Seven Mortal Sins or Sin: Nanatsu no Taizai is an anime from the 2017 Spring season by Artland and TNK based on a figure line from the creators of Queen's Blade.
The story follows the fallen archangel Lucifer, who was cast down from Heaven because of her pride. She briefly lands on Earth, where a girl named Maria Totsuka finds her and Lucifer gives her an angel's blessing on a whim, before falling to the lowest level of Hell. In hell, Lucifer meets Leviathan, and Leviathan explains to Lucifer about The Seven Deadly Sins, the seven demon king rulers of hell. After The Seven Deadly Sins seal Lucifer's powers, Lucifer goes on a journey with Maria and Leviathan to defeat them.
Now has a recap page.
It is available for legal streaming with subtitles on Crunchyroll here
, and with an English Dub on Funimation here.
Not to be confused with the other The Seven Deadly Sins. (Which is, coincidentally enough, also an ecchi series).
A spin-off series titled Seven Heavenly Virtues (Nanatsu no Bitoku) has been announced for Winter 2018, which follows the Seven Heavenly Virtues, the Foils of the Seven Deadly Sins, as they search on Earth for a 'True Messiah'.
A Mobile Game titled Seven Mortal Sins: X-TASY was released in June 2nd, 2021. It features both the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Heavenly Virtues, as well as original characters, and its story is a direct continuation of the anime. It received an international release in April 25th, 2022.
Please move any character tropes to the proper character page.
Tropes in Seven Mortal Sins:
- And the Adventure Continues:
- Belphegor's game exploits this trope. Even if the players manage to defeat the Demon Lord, Belphegor will simply create another one, restarting the entire plot. Of course, that's all a ploy to keep the players in the game longer and make them slothful like Belphegor herself.
- The series ends this way with Lucifer becoming the leader of the Seven Sins with Leviathan replacing Astaroth when the latter left hell to be with Belial and a war between Hell and Heaven is about to begin.
- Animation Bump: The animation of Astaroth’s music video that is shown at the end of episodes 4.5 and 5 is much more dynamic and fluid than any other scene in either episode.
- Armor Is Useless: The first armor Belphegor gives Maria in her game is an actual armor made of metal. It does protect her, but it's so heavy Maria can't actually move while wearing it. So Belphegor switches it for an incredibly skimpy outfit that actually has more defense than the proper armor.
- Artistic License – Religion:
- A curious example. From Maria's behavior and dialogue it's possible to infer that Christianity that exists in the world of the anime is near identical to ours, but the very premise of the anime – Lucifer only fell down on modern times and the Seven Deadly Sins can change – shows that it can’t be the exact same thing, which gives the writers some freedom to modify some details. Indeed, turns out that not only this Lucifer fell down millennia after her biblical counterpart, she is not actually the first angel to fall, just the most famous one.
- Of course, the series is only accurate when it comes to portraying correct Christian behavior (through Maria). When the subject is depicting angels and demons, it falls into all the common pitfalls. Such as portraying fallen angels as being different from "born demons"note and having those as the rulers of Hellnote .
- Ass Shove: When Lucifer gets hospitalized, Belial disguises herself as a nurse and subjects her to a humiliating and extremely painful suppository.
- Beach Episode: The first third of episode 3 takes place in a beach in Miami.
- Beat Still, My Heart: Lucifer rips out Maria's heart to make her immortal. In episode 11 Lucifer switches her heart with Maria's.
- Birdcaged: The end credits sequence shows Maria naked in a bird cage next to Lucifer.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lucifer claims all the Angels are like this, because everyone in Heaven is expected to pretend to be perfect. In comparison, she praises the Demon Lords because they at least are upfront about things.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: While at first it seemed that the series was going the Evil Versus Evil route, it ultimately turned into this. Surprisingly, the Sins are the Gray. Turns out that God is planning to purge both Earth and Hell to create a new world from scratch, as He has lost all hope on humans, who won't stop falling into sin. The Mortal Sins are opposing Him, and while they haven't said anything about stopping corrupting humans nor are they being entirely selfless in this battle (Lucifer suggested taking this chance to create a new world order with Hell on top), they are still portrayed as being much more noble and sympathetic than the fatalist forces of Heavens.
