Nanatsu no Taizai 170-171 Review: The Sins Don't Fuck Around

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 170: For Whom that Light Shines

Gowther vs. Escanor! These two are easily the two strongest among the Seven Sins – Escanor being the physically most overpowered and powerful (if conditional), and Gowther being the most insanely overpowered for being indestructible and playing around through mind games. It’s an interesting matchup, that’s for sure, and Hawk identifies Escanor’s power level as 28,800, and it’s mentioned he can’t even draw out his full power since it’s just a temporary ‘pseudo-sun’ as Gowther calls it. I can’t recall on top of my head how powerful this is relative to everyone else, but hey.

Escanor fucks around with Gowther a bit, removing his glasses, zipping around all fast-like, jumps straight up to avoid Gowther’s gatling arrows, and then pulls off a Thor to summon his Sacred Treasure from where he left it embedded in some random place. Divine Axe Rhitta it’s called, and as soon as Escanor catches it he goes all ‘holy armament release’, which creates a big-ass explosion as bright as the sun. Gloxinia and Dolor compares this to Estarossa-level strength, and Estarossa is definitely one of the top dogs among the Ten Commandments.

Apparently Escanor unleashes as much heat and light energy as the sun itself when he peaks off at noon, and Divine Axe Rhitta just absorbs all this excess energy, which can be released if he chooses to. Ban wants to interfere, but Meliodas is all ‘trust in Escanor’ while the two demons are just enjoying the festival. Escanor is all like ‘for the sins of toying with the hearts of others, atone with your body!’ Gowther (who looks badass as fuck in that one panel) summons this crazy arrow rasengan thing he calls a Blackout Arrow, both of them launch their attack, there’s a big kaboom…

And Escanor gets pierced through the chest. Gowther looks like the victor in this as Escanor drops to the ground. Jericho confronts Gowther and calls him out as the shit that he is, but Gowther is all like 'nope can't understand him I don't have a heart'. 

But Jericho then points out that Escanor wasn't referring to Gowther when he's all 'for the sins of toying with the hearts of others', because while Gowther is obsessed in single-mindedly winning the battle, Escanor does what any sane person really should -- launch the big sun attack not at his own comrade in the staged tournament, but rather at the two demon overlords. And, shit, Gloxinia and Dolor looks totally fucked up!

I don't buy that this took them out, mostly because having Escanor single-handedly be responsible for the deaths of four of the Ten Commandments, as well as the fact that Gloxinia and Dolor are obviously set up to be foils to King/Elaine and Diane/Matrona... I mean, it's cool that Escanor is strong and that is a cool scene and a great moment for Escanor, but keep this up and Escanor runs the risk of turning into Kishou Arima from Tokyo Ghoul (which, in Tokyo Ghoul's defense, Arima seems to be intentionally written that way to juxtapose him against the other fleshed-out characters) or Erza/Natsu/Gray from Fairy Tail as these super-OP characters that can win any fight they're in just because.

Thankfully, as next chapter would attest, the once and former Fairy King and Giant King are down but not out. You can have your cake and eat it.... Escanor gets a badass moment in wounding two of the Ten Commandments, but they're still around to fight the others. 

 
Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 171: The Time Has Come

Apparently Dolor has green skin and Gloxinia has blonde hair and um that's not totally how I pictured them to be.

Anyway, the two Commandments are alive and surviving, and everyone is all like 'whoa holy shit awesome' (and hilariously one of the jester knights is all 'hey this dude is ruining the festival!'). And, well, Meliodas just... doesn't fuck around. He just does a dynamic entry and lands in front of the wounded Dolor, and just jumps straight into battle, launching himself at the downed Dolor's face. Meliodas kicks one of Dolor's arms away despite being, y'know, a giant arm. He proceeds to parry the other three, and then straight up uppercuts him in the face. It's like Ant-Man versus Machamp. Or something. 

As every Bleach character can attest, having limbs is just asking for them to be hacked off, and Meliodas goes straight for his sword and slices off two of Dolor's arms. 

For his credit Dolor recovers from it quite quickly, and Meliodas does a short monologue about how he's never planned on playing along with the fight festival anyway and is just waiting for an opportunity to fuck up the Ten Commandments. And, well, Meliodas is playing dirty -- he's just waiting for the two Ten Commandments to drop their guards so they're vulnerable to an assault like this, because charging in head on would probably fuck them over.

And, well, Escanor certainly delivered a big dramatic opening. The wounded and shrunken Escanor tells Gowther how he's still his comrades, and how even without a heart he still has one. Um, yeah. Gowther doesn't understand because logic, but it's touching nonetheless. 

Dolor uses his two remaining arms to animate the two gigantic Berserk-godhand arms and kind of clap them together. I mean, no one's going to die from that, but it's still an impressive visual. Dolor is all like 'defy me and I butcher them all', and Meliodas? He don't give fuck! He just slices off Dolor's two remaining arms, then punches Dolor in the face so hard he falls down, with the awesome comeback of 'not if I butcher you first!'

Because, well, come on, the likes of Ban, Gowther, Matrona, Diane and King probably got the others to safety. 

Gloxinia, meanwhile, has taken the Dolor-Meliodas fight to transform into this awesome yet comical armoured form, the Ylldra Armour... which almost immediately shatters. Because Meliodas's game face just got on, and his demon mark shows up. Man, they don't call him the Sin of Wrath for nothing, do they?

Yeah, having Meliodas take these two out with Escanor delivering an assist would be... cool. I'd still prefer they did something with the fairies and giants so there's some background or whatever revealed about their respective races. Mostly the fairies, really, because their backstory has been built up a fair bit and I don't really care about the giants not really. But I dunno, maybe Gloxinia and Dolor might prove to be a match for Meliodas? I don't really see that happening unless, like, all those random people in the tournament suddenly rally to the demons' side, but Meliodas alone seemed to have Dolor near-dead and Gloxinia's already wounded. Plus Meliodas, like, has the backup of a fully-healthy Ban, Gowther, Elaine, Matrona and Hendricksen, plus the more wounded King and Diane and the other less-powerful knights there probably can help out a bit. I don't really see how the Ten Commandments can win this one unless, oh, Fraudrin and Estarossa shows up or something.