Manga Review: The Seven Deadly Sins Volume 1 by Nakaba Suzuki
Boar Hat is a small tavern in the middle of nowhere, known for its excellent selection of booze and the owner’s terrible cooking. It’s run by the childish-appearing Melodias and his talking pig partner Hawk. Despite its remote and variable location, Boar Hat gets a lively custom. Right now, the patrons are discussing a mysterious knight in rusty armor that’s been spotted in the neighborhood.
Rumor has it that this Rusty Knight might be one of the Seven Deadly Sins, a group of warriors that betrayed the kingdom a decade before and have been in hiding since. Melodias is quietly skeptical of this; after all, he himself is secretly the leader of the Seven Deadly Sins, armed with the Dragon Sin of Wrath. (He looks nothing like his wanted poster, which portrays a grown man.)
The knight in rusty armor turns out to be Princess Elizabeth in disguise. She explains that the Holy Knights, pledged to all that is good and righteous, have killed her father and taken over the kingdom of Britannia. With a teenager’s logic, she has decided that if the Holy Knights are actually evil, then the supposedly wicked Seven Deadly Sins must in fact be good guys, and come in search of them.
The Holy Knight recruitment prospect who comes after Elizabeth does nothing to dispel the idea that the Holy Knights have turned evil, and Melodias is forced to unleash a fraction of his power, proving his identity. He agrees to help Elizabeth, but they need to start by finding the other Sins.
This is made more difficult by the fact that Melodias has partial amnesia about the events that led to the Sins being condemned for treason, and how they escaped. There’s a deeper mystery here….
This long-running shounen (boys’) manga has been quite popular, spawning a multi-season anime adaptation. The art style is light and lends itself well to comedic fantasy though the darker bits don’t work quite so well. There are a number of interesting plot threads introduced.
One issue I had with this volume is that while Melodias’ “Sin” may be Wrath, his primary character trait is lechery. He is continually perving on Elizabeth. This is probably meant to be amusing given Melodias’ child-like appearance, but he’s a man in at least his late thirties harassing a girl in her mid-teens. He does not face any consequences beyond mild annoyance from Elizabeth and perfunctory protests from Hawk, and shows no sign of mending his ways.
(I suspect there will be a Watsonian justification later, such as Elizabeth being his fated one true love, but it still comes across as icky.)
I’m also kind of uncomfortable with the second “Sin” introduced, Diane, being a woman whose entire motivation appears to be “hot for Melodias.”
But if those issues aren’t deal breakers for you, it looks to be a decent fantasy battle manga.
Here’s an opening for the show!
