English Dub Review: Seven Mortal Sins “Sloth Online”

Sword Art Online: The Demon Boob Edition.

Sword Art Online was and arguably is a big deal in the anime community, taking the world by storm and spawning new intrigue in the “real people get stuck in a video game” genre. Now we got that Sword Art Online inspiration mixing in with the fan service and silliness of Seven Mortal Sins. The result of which makes this the most irritating, fan-servicey and hilariously moronic episode yet.

As the title surmises Lucifer is up against Sloth this week a.k.a. Belphegor and this time Sloth whisks Lucifer into her online game challenging her directly saying if Lucy can beat all her strongest players she will admit defeat. Lucifer gladly accepts the challenge and for a real change of pace isn’t first humiliatingly defeated by the Mortal Sin and starts wrecking havoc in her servers. So, Sloth gets the really brilliant idea to pull Maria into the game and train her to kill Lucifer, yah know? The demon lord who literally controls her heart and wouldn’t be able to kill her at all. It’s this contrived line of reasoning that baffles me most about the show. The fights with Lust and Greed were literal fights but now she has to beat Melancholy in a pop idol battle and beat Sloth at video games.

It’s what makes this show such a delight to watch at times when it just gives up any intentions of taking itself seriously and just acts like how it looks on the box. Just a skimpy excuse to have cute, big boobed ladies showing off their bodies in the most revealing of fashions. This episode was probably the most shameless of the series thus far just because the skimpiness almost doesn’t fit. Like for the battle with Lust, with the connection with sexual desire the stripping and the torture through arousal made sense, Greed and her stripping Lucifer to torture her into paying what she owed her made sense as well as the lewd scenarios were connected to the methods the Mortal Sins were using to push their evil. Even Melancholy’s use of skimpiness makes sense from a humiliation and pop idol sex appeal perspective.

But the use of skimpy costumes and armour, the scene where the lizard monster licks into Maria’s panties and the fact the final fight takes place in a hot spring where said skimpy armour loses all power, it is just over the top, plain and simple. The richest instance of this was Sloth saying the old cliché about video games. The more skin you show wearing your armour the stronger it is. Seriously? Seven Mortal Sins is gonna make that connection?

Other than that the episode is more a hodgepodge of Maria’s training, Lucifer laying about until her humiliating defeat at Maria’s hands (she always needs to lose at least once) and Levi appearing as an angel for literally no explained reason. Even the use of Sloth’s sin was pretty weak in comparison to the other sins. She makes her players stay around playing her game til they become detached from their real lives, losing their jobs, relationships and such which sound a lot more impactful than how it is depicted in the anime. Basically, it’s just like “yeahI guess I can stay longer.”

It’s a fun watch if you enjoy a fan service anime that isn’t taking itself seriously. But it still is clear it’s not a well-written show, mocking it for its stupidity takes away from the clear smarter elements that the show tries to portray and while I have been rating the last two episodes high it isn’t due to their quality. Quality wise I’d say the series fluctuates from a 3 to 5, but I admitted at some point that this show wasn’t gonna try more than be a fan service show. So take the score as how entertaining I found the episode despite that. It’s stupid and blunt with its boobs and ass shots but it definitely doesn’t make me bored and if that is your cup of tea then you will enjoy it too.