Nanatsu no Taizai 110 Review: Romance

Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 110: Confession

It's a step down from the whole giant plot-heavy demon stuff or the intrigue-heavy Team Gilthunder detective thing or the whole Ban/King situation as we cut back to, well, everyone else. It's more of a little lovey chapter centered on Elizabeth and Diane, and I'm rather surprised at how deep they're going into romance... especially since this is a Shonen manga. Mostly romance is either close to non-existent (Bleach, One Piece) or constantly present but almost never taken seriously (Fairy Tail, Naruto). This manga already has the actually pretty beautiful Ban/Elaine story going on, and now it adds a fair amount of depth to Elizabeth and Diane. I've never been really big on shipping speculations, but I can appreciate a well-written love story.

We get a cover page of Hawk writing a farewell letter to a female pig, what's up with that?

There is a bit of a moment when Griamor, Gilthunder and Hauser say goodbye to the princesses and we get a bit of a moment between Veronica and Griamor. I do like how Griamor looks absolutely freaking embarrassed when Veronica brings up their promise and goes 'I... think I was ten years old...' and Hauser is just ribbing Griamor along. The Knight Trio set off to investigate Dreyfus and all that.

Elizabeth sneaks out as a maid to hunt down Meliodas after her sisters bring him up and I thought that was a nice bit of moment for Veronica and Margaret, that short scene that shows that they're, y'know, sisters and shit. Elizabeth runs into Diane and after talking for a bit Diane gets pissed that Ban and King have disappeared from the previous day. Mostly King, because it seems that she does have feelings for King and as the end of this chapter shows, King's feelings are definitely reciprocated.

Meliodas acts kind of perfunctory and aloof to Elizabeth, most likely because of all the demon shit that he's absolutely scared of. He kind of refuses to bring Elizabeth along, telling her their contract or promise or whatever is over, pretending not to have said that they promise to run the store together and all that... which makes absolute sense especially since Meliodas has already lost people he care about before. He also brings up that the king will get absolutely pissed if he knows that Meliodas is employing Elizabeth as a maid, which I thought was a nice acknowledgement that even if Meliodas does love Elizabeth all the molesting is not ethical. Which, of course, is something Meliodas does right until when Hawk comes in and strings him up in a barrel.

Their discussion kind of interrupted, Elizabeth finds Diane and she mentions that Meliodas was freaking rattled after the earthquake yesterday. Diane also teases Elizabeth about how she's extremely perceptive about Meliodas and makes her blush and everything. Then Diane drops the bombshell, asking Elizabeth if she loves Meliodas, which takes a page to show that, yes, she obviously is head over heels for him.

I do like how she's all 'I've got this nostalgic feeling that I've known him for a long time', and then the next panel shows a girl chasing a boy with their faces obscured, which seems to imply some kind of wacky reincarnation shit or them playing as a kid... but no, those are just two kids running around in Diane and Elizabeth's path. I dunno. I find it funny.

Elizabeth then goes all 'I'll keep these feelings in my heart', and Diane tells her to do otherwise. Elizabeth brings up how Diane loves Meliodas herself, and we get a nice Diane moment as she notes that she has always known that Meliodas will never really love her, and I do like how it kind of builds up over the series, how Diane is always pointing out, sometimes for laughs, how Meliodas never shows his tender or perverted side to Diane. So we're not getting a stupid love triangle going on, which is much appreciated. Then Diane recalls her backstory with King, which is something that she has remembered in full after the last battle... and she just breaks down because she's afraid if King will never come back.

It's a pretty powerful scene, and IMO a lot more powerful than Elizabeth's confession which is obvious as hell. It also addresses some issues like Diane being afraid that King would leave her again like he did before (even if that had reasons) especially since she had the opportunity to tell him and didn't.

Overall a slow chapter, but perfunctory because I don't see any of these romancy stuff being explored beyond one chapter. It does give me a bit of the feels, though. It's done pretty well, and now I'm pumped for actually exploring, y'know, the Demon Clan or King and Ban or Gilthunder's team or whatever it is Meliodas' group will do.