Seven Mortal Sins is a massively ambitious ecchi series nearly five years in the making. While it’s not quite Hobby Japan’s Magnum Opus, there’s still a lot to be impressed about.
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Torrent: Nyaa
Series Information
Production Company: Artland
Vintage: Spring 2017
Notable Seiyuu:
Thoughts on the anime
Keeping in tradition with Queen’s Blade and Samurai Girls, the story of Seven Mortal Sins is as skimpy as the outfits these girls are wearing. You can safely skip this anime, the compilation is all you really need.
While it’s true that Artland experienced existential financial troubles during the production of this series, it doesn’t appear that those issues affected the quality of the final product in any significant way. The production values are amazing, among the top five all time in the genre:
- Awesome character designs
- Excellent, relatively consistent art quality and animation
- Effective soundtrack. Outstanding OP/ED songs
- Plenty of big name seiyuu
- Kinji Yoshimoto back directing
- Production values remained very high all the way through, even in the specials
Hobby Japan went all out in hopes of recapturing the early success of the Queen’s Blade series. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out that way, with 7 Sins ending up with the same kind of mediocre numbers that far less ambitious ecchi anime have managed. Of course, the anime itself is an advertisement for figurines and other products, but given the mediocre BD/DVD sales figures and general lack of buzz, it would be a surprise if 7 Sins were as commercially successful as they had hoped it to be.
Even Queen’s Blade fell off the wagon when the novelty of hearing famous voice actresses voicing extremely well drawn naked chicks wore off. It was a groundbreaking concept in 2010. Today not so much.
Which doesn’t make it any less enjoyable for me, and I suspect most of you. But at this stage, it’s hard to be a money maker unless you find a way to engage the normies, the way that High School DxD Hero has expertly done. Hopefully Hobby Japan can find a way to do that because without them the ecchi genre would be on life support.
A few other thoughts. Even as a fanservice vehicle, this anime wasn’t perfect. Some people nitpicked the shit out of it. I get it. Nipples weren’t always shown that well or for long enough, often zipping by in the blink of an eye. And (especially in the TV broadcast) the brightness/contrast was ridiculously bad, making nipples nearly invisible. Thankfully this was somewhat corrected on blu-ray, and I was able to correct it further in the compilation edit.
There was also a few envelope pushing risque moments. Lust’s taint is not so subtly displayed in her special, and Astaroth’s gash is shown while she’s covered in blood. I guess the “body paint” effect of the blood allows the animators to get away with showing just about anything.
As far as the compilation goes. I feel that some series benefit more from compilations than others and this series is right at the top of the list in terms of how much the compilation improved it. The service is in the show may be plentiful but it’s spread out and sometimes hard to find. Having a condensed, organized form really helps. There’s also a lot of very quick nudity that was in need of edit help, not to mention all those near invisible nipples that become glorious after some color correcting.
And at two hours nineteen minutes, it’s the longest single season compilation yet (16 minutes longer than the 14 episode To Love-Ru Darkness 2nd). It was so big, I almost had to make it into two videos.
Favorite Character
This is so tough. I feel like any character would be a deserving pick.
Belphegor (Sloth) was my favorite going in, but unfortunately she barely had screen time. Same with Beelzebub (Gluttony). Maria was grating, and Lucifer (Pride) was boring, but both had a great bodies. Lucifer was actually pretty hot, though her character was so bland that it felt like a waste of Eri Kitamura’s talent.
Shizuka Itou is one of my fave seiyuu of all time, but she seemed like an odd fit for Belial (Vanity). As good as Itou is playing characters like Akeno and Meiko, in my opinion Belial needed a deep, sultry MILF voice instead (something along the lines of Claudette or Echidna from Queen’s Blade). Voice aside, Belial had a cool character design and a great (bare) ass that was pretty much always on full display. Unfortunately, the voice casting as well as the generic balloon boobs were a bit of a missed opportunity.
Leviathan (Envy) is the biggest cutie in the cast. She has the best ‘curves to height’ ratio as well. Her voice was a little obnoxious sure, but felt right on point for what her character was supposed to be. The Bandaid is fun quirk. Who bandaids their snatch anyway? She’s just a little too annoying to be the best character, but if I’m buying a figurine, this would be the first I’d get.
Astaroth (Melancholy) is voiced by Azusa Tadokoro (the voice of Fino Bloodstone) and I think this role is probably the best she’s had for her style in quite a while. Always a fan of her work and I think she does great here. Unfortunately the character itself barely gets any naked time which is a shame because Astaroth definitely has a nice bosom.
Satan (Wrath) was my least favorite character going in since she looked so monochrome and generic, but she grew on me fast. Tall, slender, and athletic, and with a voice that matches the archetype well. Definitely one of the hottest.
Mammon (Greed) has the largest bust (122 cm compared to Belial’s 117 cm) in the series, though one side by side comparison in the second to last special makes it look like Belial’s are noticeably bigger somehow. Anyway, Mammon is voiced by the great Yoko Hikasa. She actually felt like a poor match for the character initially, that is until Mammon’s “level up” special where Hikasa gets to put her talent for sensual noises on display. Whereas some of the mortal sins above didn’t get to show their boobs as much as you’d have liked, this was definitely not an issue for Mammon. In particular, her “level up” special was incredible (and amusing as well). One of my favorites of all time.
Last, there’s Asmodeus (Lust). As the name suggests, Asmodeus is the most sensual of the Mortal Sins and (in my opinion) the hottest. Like Belial, Asmodeus makes an effort to wear the skimpiest clothing possible, and knows how to work her way around a stripper pole. She’s also a huge masochist apparently. While her service is frustratingly non-nude for much of the show, by the time you reach the end of the series she she ends up topless plenty of times, and then there’s her legendary ass shake in the final special. Ass-Mode Deus indeed.
It’s really hard to pick a favorite, but if I had to pick one I’d go with Lust by the slimmest of margins over Greed.
Honorable mention goes to Gluttony. She would have been #1, but there just wasn’t enough flat justice to quite get there.
