Nanatsu no Taizai 173 Review: The Balance of Power Levels

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 173: Darkness Descends

Holy shit, Meliodas is still a badass! I really like the power scale of this manga. More often than not, a lot of mangas have this problem where they build up this powerful group of villains and then ending up having to, y'know, have the villains be defeated. Sometimes with Fairy Tail this happens in a laughably moronic manner in such a way that the villains look like utter buffoons who wouldn't win in a schoolyard fight, let alone a war. On the other hand, you generally want your main character (who's been built up to be overpowered but unable to control his strength, in typical manga main character style) to be a badass, and seeing your villains effortlessly win all the time is relatively irritating since it would involve a plot device or a stupid random power-up or a random non-main character for our heroes to save the day.

Here? Meliodas has been built up to be extremely powerful, especially after his power-up with the druids -- we haven't seen him fight after that power-up -- but so have the Ten Commandments. Galan alone beat up like more than half of the Seven Sins plus nearly all of the B-tier characters singlehandedly, and he's the weakest of the Ten Commandments.

As last chapter shows us, Meliodas is more than capable taking on both Dolor and Gloxinia all by himself, even if it isn't exactly a cakewalk ended with a single punch Fairy-Tail-retarded-style. Gloxinia is a healer type thing and keeps reviving and healing insane wounds, while Dolor, even wounded, is still able to harden and tank that god-killer slash of Meliodas'. It's like a World of Warcraft raid or something with a tank and a healer and a boss that can one-shot you if you make a misstep.

We get a pretty cool action scene between Meliodas and Gloxinia, with some really cool acrobatic moves, and where Meliodas is clearly the superior fighter, Dolor comes in to whack Meliodas with a giant rock and allows Gloxinia to recover. It's a nice, believable way to lengthen the fight and show all three to be badasses -- Gloxinia and Dolor alone aren't a match for Meliodas, but they individually are powerful enough to be troublesome enough to give time for the other to recover. 

We get some discussion between the peanuts gallery, with Ban telling King to basically back off about his obsession regarding Meliodas being a demon. Demon or not, he's still Meliodas after all. Diane is all like 'he's genuine like you' and Gowther is all like 'the enemy of my enemy'... and really, it would be a good time, Gowther, to remove that stupid memory spell on Diane.

In any case, Gloxinia and Dolor are wounded, and Dolor makes several interesting comments -- about Meliodas beings strong enough to wrestle the throne of the Demon King, as well as some calamity coming in Meliodas's way in the future. Meliodas is about to kill the two of them when seven stars twinlkle in the sky and crash down all around Meliodas. 

Yes, seven! All the Ten Commandments, bar Galan who's all stone now, have arrived. Even Merascylla, who doesn't look so good. More about Merascylla later on, but can we say how awesome this scene is? Way too often these giant groups of villains act one at a time and get defeated one at a time. But the manga has established the Ten Commandments to be able to traverse large distances in a short while, as well as... tolerating each other enough. Meliodas running wild is definitely a problem of concern, especially with several of them having a personal grudge against the fellow. 

Just imagine the epic music that's undobutedly playing in the background okay

And, yeah, I expected Dolor and Gloxinia to be bailed out by the other Ten Commandments -- it would be rather bad for the story. King, Diane, Matrona etc needs to fight their demon counterparts, but also it would be rather dumb for four of the Ten Commandments to be taken out in relatively quick succession. I mean, what is this, Fairy Tail, where the villains get insane amounts of buildup but are always invariably crappy? And, yes, while two of the Commandments are barely hanging on against Meliodas, they demonstratably display enough strength to go toe-to-toe with Meliodas. All nine at once?

Yeah, time for the other more powerful dudes like Matrona, King, Ban and Gowther to get down there and do something. Speaking of Merascylla, I'm glad she's not dead! Having Escanor take out Galan is awesome. Having Escanor take out Galan and Merascylla is... still awesome, but borderlines on making Escanor a Mary Sue and a walking plot device (moreso than he already is). But having Merascylla fucked up but be powerful enough to come back really makes Merascylla awesome in her own right while not really devaluating Escanor's contributions during his fight.

And speaking of which, yeah, Elaine is totally only still alive thanks to Merascylla still being alive. That would cause some interesting dilemmas in the future, I would think. 

Great chapter! Antsy to see the next chapter. 

(Man, I'm salty about Fairy Tail in this review, am I not? But I just read the last three or four chapters and I feel like it was so dumb I needed to say something about it)