Nanatsu no Taizai 104 Review: Fairy Kings and Fairy Wings

Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 104: Return of the Fairy King

Well, it's a nice breather, and a lot better form the last absolutely-nothing-happened last chapter. After the stinger where Ban reveals he's going to the Fairy King's Forest, King reminds the audience that the forest was burnt down to the ground after Ban fought the big red demon there years ago. Ban is insistent on going, however, and after a brief scene with Oslo the teleporting hellhound, King basically catches up with Ban and tells Ban that he's going the wrong way.

But Ban just keep going, and we get little bits of back-and-forth between Ban and King about Diane, how King knows that Diane is just being nice despite the whole festival thing. We get some nice funny panels where King stabs Ban in the head, and Ban going 'King...' in all seriousness before pulling off this goofy face and goes 'I don't give a fucccck'.

King then goes 'you already have Elaine, so who's that?' In a sense it's nice that King has finally recognized the love between Ban and his sister and has finally warmed up to Ban as a friend.

Ban attacks a rock, and apparently Janko (a reference to Giant's sister from Doraemon?) Jericho has been stalking them for the past twenty miles and is all tsundere towards Ban who just doesn't give a flipping shit. I thought it was pretty funny, even though I'm not that big of a fan of Jericho -- I believe she's annoying -- having this little side-quest with Jericho, Ban and King is pretty fun. Even if the comic works on the logic that if you molest a girl (or, in Ban's case, forcibly strip), she'll fall in love with you. It's been done with Elizabeth, and now it's apparently the case with Jericho now.

Anyway the three of them trek towards the Fairy King's Forest despite King going all 'this is the wrong way'.  Jericho is surprised at the existence of fairies, and thought that King's "Fairy King" moniker is merely a nickname. Jericho also brings up an interesting point, that if King is a fairy, why doesn't he have wings? I'm not quite sure because fairies with wings is a big point of Helbram's backstory, and indeed every single fairy we've seen other than King and Elaine have had wings. And it seems that in future stories we might get an explanation on more of the fairy culture and whatnot, which is certainly an interesting thing for me.

They suddenly go into a fog and arrive at the Fairy King's Forest... which is all new and fresh and whatnot. I initially thought this was a City of the Dead thing, where the Fairy King's Forest can only be traveled to if you want to go there with a pure heart or some shit along those lines, but apparently it's just not located anywhere near the original Fairy King's Forest and the different-looking tree kind of gives it away that, yes, Ban did plant the seed of the Great Tree way back then and kept the tree's legacy going on strong. Way to go, Ban. And here I thought that the seed itself would be a major plot point, but no. It's already been planted!

Jericho just gawks at everything going 'oh my god fairies are real' and King is just all happy and shit seeing some of his old fairy friends alive, and they go wild and go 'FAIRY KING!' with smiley faces, but when they recognize King they instead call him Harlequin the Traitor for abandoning them to their fate. I thought there was something going on with the art that made their faces seem happy at first, but no... they're apparently greeting the new Fairy King, Ban.

It's a well enough twist on two main fronts: the fact that Ban has already planted the seed to the Great Fairy Tree, as well as the fact that the fairies have survived and are hailing Ban as the new Fairy King. It's still a relatively slow but enjoyable chapter as we get a lot of questions raised, some funny moments between Ban and King and generally just following these two interesting characters (and Jericho) together. Looking forward to what's coming next, though certainly I'm also up for exploring more about Merlin, Gowther and the rest as well.