Comments:It's been a while since I've written recaps of Nanatsu no Taizai even though it would somewhat deserve them. So I decided to try something new this time: recap / comment 11 chapters in the same post!
It's great that Nanatsu no Taizai doesn't reveal too much. In chapter 16 there was the miraculous healing of the doctor who was stabbed pretty much straight through the heart. I like it how he's left to himself to speculate why it happened and the sins including Meliodas kept quiet. I'm pretty sure that they should know about it, but decided to leave it as a mystery. Soon we are also seeing something which brings us closer to the bigger picture of the series, straight quote: "
When the skies are fillied with crossing shooting stars, Britannia will be visited by an immense menace. It is an omen of the beginning of a trial of ancient origins.
A holy war between the guiding hand of light and the bloodline of darkness". (Chapter 16, page 19) Interesting, I must say.
As we moved forward to the arc of the Capital of the Dead, at this point I felt a bit bored for a while with series. Just a moment before the arc of the capital of the dead we were however shown the true essence of Meliodas' broken snake sword, which essentially looked like a huge spirit snake/dragon, I wonder what that is if it isn't his sacred treasure, which he apparently sold?
As I already said, the capital of the dead arc was a slight disappointed
until King was finally showing his stuff to the readers. That part I really liked and no wonder, his spirit spear Chastiefol and his various abilities with it were visually very impressive. I really ended up liking King as a character also.
In the chapter 27 King explains to us that the sins as they were formed by King of Leoneth were given Sacred treasures, weapons which apparently boost their strength hugely. I really liked this revelation since it pretty much gives something to look forward to and gives some continuity for the story. We still have yet to see three more sins, who without a doubt will be pretty interesting as the sins until this point have all been very unique characters with very likeable personalities. We don't know how many sacred treasures are still lost, but we will be having some more journeys concering the three which were stolen, sold or lost by Meliodas, Ban and Diane. It's a great move from the author to reveal the story and the background bit by bit, but not too much and at the same time make the readers wait for more along with the revelations.
I find it extremely pleasing that the story has managed to kept it's extremely swift pacing: there's nothing better than a good story with good characters (though with only decent art) that progresses so swiftly that there's not many chances if not any for boredom. Though I have to admit that the Capital of the Dead didn't live up to my expectations, but it ended up being pretty good with Kings showdown, which was pretty much amazing.
Recap of Nanatsu No Taizai Chapters 16-27:Chapter 16-Baste Dungeon has just been destroyed.
-The previously stabbed doctor is surprisingly alright and his wound closed itself. The same thing happened with Meliodas' wound.
-Fox's sin of greed, Ban is formally introduced at this point. He's wearing some badass leather outfit.
-The sins + princess + the doctor have a party.
Chapter 17 -Our heroes are looking at a map and planning which way they should go. They travel in the hut which is on a huge pig.
-They encounter couple of knights who present themselves as the holy knights of the kingdom. They almost let the sins pass until Diane accidentally reveals their identities.
-Then something appears that moves quickly and eats the knights, it's a black hound. Ban tries to intimidate it, but the black hound grows in size instead.
-Captain Meliodas drops down and grabs his broken sword which shows to the black hound as a huge dragon / snake-like thing. It's obvious that it doesn't show to the other people around them. The hound retreats.
-Their destination is the capital of the dead, they'll look for King there.
-Then King is introduced as a floating, young looking kid who's talking to Gilthunder It's revealed that the black hound is something like a pet to King.
Chapter 18-The three of the sins finally arrive to the village which is called "Capital of the dead"
-Ban goes to look for information and sees a kid at a rundown place.
-Elizabeth starts asking Meliodas what kind of person King is. Meliodas tells a great story about Ban, King and stuffed animals.
-Ban encounters another kid who stabs him, understandably it doesn't really concern Ban much. They tell how Holy Knights messed with them too.
-Suddenly Ban sees King in front of him and coughs blood. King stabbed him with a huge spear and says hello Ban. Ban however doesn't recognize King in his child form.
Chapter 19-King makes a huge hole to Ban's chest with his spear. The hole gets rejuvenated quickly and King tells us Ban's nickname: Ban the undead.
-King tells us about Ban's sin of greed, which he satisfied as the price for immortality. Ban killed the saint of the fountain of youth.
-King and Ban fight, King seems pretty powerful with his spear as he can float himself as move his spear in the air with his will alone.
-We see that Ban does something, but we don't get to see what because Meliodas interrupts him.
