is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Nakaba Suzuki. It was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine from October 2012 to March 2020, with the chapters collected into 41 volumes. Featuring a setting similar to the European Middle Ages, the story follows a titular group of knights representing the seven deadly sins. The manga has been licensed by Kodansha USA for English publication in North America, while the chapters were released digitally by Crunchyroll in over 170 countries as they were published in Japan.

A-1 Pictures adapted the series into a three-season anime television series that ran from October 2014 to June 2018, and one theatrical film: Prisoners of the Sky. Studio Deen produced two further seasons that ran from October 2019 to June 2021, and a second theatrical film: Cursed by Light. Alfred Imageworks and Marvy Jack then produced a two-part film for Netflix: Grudge of Edinburgh, released in 2022 and 2023. Funimation licensed the home video rights to the first season, while Netflix acquired the English streaming rights to the anime and films.

In 2015, The Seven Deadly Sins won the 39th Kodansha Manga Award in the category. The manga has over 55 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series. In 2021, Suzuki began Four Knights of the Apocalypse as a sequel to the series.

Premise

The Seven Deadly Sins are a band of knights in the land of who had disbanded ten years earlier after being framed for plotting a coup against the Liones Kingdom, the Holy Knights who sequestered them before taking control in the wake of a rebellion they organized. Liones' third princess, Elizabeth Liones, finds the Seven Deadly Sins' leader, Meliodas, before they track down his comrades so they can clear their names and liberate Liones from the Holy Knights, who were manipulated by a demon named Fraudrin into unsealing the Demon Race from their prison.

Production The Seven Deadly Sins began as a one-shot that was published in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine on November 22, 2011. Nakaba Suzuki drew more than twenty versions of the pilot chapter. One of these manuscripts, "Chapter X", was released in English on Kodansha USA's website in 2015. For the series, Suzuki borrowed the names of characters from tales about King Arthur, but used his original ideas for their personalities and the story itself. He explained that ever since he had become a manga artist, he had wanted to write a fantasy story with King Arthur as a motif, "but I couldn't draw the characters and it was always rejected" by the editorial department. So he started drawing modern manga stories as a way to practice, and eventually lost interest in fantasy until his editor read one of his earlier one-shots and suggested it. "In that sense, it's a very emotional thing. I think if I had drawn it when I was younger, it wouldn't have turned out like this."

The relationship between Meliodas and Elizabeth was decided on from the beginning, but the author thought up everything else weekly as he went in order to keep it unpredictable. In order to surprise readers, he purposely made the appearances of some of the titular group of knights very different from their wanted posters that appear in the first chapter and had others look the same as their poster, but gave them "horrible" personalities. Although it was decided to make the protagonist of the series a "child", Suzuki struggled with designing Meliodas' profile because the character is actually an adult. He said the most difficult part was his hair; ultimately deciding on "fluffy" hair like a boy from a foreign country, which he had never done before. In the pilot chapter, the character had long, straight hair, which the author said was not as cute. Suzuki said he always made sure to show the subtly different relationships between the members of the titular group of knights. For example, he said that while Ban is Meliodas' best friend, King is only a teammate with whom he does not talk. All seven have such relationships, which the author called realistically human. Because he felt it would be too convenient to have seven enemies oppose the Seven Deadly Sins and fight them one-on-one, Suzuki decided on having ten with the Ten Commandments. This way, characters could fail and there would be another who can defeat many by themselves, making it unpredictable for readers. However, the author has stated that Escanor ended up being "too strong". Suzuki said that because the series is the story of Meliodas and Elizabeth, he planned for the manga to have a happy ending from the very beginning; "I didn't want to make it an ending that left people feeling uneasy. [...] I want to draw things that make people feel good when they read them."

Suzuki draws his manuscripts with pen and paper, stating that it does not feel like drawing manga without them. Although, he noted that the tones and Copic markers that he uses are being discontinued one after another. The manga artist also refuses to use assistants due to his contrary personality. He has done this since he began his career, when an editor told him he could not do it without one, and he wanted to prove him wrong. Suzuki said that drawing by himself allows him to take breaks to play games while working, and drink alcohol.

Media Manga

Written and illustrated by Nakaba Suzuki, The Seven Deadly Sins was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from October 10, 2012, to March 25, 2020. Kodansha collected its chapters into 41 individual volumes, released from February 15, 2013, to May 15, 2020. Because he prefers physical books, Suzuki asked that the digital editions of the be released one month after the print version. Suzuki created the three-chapter manga that was included in limited editions of the anime adaptation's first three home video sets in 2015. A book compiling The Vampire of Edinburgh and side stories, and the pilot one-shot was published on July 17, 2018, under the title . Suzuki mentioned that he had plans for additional side stories that would be published after the main series finished. , a one-shot following Ban's son, was published in Weekly Shōnen Magazine on August 5, 2020. In January 2021, Suzuki began Four Knights of the Apocalypse as a sequel to The Seven Deadly Sins.

