Sunday 29 March 2015

Nanatsu no Taizai 119,5 Review: SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE & Other Revelations

Nanatsu no Taizai, Special Chapter: The Vampires of Edinburgh Finale


Well, that was certainly an interesting end to this Edinburgh side-story! The Vampire King Izraf activates his power, Impurity, which is a shit-ton of darkness that manages to cut up a mouse. Merlin brings up that power detector thing she gave Hawk in the present day, and notes that the Vampire King has a power level of 4890. But Escanor just reflects all the darkness back no problem with some kind of super bright light. Escanor talks about how even the darkness fears him, and talks about how kings are numerous in the world, but an existence like 'Lord Escanor' is an existence unlike any in the world. So there goes all the talk about him being a vampire or whatever to fit in with the 'none of the seven sins are the same species with each other'. His tattoo is also on his back, by the way.

Escanor and Izraf fight for a bit, and then Escanor slices Izraf down the shoulder. Izraf is all like 'my vampire abilities will allow me to regenerate', but the wound just burns up. Izraf keeps talking about how the only fire that can burn him being the purgatory fire of the Demon Clan, but Escanor's fire is not that, so that's a strike against him being a demon too.

Meanwhile Merlin teleports Ban back to Liones after he falls asleep, exhausted, after doing the hundred thousand pushups. Merlin talks about getting new data and preparation and shit. Meanwhile the weakened Diane and King are fighting against the two vampire mooks and having trouble, but suddenly the big vampire mook crushes the smaller vampire mook, who in turn slices off the larger vampire's head with his whirlwind powers. This cloaked reaper-looking guy, Jack, then tells them that they are no longer capable of moving their bodies at their own will, and I'm like all 'do we have time for another new villain' and then these electrical arrows pull back from the side of the vampire's head as well as King and Diane's... and we see "Jack" transform into a suit of armour... And it's Gowther, pulling off his silly Gowther pose in full armour and fucking hell that was funny. And apparently he's just waiting until the most dramatic time to make an entry because that's a staple of storytelling. King and Diane later return before Melin and Gowther. That bit of distraction is over, leaving only Escanor and Meliodas.

Meanwhile, Meliodas is with that vampire girl who wants to be killed. Vampire girl tells her story, about how the vampires fought as vassals of the Demon Clan. Izraf attempted to rebel against the Demon Clan, but failed, and an executioner -- Zeldoris -- was sent to wipe out the vampire clan... though Zeldoris apparently chose to seal them instead because of this vampire girl.

That... explains why Zeldoris made a beeline to Edinburgh as soon as he wakes up. Holy shit this chapter ties in to the present day even moreso than I thought it would.

The vampire girl doesn't feel herself worthy for Zeldoris, nor does she want to live so long in the world without any meaning beyond drinking blood, and asks Meliodas to kill her. Meliodas pulls off a scary face, and while we don't see him directly doing that, later in the chapter we see Meliodas create that gigantic hole in the ground and that same hole was discovered by Zeldoris and company later in the present day. We get revelations and at the same time even more questions.

Izraf summons an armour of shadows he calls Black Full-Plate, but Escanor blows through it no problem. Izraf goes 'only the fires of purgatory blah blah' once more but Escanor, in his fully buff and muscular form, just goes on to talk about some poem about Merlin. Izraf mistakes the poem as an incantation or a seal or something, which pisses Escanor off and he goes in for the kill slowly. Meanwhile, Merlin monologues to us, the readers, about how Escanor's power is a gift or a curse he had since birth, and his power is the source of all life, 'Sunshine'.

Well, between his ripped body, fighting vampires and being able to channel the power of sunshine and me recently finishing the first two parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, well... SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE

As Gowther separates from his armour wearing this weird frilly tank-top, Merlin notes how Escanor's power is the weakest during the night (which we saw), but extremely powerful as it increases towards noon. Escanor's power is also noted to be the strongest among all seven sins. Escanor then moves up to Izraf, burning the vampire king to ashes and going all 'boom'.

The result is the big twisted explosion of swirling shapes and whatnot that we see in the present day. That wasn't the vampires or Meliodas, that was fucking Escanor. Ain't hard to see how he's one of the Seven Sins... he can blow entire countries up! Merlin shows up asking Escanor which one is the real him, the one in the day or the one in the night, before using 'Power Amplifier' while Gowther shoots a 'Blackout Arrow'. What the hell?

I'm not sure if Meliodas knows about Merlin doing this, or why she does it. Does she want to keep Escanor under her control? Did they wipe Escanor's memory of his transformation all the time? Is that just a way to keep Escanor docile until the night? So many unexplained things.

We cut back to Escanor at night kind of mulling over how he lost control of himself, but Merlin shows up to hear his poem. She's nice. While everyone else is partying, Meliodas looks at the moon and notes that this was the first time he heard Zeldoris in the last three thousand years and reveals himself to be Zeldoris' older brother. While I expected stuff about Escanor and vampires to be revealed, I did not expect things so closely related to the present-day stuff regarding Zeldoris and Meliodas! Overall this side story is a real blast. Truly enjoyed reading it.

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