"The Seven Deadly Sins: The Seven Deadly Sins" - TV Review

"The Seven Deadly Sins" (based on a manga) tells the story of the kingdom of Liones, which is protected by the Holy Knights. The problem is, the Holy Knights are behaving badly and causing suffering throughout the kingdom - including quietly taking most of the royal family hostage. But the Princess Elizabeth escapes, and goes on a quest to find the Seven Deadly Sins, a group of Holy Knights who were responsible for the murder of the head of their order a decade ago. In her quest, she takes refuge at The Boar Hat tavern, which is run by a tiny and handsome young man ... who we soon discover is actually Meliodas, aka "The Dragon Sin of Wrath" and captain of the Seven Deadly Sins. He decides to join her as it's time to get the Sins back together so they continue the quest together.

This is a Netflix Anime series (~20 episodes of 23 minutes each) constructed like a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and any silly animated quest show you've ever seen. With the addition of fan service and occasional perversion from Meliodas, who once in a while squeezes Elizabeth's breasts or ass - or even buries his head between her thighs. Later on she has a bit of a crush on him, but he also does it when they first meet. And part way through this series, another fan-service-pretty-girl tells him "I'm right here, you can grope me any time," to which he replies "it's no fun if you tell me it's okay," and never touches her. Which places his creepy behaviour squarely in the middle of "legally actionable" in pretty much every country in the world. And yet it's played for laughs.

Aside from the occasional creepy interludes, it's a goofy series with ever-escalating stakes. The bad guys demonstrate greater powers, the good guys pull out some new power - often with the action paused on screen and a labelled name on the mighty attack style. People lose their memories, they recover them, they're dismembered, they put themselves back together or get put back together ... I leave it running while I do other things: it's colourful, pretty, and crap, but still entertaining.