English Dub Review: The Seven Deadly Sins – Grudge of Edinburgh Part Two

After more than half a year’s wait, the Seven Deadly Sins interquel side story releases its second half, basically showing why it should’ve just been a full 90 minute movie to begin with. Then again, it’s such a thin plot on its own that it’s easy to pretty much summarize it succinctly: Tristan and Lancelot’s brief quest to save Elizabeth from her sudden curse brings them face to face with Deathpierce, a former Holy Knight who holds a grudge against non-human races and has been creating mutant soldiers to do his bidding. While Meliodas and some of the surviving Seven Deadly Sins take out these minions, Tristan and Lancelot follow Deathpierce into a different realm and Tristan finally learns to control his demon powers and save the day, but it’s revealed that Deathpierce was given his abilities by King Arthur, a former ally of the Sins. There, see? This isn’t that complex of a story and truly did not require its own movie. It’s assumed the sequel manga, Four Knights of the Apocalypse, will also get animated at some point, but this is absolutely not necessary to lead into that. Not that you’ll even want to watch the sequel show anyway for NUMEROUS reasons, but I digress.

For a story as small scale as it is, I guess it’s good that it ends up using its characters and conflict efficiently enough, at least on paper. The two new major characters are Tristan and Lancelot, they have a sorta grudge between them from childhood that is connected to Tristan’s hesitancy to use his demon powers, which is about as much of an arc as he gets, and the two go up against an unaddressed minor character from the previous series who has his own grudge against the previous leads, though said leads allow the new protagonists to get the big moments. In terms of a “Next Generation” stories like this, Boruto, or Yashahime, that’s pretty standard stuff, though it ends up pretty hollow emotionally, considering neither Tristan nor Lancelot have any real connection to Deathpierce or the angel and demon he has a specific bone to pick with. And picking Deathpierce, a Z-lister even among the minor villains, means there’s plenty of wiggle room to change him that won’t feel like a character assassination…is what I would say if I didn’t remember what happened to Merlin near the end of the anime or WHAT THE HELL THEY DID WITH JERICHO IN THE SEQUEL. I beg of you not to look that up because it is a DAY RUINER.

I suppose my overall point is that this series has shown it is very much willing to make radical shifts to dive bomb into the toilet for no apparent reason, but they still made this two part movie quite bland. Again, it either should’ve been a four part OVA or a single 100 minute movie, but instead is just one half that feels incomplete and the other that has a bit more action but ends up feeling hollow. With so many theatrical movies this year taking the “Part 1 of 2” approach, it’s quite weird to see a streaming movie actually get its second half and it ending up being a dud. Maybe it was just made to tide fans of the show over until the sequel manga gets adapted, but I must continue to stress that they should REALLLLLLLYYYYYY be doing anything but. The last show already ended pretty damn bad, but what they’ve already done in Four Knights is probably some of the lowest of the low crap to pull. I implore you, if such an adaptation should ever come out, CGI or no, please stay the hell away, from these movies and everything else in this franchise.