In 2013, The Seven Deadly Sins was licensed for English language release in North America by Kodansha USA. They published the first volume on March 11, 2014, and the 41st and final volume on January 26, 2021. As the manga was serialized in Japan, it was released simultaneously in English digitally by Crunchyroll in over 170 countries. Kodansha USA published the Original Sins book on October 26, 2021, and began re-releasing The Seven Deadly Sins in an omnibus format that compiles three of the original volumes into one on February 1, 2022.

Spin-offs

A special issue of Weekly Shōnen Magazine, published on October 19, 2013, featured a small crossover between Suzuki's The Seven Deadly Sins and Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail, where each artist drew a yonkoma (four-panel comic) of the other's series. An actual crossover chapter between the two ran in the magazine's combined 4/5 issue of 2014, which was released on December 25, 2013. Suzuki wrote the one-shot A Dangerous Mission for the November 2014 issue of the shōjo manga magazine Nakayoshi, released on October 3, 2014. He also created a comedic one-shot depicting how Meliodas and Hawk first met that ran in the October 20, 2014 issue of Magazine Special. From February 24 to May 10, 2015, two more spin-off manga by Nakaba were available on the smartphone and tablet application Manga Box. is about Hendrickson and Dreyfus' younger years, while is set after the Vaizel Fight Festival arc and follows Gilthunder. Suzuki created an original 40-page manga that was distributed during screenings of the Prisoners of the Sky film.

A comedic spin-off series by Juichi Yamaki, titled and imagining the characters as high school students, ran in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine from August 9, 2014, to October 8, 2016. It was collected into four volumes. , a comedic spin-off by Chiemi Sakamoto that imagines the characters as actors performing in a live-action TV show, ran in Aria from November 28, 2015, to October 28, 2017. It was collected into four volumes.

A comedic yonkoma titled and written by Masataka Ono that depicts King as an aspiring manga artist, began on February 20, 2016, in Magazine Special before transferring to the Manga Box app on February 1, 2017, and ending later that year. Its chapters were collected into three volumes. Yō Kokukuji's The Seven Deadly Sins: Seven Days ~The Thief and the Holy Girl~, a manga adaptation of Mamoru Iwasa's novel The Seven Deadly Sins: Seven Days, was serialized in Shōnen Magazine Edge from January 17 to September 2017 and shows how Ban and Elaine met in more detail.

Anime

In April 2014, the 20th issue of Weekly Shōnen Magazine announced that The Seven Deadly Sins was being adapted into an anime television series. The staff was revealed in the combined 36/37 issue of the year: created by A-1 Pictures, directed by Tensai Okamura, written by Shōtarō Suga, with Keigo Sasaki providing character designs, and Hiroyuki Sawano composing the music. The first series aired on MBS, TBS and other JNN stations for 24 episodes from October 5, 2014, to March 29, 2015.

A second series was confirmed on September 27, 2015, to air in 2016. This turned out to be a four-episode anime television special featuring an original story by Nakaba Suzuki, titled The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of Holy War, that aired from August 28 to September 18, 2016, on MBS and TBS. The special was produced by A-1 Pictures, directed by Tomokazu Tokoro, and written by Yuniko Ayana and Yuichiro Kido, featuring character designs by Keigo Sasaki. The music was composed by Hiroyuki Sawano and Takafumi Wada.

A third season, titled The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of The Commandments, was announced at the "Nanatsu no Taizai FES" event in July 2017 and aired for 24 episodes from January 13 to June 30, 2018. Jōji Furuta and Takao Yoshioka replaced Tensai Okamura and Shōtarō Suga as director and series composer, respectively, while the other main staff members returned to reprise their roles.

For the fourth season, the series switched studios; animated by Studio Deen with Susumu Nishizawa and Rintarō Ikeda as director and series composer, respectively. Hiroyuki Sawano, Kohta Yamamoto, and Takafumi Wada returned to reprise their roles as the music composers. Titled The Seven Deadly Sins: Imperial Wrath of The Gods, it aired for 24 episodes from October 9, 2019, to March 25, 2020, on TV Tokyo and BS TV Tokyo.

A fifth season, titled The Seven Deadly Sins: Dragon's Judgement, was slated to premiere in October 2020 on TV Tokyo and BS TV Tokyo. However, it was delayed to January 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A special program that celebrated the "charm" of the anime TV series was released on January 6, 2021, while the fourth season aired for 24 episodes from January 13 to June 23, 2021. The main staff and cast members, from the previous season, reprised their roles.