-The other sins are happy to see King, but King decides to just flee.
-The sins want to go to the capital of the dead and are revealed that that's where King also wants to go.
Chapter 20-The kids tell the sins a tale how they could go to the capital of the dead.
-We see King in the forest, he seems to have some kind of grudge with Ban.
-The sins manage to get to the capital of the dead, which looks like a world made of crystal pillars.
-Ban starts chasing something, King follows him.
-Back at the village the kids are amazed as the sins disappeared, then some woman knight comes before them..
Chapter 21-The woman is revealed to be a Holy Knight, who grabs the kids and forcefully orders them to reveal the way to get to the capital of the dead.
-Ban and King have a small miniature fight and they talk about the past.
-King shows us a flashback about his hometown and how a certain bandit was after the hidden treasure the town was guarding. The bandit stole from the "fountain of youth" a cup of water that gave life and never ran dry. The bandit killed the guardian saint of the fountain and the saint happened to Elaine, Kings sister.
-Kind says that his sacred treasure has many forms, he presents one of its forms, spirit spear chastiefol form three and stabs Ban with it. It seems Ban as he can't die, starts to just petrify.
-Meanwhile the holy knight hits herself in the chest, taking a shortcut to the capital of the dead, essentially killing herself.
Chapter 22-The sins and the holy knight start fighting, Hawk flees along with Elizabeth.
-Holy Knight tells us something about Dianes ability which is exclusive to the members of the giants clan, which is the ability to bend iron like it's made of toffee and raise the ground up like towers.
-Diane can turn minerals into sand, which manifests as an ability "Sand Whirl". She however gets out of it quickly
-Meliodas fights with her bare handed, not using his sword. He is then about to grab his sword when the Knight attacks and the Knights explosion hits herself. We are revealed that Meliodas' ability is "Full counter".
-Meanwhile, Ban gets fully petrified
Chapter 23-King is about to leave when he realizes that Elaine is near them. He sees that Elaine kisses Ban and the petrification is released. Elaine doesn't let King see her, as she's still mad to him for leaving them in the past.
-It seems that King had somewhat misunderstood the situation with Ban and his sister.
-The fight continues with the sins and the Holy Knight whose power is "Explosion". Ban appears and stops her with his unknown power.
Chapter 24-Bans power is "Snatch", his powers aren't well-known to the kingdom, but it seems he's able to somehow telepathically grab things. The knight attacks him with Drift bomb.
-The three sins are having a bit of a trouble with the knight. Meanwhile King and Elaine are talking and she tells him that he fought seven hundred years of loneliness because King left the country. It seems that Ban killed Elaine pretty much because she wanted so.
-As the sins are having a little bit of trouble with the knight, King finally joins the battle.
Chapter 25-King, Grizzly's sin of sloth has joined the battle.
-We are seen the legendary spirit spear, Chastifol in action. It's said to be a holy weapon crafted from the sacred tree only found in the fairy realm.
-King's power is revealed to be "Disaster"
-It's one on one and the Holy Knight is having some serious trouble with Chastifol chasing her.
-Holy Knight starts to load "Brilliant detonation", which seems to generate a huge explosions.
-King uses spirit spear Chastiefol's form five, "increase", which multiplies the quantity of the spears by ten or hundred-fold.
-King is formally introduced as Fairy King Harlequin, The King of Fairies as he destroys the holy knight.
Chapter 26 -The Holy Knight Geera is "defeated" and the sins start to return to the world of the living.
-King introduces himself to Princess Elizabeth with his old form.
-At the same time we see Geera tied to a tree, Lord Helbram is front of her saying that she failed.
-King is saying that the sins should have been a lot powerful that they were fighting the Holy Knight Geera. he asks them what happened to their Sacred Treasures. Bans was stolen, Meliodas sold his and Diane lost hers.
Chapter 27-King is surprised that the sacred treasured entrusted by King of Leoneth when the seven deadly sins were formed were lost.
-King explains how powerful the sins should be with their weapons by using the lake as a parable.
-They then talk about what's going on with the kingdom and the holy knights, Geera is also revealed to being "the new generation" of holy knights
-They arrive to new town and see that there's new wanted poster of princess Elizabeth. Understandably they get soon recognized.
-New holy knight is introduced, Griamor, who's essentially a huge man on a huge horse. He's about to kill civilians for "false" report, but Elizabeth runs to stop him before that.
-Griamor grabs Elizabeth, but gets interrupted by Elizabeth's sister Veronica.