The Seven Deadly Sins, Chapter 284: The Door to Hope
I haven't been reviewing Taizai in quite a while, and that's because... I really haven't had much to say about them. I've not been the biggest fan of the "Meliodas and Ban fighting against emotionless Demon King-Dad" storyline, and I genuinely feel that for all the buildup we've got, the Demon King is one hell of a flat character who genuinely feels like a generic RPG boss fight instead of Meliodas's evil father or even a proper main villain. Throw in a generic Bleach-esque reality-rule-warping power that doesn't make much sense, and I genuinely didn't really feel like this particular sub-plot is honestly all that entertaining.
And all throughout this chapter it's just Ban and Meliodas taking turns and going "I'll hold him back!" "No, I will hold him back!" which is kind of a blatant in-your-face buildup for a sacrifice, but everything surrounding this honestly feels so lukewarm and paced so poorly (dropping the gigantic multi-part Estarossa battle in-between it all doesn't help either).
And after a bunch of explosions, it's... it's Wild that blows up and lets Meliodas and Ban return to the real world? I don't want to be crass, but it's... it's a pretty bland death, yeah? I'd actually feel something if Wild was an actual character, but he was straight-up just introduced randomly to answer a couple of long-running questions about Hawk, and then just gets killed off like a plot device. It's one of my least-favourite tropes of anime in general, using "related to a main character" as a cheap way to instantly substitute for me caring about a character... and I don't. Even if they are siblings/parents/children of our main character, they need to actually, y'know, do something and have a personality. Wild's genuinely just a plot device, and I can't really say I'm sad (or happy) to see him go. Just happy to see this particular subplot end, is all.
Man, Taizai has been pretty ehh recently. DK felt like he was defeated so easily in comparison to the amount of time spent hyping him. I guess this means the final boss is definitely emotionless Meliodas(assuming the Supreme Goddess doesn’t pop in to say hi or something)
ReplyDeleteSomewhat disconnected question, but are you planning to review the new HunterxHunter chapters? I figured you had switched to just reviewing One Piece and Hero Aca manga-wise, but this shows evidence to the contrary. Also on the manga tag list page it doesn’t have the [not reviewing this anymore] thing next to it. The recent chapters also have had enough stuff occur that I imagine you would have atleast some comments. Obviously if you have too much other stuff to do/have dropped it that’s fine, but the contradicting evidence is confusing. Apologies if I missed a post that explained this already.
I genuinely feel utterly underwhelmed with everything surrounding "Meliodas and Ban in purgatory". Everything from the suddenness of their meeting, and 90% of the chapters surrounding them basically just being introdumps about how Purgatory works -- something that, by the way, means nothing since we end up leaving it pretty quickly.
DeleteThrow in the genuinely disappointing and generic Demon King and Wild as antagonist and supporting characters respectively, and I genuinely think that they would've given the same impact if Ban and Meliodas's little rescue thing has been done offscreen instead, or as a little side-chapter like the Vampires of Edinburgh thing.
Actually, yes! My reviews on the recent Hunter x Hunter chapters are in progress. I'm reviewing all three chapters at once, and I've written 381 and 382 -- review should be up tomorrow or the day after. My biggest complaints about Hunter x Hunter chapters prior to the hiatus was that 'not enough was happening', and the last three chapters finally, well, have huge things happening and the actual hunger games deal progressing!
Honestly, at this point, I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that Taizai would be the one I drop instead of Hunter x Hunter, due to how little I have to say about the series.