Nanatsu no Taizai 256 Review: Shot Through the Heart

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 256: The Piercing Holy Sword

Well, that's a lot more like it. While it was executed well, Chapter 255 didn't sit quite as well with me because, unlike a huge portion of the Nanatsu no Taizai fanbase, I truly, genuinely feel that Arthur, while not unlikable, certainly is very flat and steals the show forcibly whenever the plot shifts to him. Moreso than everyone else in the story, Arthur feels so detached from our main characters with only tenuous ties to Merlin, and being lauded as this huge badass Chosen One without actually having done much in-story feels like a particularly shallow and weak piece of storytelling from Nanatsu no Taizai. 

Apparently the only casualty of Arthur's grandstanding last chapter was one half of Cussack's mustache, while the two bodyguard demons remain unscathed. We get a bit where Cussack freaks out about his mustache being ruined, Arthur overestimates himself and charges forwards, and we get this pretty cool two-page spread of Cussack and Chandler's... demonic aura beast things appear and it looks pretty cool, not going to lie. 

And then Arthur succumbs to his wounds, with Cussack and Cath both noting that Arthur's latent magical power, while massive, hasn't been awakened -- and he truly lacks training. Cussack identifies this as Arthur's first mistake, and Arthur's second... was to put these strongest of the strongest demons on the same level as lesser-ranked demons that will fear human heroes. 

We get a cool bit where Merlin teleports in to rescue Arthur, creating a gigantic icicle blast that engulfs Cussack and the others, gives Meliodas a couple of choice parting words (don't forget Elizabeth, essentially) before teleporting away to the Sins. Apparently, though, the eye-to-eye contact Cussack did to Arthur while he was gloating ends up being some sort of remote-control puppetry... which causes Arthur to stab himself in the gut with Excalibur. And he falls. Probably won't die, because, y'know, Elizabeth's standing right there, but if he does, the fact that Excalibur is caked with blood does mean that there's a way for Arthur to remain in the story as one of the spirits in Excalibur while actually ending up as an actual casualty. Overall, a pretty great chapter and a pretty neat cliffhanger for sure.