Nanatsu no Taizai 251 Review: For the Alliance (Also, Remember Those Guys?)

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 251: The Holy War Alliance

Overall it's a bit of an establishment chapter, and it's honestly pretty neat. Everyone returns to Liones, and the Seven Deadly Sins are hailed as the heroes who have saved the kingdom's citizens from the demons. But it's not just the Sins that returned, but also Gilthunder, Ludoshel (apparently how Ruedeciel is supposed to be spelled?) and a bunch of the contestants from the Dolor/Gloxinia arcs, which turns out to be the human guises of the angels Tamriel and Sariel, which is... is some neat bit of foreshadowing, even if it took me a while to realize that, oh yeah, these dudes appeared before. I think the midget bard dude is called Solasido or something?

Now if only the Dolor/Gloxinia tournament arc wasn't so weirdly uneven... it's all good, though, because even if the human versions of Tarmiel and Sariel aren't memorable, their angelic versions are. It's a shame that the buildup couldn't have been better, though, and they picked two of the dudes that didn't actually do anything. Couldn't Gilfrost and the samurai dude be the angel containers instead? But oh well.

Elizabeth and the King are immediately aghast at Ludoshel's possession of Margaret's body, which is definitely appreciated, while Ludoshel, while still diplomatic, still goes on her "well, she gave her own body on her own free will", and Hendricksen gives this long speech about how it's a great honour and such a great power that Margaret has inherited from one of the great angels, only for his ass to be dragged away from Dreyfus. Of course Dreyfus would be sensitive about this -- he's been possessed by Fraudrin for nearly the entirety of his son's life. I do love how Ludoshel's possession isn't handwaved as "it's okay, no problem" but actually treated like a heinous thing. Which it is! The loss of your personality as some other being takes it over is a pretty horrific thing to do. And yes, Margaret is a flat character, but she doesn't deserve some jackass wearing her body and walking around with it all her life.

Ludoshel talks about how Meliodas is a traitor because he's born a demon and mocks the Sins in the most polite way... and while it's clear that Elizabeth and Ludoshel do NOT like each other, they do note that they need each other in the war, and we get a cool little crossing of energy blades between Elizabeth and Ludoshel to make the alliance between the "New Stigma" and the Seven Deadly Sins official.