The manga and anime for Seven Deadly Sins have both been huge successes, continuing to retain popularity as other series' come and go. Some of the biggest points of praise have been the amazing fight scenes, which stand out even among other shonen shows. That reputation may be changing, however, if the anime's third season is anything to go by. Though most anime have animation errors from time to time, Seven Deadly Sins has become rife with poor animation, terrible fight scenes, and a generally amateurish production from a low-rate studio.
DO YOU EVEN LIFT, MELIODAS?
The newest season of the popular anime is an absolute assault on the eyes, featuring animation errors, bad scale, and anatomy that would make even Rob Liefeld groan. How did this come to be, especially since the series had been such a big success? For its first two seasons, as well as the movie, Prisoners of Sky, Seven Deadly Sins was animated by A-1 Pictures. This studio had previously worked on such hits as Blue Exorcist, The Idolmaster and most notably, Sword Art Online. Though the first two seasons of A-1's anime adaptation of Seven Deadly Sins were popular, the movie signaled a potential downward trend.
Receiving middling reviews befitting a filler storyline of its caliber, the movie was also a box office disappointment, quickly falling out of the box office Top 10 in Japan. Due to this turn of events, A-1 abandoned the series to instead focus on more successful stalwarts such as Sword Art Online and Fate. From there, the series would be taken over by Studio DEEN, a company already known for supplying bad animation in series such as KonoSuba.
The rushed production for the third season was made worse by the fact that DEEN already had a busy plate, leading it to outsource much of the work to studio, Marvy Jack. Though Marvy Jack has been involved with some higher-profile projects such as Digimon Hunter Tri and Fairy Tail, many of these simply involved background animation or were on a per-episode basis. Giving the bulk of the animation to such a C-list studio, especially for a series which had proven itself popular, shows how contentious and hurried the production of Season 3 was.
SEVEN DEADLY SINS ISN'T ALONE
Bad animation and art errors are nothing new in the world of anime, and fans are becoming quicker than ever to pick up on them. The most egregious recent examples of this include Dragon Ball Super, which became known for giving characters fat and sometimes dog-like faces. Season 2 of One-Punch Man was noticeably inferior to its standout first season, with the change in animation studios (and subsequent decrease in animation quality) being just one of several issues the anime faced.
Perhaps the worst example is the revival of Berserk. This new series continues after the movies that followed the original, cult shonen anime, recasting the story in a 2D/3D animation hybrid. This jarring juxtaposition was experimental on paper and made outright nightmarish in execution with its pitiful, stilted CGI.
As for Seven Deadly Sins, fans have already made their grievances known with the show's terrible new art direction. Other horrible animation decisions include blood being censored to that of a dubious white substance, as well as the manga's exciting fight scenes being rendered laughable thanks to the horrendous animation. The poor quality of these shows' animation stems from the current culture in anime production, which aims to push out as much product as soon as possible, no matter what. Unfortunately, this practice has claimed many the reputation of several otherwise beloved shows, and Seven Deadly Sins is sadly no different now.