- Brick Joke: Not in the anime series, but in the short specials. The third special has Asmodeus giving Maria a massage, but closes off implying that the Demon Lord plans to do something else with a massager. Fast forward to the last special (eight months later in real life!), the same massager appears again and is actually being used to do sexual things, but it’s Maria that is using it on Asmodeus.
- Cast Full of Gay: The characters of the series can be split into three categories: The ones confirmed to be lesbians, the ones heavily implied to be lesbians, and the ones confirmed to be bisexuals. This even extends to the ''nameless extras", as the beach episode shows at least one lesbian couple among the ones entranced by Lust's beauty.
- Cat Fight: In a short special, Lucifer and Belial have a Capture the Flag competition. When they both slipped and failed to grab the object, they started to tear off each other's bikini tops. Lucifer decided that a Cat Fight would be much better competition between the two. Belial agrees and the two of them start to fight while Belphegor is in the background livestreaming to her viewers.
- Circles of Hell: Hell draws from The Divine Comedy, with Lucifer falling to Cocytus in the first episode. Episodes 9 and 10 show her going back to Hell, but this time she crosses all nine circles.
- Clip Show: Episode 4.5 is a recap of the previous 4 episodes.
- Clothing Damage: As expected from a series by the creators of Queen's Blade, this anime is really fond of this. In general, having a character lose all of their clothes in a fight is the number one way to show that they are completely outmatched.
- Crucified Hero Shot: Calling the Mortal Sins “heroes” would be stretching the “gray” part of Black-and-Gray Morality too far, but you do get to see people being crucified a lot in this anime. In fact, it seems to be the standard punishment for fallen angels when they are thrown out of Heaven. It’s hard to believe the Irony isn’t intentional.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: At first Lucifer is the one delivering one of those against Belial. But then she finds herself in the receiving end of one when Belial curses her and the other sins join the fight. This becomes somewhat of a pattern in the series, with many episodes featuring a character being defeated in battle only to turn the tables on their opponent when they go for a rematch. Episodes 8 and 12 are exceptions, both portraying some really hard fought battles.
- Didn't Think This Through: In Episode 2, Maria briefly manages to grab her heart, only for Lucifer to teleport it back to her and point out Maria had no idea how to put it back inside her anyway.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- The things Belial says after she fully absorbs Lucifer's power are clearly meant to evoke something else entirely. Given her personality, she may have done it on purpose to mock Lucifer.
- The second Blu-ray exclusive Short Special is about Leviathan replacing the band-aid she uses as underwear with a new one, but the scene is initially framed as her doing something else in the bathroom.
- Evil Versus Evil: The main conflict of the series consists of two Demon Lords representing two Deadly Sins battling against seven other Demon Lords who also represent Deadly Sins, so this trope was totally unavoidable. The only source of genuine good is Maria, who was dragged into the fight against her will. This lasts for about 8 episodes until it's revealed that God plans to purge Earth and Hell and most of the Demon Lords are more noble than they appear to be.
- Evil Virtues: The series likes to explore how the Seven Deadly Sins aren’t necessarily bad. In fact, if you know how to control them, they can actually become virtues.
- Determination/Valor: Lucifer (Pride) and Belial (Vanity) are both incredibly arrogant and prideful, but it’s precisely because of that they both go to great lengths to achieve their goals, absolutely refusing to give up until they have gotten what they wanted. Their willpower is just unbreakable.
- Diligence/Honor: Satan’s character shows that when Wrath is directed to the right way, it translates into a strong desire to uphold justice and protect others. Her love of battle translates into a desire to fight fairly, restoring Lucifer's strength to experience the best possible challenge.
- Gratitude/Loyalty: Astaroth's Melancholy causes her to be incredibly prone to doubting herself. As such, she responds strongly towards people that believe in her and support her efforts. She claims that Belial's kindness and support is the reason for her Undying Loyalty.
- Love: Maria believes that Leviathan’s Envy is the proof that she really is in love with Lucifer, and maintains that feeling envy is natural and not a sin. Likewise, she recognizes that Mammon's Greed originates from a mother's desire to provide the best possible life for her children, though she still has to remind her to slow down, so that she can actually spend time with her children.
- Passion: Asmodeus claims that by spreading her Lust she is also allowing humans to love each other, but Lucifer doesn’t buy it. On the other hand, Lucifer also insists that there is nothing sinful about "loveless sex".
