who was a close friend of Klaus and Olivie.
Victoria is descended from another noble of that era. I can't tell if she has any of his memories.
Fabia Crozelg is like Ixpellia: she was alive at that time.

Hayate is aware of at least some of this (in particular, Einhart). She throws a banquet for a bunch of the girls from the tournament, including Hallie, Sieglinde, Victoria, Team Nakajima, and some of their friends and coaches. Then she informs them that she's going to take them all to the Infinite Library (or whatever it's called) to see if they can find more info about that particular time and place.

Fabia is watching all this and chooses this moment to attack, though without me being able to read any of the dialogue it's hard to say what her peeve is.

Her demons swallow her opponents, leave their clothes behind, and put them in tiny bottles. (Which is rather gratuitous.)

Lutecia turns things around; she shows up with Sacred Heart and Asteon and manages to save Vivio and Einhart. Eventually things start going against her, but by that point Vivio and Einhart are ready to join the fight, and it doesn't last much longer after that.

That was in volume 10 of the manga, chapter 50.

The anime is cranking right along in the story. Episode 9 (I downloaded a raw) ends with chapter 25 of the manga.

Nanatsu no Taizai put 100 manga chapters into 24 episodes, but those were 20-page chapters. Vivid is 36-page chapters but they've been running a bit less than 3 chapters per episode. I think they'll be able to finish this story in two cours, and I think that's their intention.

And the ultimate ending will be for Einhart to free herself from the geas she bears with Klaus's memories, and to get on with her own life (instead of reliving his).

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 12:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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