Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Seven Deadly Sins: Imperial Wrath of the Gods’ on Netflix, the Latest Cuckoo Saga of an OTT Anime Series

Netflix brings back a group of sacrilicious fighting anime warriors with The Seven Deadly Sins: Imperial Wrath of the Gods, the fourth arc (read: season) in the nutso fantasy saga based on a popular manga series. You’re either in for a penny, in for a trillion pounds with this anime, which now numbers 76 episodes and about a zillion times as many characters, warrior factions (good and evil), demon races, civilian human aggregations, goddesses and talking pigs to sort out, like a D&D universe gone berserk. And whether this makes any sense or not may be moot in the face of its sheer entertainment value.

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS: IMPERIAL WRATH OF THE GODS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A midnight-blue sky dotted with stars. Pitch-black clouds float by. Black-winged things fly overhead.

The Gist: Tall, muscular, blue-skinned demon bird persons transport their human prisoners through the woods. Suddenly, Meliodas (voice of Yuki Kaji) and Ban (Tatsuhisa Suzuki), two of the Seven Deadly Sins (which, to the uninitiated, are knights that used to be evil but are now good), leap through the air to rescue them by declaratively screaming their power moves, e.g., “HAAAAAAAH! ONE THOUSAND DEADLY CUTS!” The two Sins cheerfully murder a bunch of the bird persons and free their captors. Then we get a recap of previous events, which reminds us that the Seven Deadly Sins are forever warring with the Ten Commandments (which are also warriorfolk), and the last battle resulted in Meliodas’ death (and eventual resurrection), the destruction of a good portion of the land of Britannia and some shifts in power that the series’ fanpeoples may find shocking and/or compelling.

Some characters with very muscular muscles and insane haircuts help the commonfolk rebuild the totally rubbled portions of Britannia. The people are traumatized by all the death and destruction. Meanwhile, Ten Commandments’ leader Zeldris (also Yuki Kaji) sits crosslegged on a throne, wondering how he can continue ruling the kingdom with an iron fist. He looks like the type of guy who screams at servants to bring him peeled grapes and ionized water when he isn’t applying gallons of mousse to his hair or wielding a sword the size of a Lincoln Navigator.

Back on the ground, a plebian kid named Peliodas — who aspires to be the same Sin warrior as Meliodas, possibly because their names rhyme in a suspiciously destined-for-glory manner — believes he can fight off a bastion of ugly-ass demons while his fellow villagers cower nearby. A jabba-blob with six arms and multiple purple tongues, dubbed an ochre demon for its unpalatable bile-yellow color, harasses Pelio and says things like “SCREW IT! WE’RE MASSACRING THE LOT OF YOU!” and “YOU’RE BORING, DIE ALREADY!” until five of the Sins show up to banish and/or kill all the miscreations by saying things like, “Fascinating. Seems you can convert someone else’s magic power into your own nutrients, huh!” in the middle of battle and then counteracting the demon’s counteraction. The gargoylians and bugbearbeasts are vanquished and the tonguebeast slithers off, defeated, then the Sins head out to hang out with their talking pig friend Hawk (Misaki Kuno) and wander the countryside in a pub shaped like a stein that’s sitting on top of a giant green pig, which I think is Hawk’s mother. As you do. No, I’m not high. I swear.

Our Take: The Seven Deadly Sins is pure action anime with all the gilded trappings: Screamingly awful theme song and soundtrack, classic fantasy myths warped nearly beyond comprehension, exposition atop exposition, ratatat subtitles explaining who these characters are (honestly, thank Jebus for that), metric tons of hyperbole and scads of colorful characters in ridiculous garb — some of it highly revealing and/or highly impractical — doing insane things in the service of convoluted plots. It’s all rather amusing, ridiculous fun, the product of unbridled imagination, and possibly copious amounts of hallucinogens.

The opening chapter of Imperial Wrath of the Gods sets up a few things to come in the next 23 episodes, which, if they’re all this entertaining, might be too much and not enough at the same time. Notably, no gods unleashed their imperial wrath yet, which is the kind of thing you usually save for the big climactic rhubarb, I suppose. I wouldn’t say this series is wholly original, and might be a little cluttered, but if every episode can have something weird and strange along the lines of that ochre demon, it stands to be at least memorably strange. Maybe bemusement is the side effect rather than the series’ main intention, but there’s nothing wrong with that as long as we keep watching and laughing, no?

Sex and Skin: A vague outline of a butt, its crack obscured by mist.

Parting Shot: The two other Sins, Diane and King, unexpectedly bump into each other while naked in a hot spring in the Fairy King Forest, he said, totally sober.

Sleeper Star: Why is the talking pig named Hawk? Is that some kind of ironic joke? Is there a talking hawk named Pig somewhere in this series? I have so many questions.

Most Pilot-y Line: Meliodas catches us up on plot (even though it was already recapped) by delivering this bon mot we all have used at least once in our lives: “Just getting to eat your cooking again makes coming back from the dead totally worth it!”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Even if The Seven Deadly Sins: Imperial Wrath of the Gods doesn’t always make sense, it may still be worth watching for its OTT action.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Seven Deadly Sins: Imperial Wrath of the Gods on Netflix