- Selflessness: Beelzebub, perhaps the nicest of the Mortal Sins, only spreads the sin of Gluttony because she wants to teach people to appreciate good food.
- Exposed to the Elements: The Mortal Sins, with all their Stripperific outfits, gather in a place in the middle of Cocytus. Interestingly, Lucifer’s body freezes instantly when she first arrives there, while Leviathan who is right in front of her isn’t bothered at all by the cold. After the fallen angel is thawed out nobody is seen complaining about the cold again. We can only presume that the Demon Lords have some sort of magical protection against extreme temperatures.
- Fanservice: This anime has plenty, from Clothing Damage to acts of lesbianism.
- Garden Garment: In episode 6, Belphegor replaces Maria's destroyed clothes with a bikini made of leaves. Maria comments that it is very itchy and uncomfortable.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: As the animation shorts reveal, Lucifer and Belial aren't above engaging in games and silly contests when all is said and done.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold
- Lucifer is arrogant, prideful and took Maria's heart when she see her again but over time she does show she has a good heart as she genuinely cares about Maria and she also cares about the humans as well despite what she thinks about them as she goes against God and the forces of Heaven because they were planning to destroy all of humanity.
- Leviathan is a bitch to people and doesn't like Maria at first because she is the embodiment of Envy but she cares about Lucifer and loves her very much, also cares about Behemoth who she loves very much about and trusts as well and, despite how things went between them she also starts to care about Maria and they end up as Vitriolic Best Buds.
- Harmless Freezing: Lucifer is frozen in Cocytus early in the series and Leviathan and Astaroth suffer the same fate in later episodes. None of them is bothered in the slightest by it, and once they are thawed out they act as if nothing happened. Justified since they are supernatural Demon Lords who show many different powers through the series.
- Improbably Female Cast: There are only 4 named characters in the series that are NOT female: Behemoth, Gnosis, Charon and God. What's more, both Behemoth and Gnosis are demons with non-humanoid forms. We know the latter is male because of his voice, but Behemoth is The Speechless, so we can’t even be sure of its gender. And God is, well, the big G Himself. On top of all that, Gnosis is a Satellite Character to Belial, Charon is a Bit Character that is only on-screen for a few minutes and God is The Ghost. Interestingly, nobody seems to be concerned about how seemingly every important Demon Lord in Hell and every Archangel in Heaven is female. It's just a fact everybody in the series takes for granted.
- Invisible to Normals: Regular humans can't see angels or demons, with the exception of Maria. It's later shown that demons can turn off their invisibility so they can interact with humans and get them to sell their souls.
- Ironic Hell: All the punishments Belial had in store for the Mortal Sins in case they betrayed her bear a bit of irony (and a couple of references to Dante’s Inferno). Asmodeus has her body ravaged by a hurricane she herself created, Beelzebub has food forced down her throat, Mammon is trapped in the same torture device she trapped Lucifer in, Belphegor is trapped in a running machine that will burn her if she stops running, Satan is swallowed by the flesh of the dead people she sent to Hell.
- Laughably Evil: The Sins can provide laughs in comedic situations, especially Leviathan, the resident Butt-Monkey. The special shorts for the anime are dedicated to showcase this trope, coupled with Fanservice and Villains Out Shopping.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: In episode 6, Maria finds Leviathan cosplaying as an angel. Levi orders her to never tell anyone about this, especially Lucifer. Although Maria obeys, Lucifer eventually catches Levi in the outfit.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Belphegor tricks Maria into fighting Lucifer and gives her tools that make her a match for the fallen angel.
- Level-Up at Intimacy 5: One of the rewards for raising the Karma Rank of a character in the mobile game is a boost to said character's stats.
- Literal Change of Heart: In episode 11, Belial’s attempts to kill Lucifer by manipulating Maria to stab her by taking her heart hostage. Lucifer foils her plan by switching her heart with Maria’s.
- Loss of Inhibitions: Asmodeus accuse Mariah of being a Covert Pervert when she captures her in Episode 3, and after drugging Mariah with a powerful aphrodisiac in one of the specials, finds out to her horror just how right she was. Without her inhibitions, the sweet and innocent Mariah proves herself to be a bigger freak than the Demon Lord of Lust◊.
