My big problem is that this series kind of gets repetitive, and it's so, sooo bad when it comes to exposition. How many times are important people gonna be brought up as personal traumas for a character, only for that person to not be dead, often within the same episode, for increasingly contrived reasons? How many times is an important event gonna be brought up that everyone else conveniently forgot until it was important to the plot? And I'm not just talking about the outright amnesia that they also use way too frequently!
And What was the goddamn point of having everyone train in the Druid village? Seriously, was that just anime filler? No one gained anything from that experience, except for one guy who got his powers back, which was why they were there in the first place. Yet I think they spent 4 episodes on that, IIRC.
My point is, the story is kind of a mess. Some of it might just be from the adaptation, but that doesn't account for all of its stupidity. I only compared it to Fairy Tail because I watch them both for the same reasons, but I honestly feel like I've gotten a lot more out of FT than The Seven Deadly Sins. When comparing the two, I just feel that the highs aren't as high, and the lows are way lower, even when we're just talking about both series around 50 or so episodes in. Sorry if that caused some confusion.
I've got to disagree about the story being a mess. Seven Deadly Sins is one of the better shonen manga out there (no comment on whether the anime is a good adaptation or not since I haven't seen it). To address some specific points:
-I remember the dead person being revealed as alive maybe three times? I wouldn't be shocked if I forgot one, but I don't think it is used that often.
-I have no idea of what you are talking about regarding everyone forgetting something. I can think of two instances of amnesia magic being used (not counting Gowther messing with people's minds), but I'm blanking on instances where people conveniently forget stuff
-Druid Village was not anime original filler, although looking at the episode list, two of those episodes were more focused on Ban's backstory, so having everyone training there was probably just to keep them busy while those events happened
Also regarding Fairy Tail, the problems I mentioned become worse the longer the manga went on, so if you are only 50 episodes in, well you probably have a long way left to fall. >.>
Oh boy, I guess I'll address these one at a time:
1) That's too many, especially when two out of the 3 were introduced in one episode, and revealed to be alive in the next. Both Vahn and Diane had important people in their lives that we're supposed to believe had effect on them, one of which literally just seemed to come out of nowhere, though them being a live also makes sense to the point where Diane looks like an idiot for assuming she was dead...
2) It was mostly with King, Diane, and Meliodas where they seemed to forget about inportant things, like where they're from, people they cared about, and that important events happened to them.
As for outright amnesia, I'm counting those times Gowther messes with people's heads, because more often than not, what he manipulates and why so far has made little sense outside of "the writer needed an excuse to take them out of the picture and/or explore their past," which becomes painfully obvious the more often it happens.
3) That might explain it, and I guess it was just supposed to be silly, but I still can't help but laugh at how
[spoiler]Meliodas supposedly has to get rid of his emotions in order to get back his powers, which he doesn't, he just takes it in a different direction and gets his powers back anyways; the princess had to awaken her powers, but the test was rigged so she couldn't succeed; meanwhile, everyone else either gets a minor power-up that amounts to jack-squat, accomplishes absolutely nothing, or comes out worse than they started. It really made it feel like a waste of time.[/spoiler]
And at the end of the day, my big problem with the story is that too many things seem to happen in ways that feel contrived, and the story progression feels unnatural because of it. Throughout Season 3, side characters have been killed off en masse, lots of revelations have been made that challenge what we know about who the good guys and bad guys are, the history Britannia itself is slowly revealed, some characters grow while others seem to regress.
Yet, all that is underpinned by confusing choices that seem to happen just so the story can happen, unnatural exposition dumps that stop the story dead in its tracks, the large cast I enjoyed being reduced while the faults of the characters who get the most screen time become increasingly apparent and aggrevating, and rules being introduced that are quickly broken. All with stakes that are supposed to be increasing, but never really feel that ways because too many of the main characters seem to either shrug off battle damage or deal with all their problems effortlessly.
The ingredients are there for a great story, but the excecution has been lacking. Again, that might be the adaptation's fault. Realistically, if all I wanted was to read an intriguing story, I'd just read the manga. But what I want more is the combined audio-visual experience that animation can bring. I'll probably watch season 4 whenever it comes out, but I certainly hope it improves.
4) I'm actually well into the 200s of Fairy Tail, I'm just saying that even at an equivelant point in the story (There are only 52 episodes of The Seven Deadly Sins so far), it had more opportunities to capitalize on its strengths and left a stronger impression on me. It wasn't perfect, especially early on, but I certainly had less to complain about.