- Love Is in the Air: During the Beach Episode there is a shot of many people hugging each other, showing that making people lust over her isn’t the only thing Asmodeus does to spread the sin of lust.
- Lyrical Dissonance: One of Lucifer's attempts at becoming a more popular singer than Astaroth involves making a stereotypical idol music video, complete with frilly dresses, upbeat music and an overly-sugary montage of Lucifer doing girly things alongside Maria and Leviathan. The thing is, she is still using the downer lyrics Astaroth, Demon Lord of Melancholy, thought up.
- Male Gaze: Plenty of it. It helps that most of the Demon Lords don't have any problems with being seen nude, so whenever they lose their clothes they are in no hurry to get dressed.
- A Match Made in Stockholm: The relationship between Lucifer and Maria begins with the former forcing the later to become her servant and giving her immortality that she never asked for. By the end of the series they are both doing everything they can to protect the other.
- Monster of the Week: In this case, "Sin of the Week". Each episode focuses on a different Sin, with the first two introducing the basic plot and main characters (the Sins of Pride and Envy) to the audience and the following episodes showing their fights against the Mortal Sins. This format lasts for 8 episodes.
- Mood Whiplash: The second half of episode 7 is a collection of some of the most heartwarming moments of the series, with the Villain Protagonist finally showing some genuine displays of affection to the people that have been following her from the start. Then the episode ends with Maria getting kidnapped by Belial.
- Mud Wrestling: In episode 10, after they both run out of magic, Leviathan and Astaroth are reduced to wrestling and flinging mud at each other.
- Musical Episode: Episode 5. While most episodes have an insert song, this is the only one to have the characters sing in-universe, on top of having multiple songs instead of just one.
- The Nudifier: Most of the Demon Lords can do this, though their methods are all different. Most egregious, the game Belphegor and Mammon made has a hot spring with this effect.
- Palette Swap: The legendary equipment Maria receives from Leviathan is just a re-color of her previous armor. Since they are inside a video-game created by Mammon and Belphegor, this naturally gets lampshaded.Belphegor: ''It's cheaper to re-skin the same outfit in different colors."
- Panty Fighter: The camera won't let you forget how Stripperific the outfits of the Sins are, even when they are fighting.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: After Lucifer and Leviathan leave Hell, the other sins ask Belial to get dressed because her outfit was destroyed. She says she's too busy basking in her victory to care.
- Pool Scene: Episode 2 has one in the pool of a high class hotel.
- Psycho Rangers: The Seven Deadly Sins and their counterparts, the Seven Heavenly Virtues. Which are which depends on who you ask.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Subverted. The Mortal Sins all qualify as villains in a way or another, but the only ones that have both red and black in their outfits are Mammon, who has a Freudian Excuse, and Astaroth, who is the Token Good Teammate.
- Presumably, Belphegor was invoking this trope when she made Lucifer's clothes change from white to red and black inside her game. Lucifer was roleplaying as the Evil Overlord after all.
- Relationship Values: The mobile game has a Karma Rank (which ironically is not an example of the Karma Meter trope) for every character/unit. It's possible to raise it by giving gifts to your unit or through dialogue choices in the main story, which grants rewards like items and stat boosts, and unlock the Kizuna Quests of the character. In an inversion of the norm, because the main character is a Demon Lord, it's the meanest and rudest answers that produce the most points.
- Schmuck Bait: Who would've thought that one coin would trigger a cage trap? Maria sure didn't.
- Sequel Hook: Lucifer may have defeated Michael, but the God and the other members of the Heavenly Virtues are still in Heavens, planning to purge Earth and Hell to create a new world from scratch. The series ends with Lucifer and the Mortal Sins preparing themselves to wage war against God. The mobile game follows this hook.
- Seven Deadly Sins: The main characters of the series.
- Seven Heavenly Virtues: They make a cameo, though only Michael plays a role in the story. Lucifer used to be their leader, until her Fall.
- Sexy Soaked Shirt: Invoked by Lucifer when she throws water at Maria’s white one-piece bikini to prove to Asmodeus that seducing humans isn’t hard for anyone.
- Shown Their Work: A lot of people thought it was weird that the cast includes Demon Kings of Melancholy and Vanity, as those two aren’t part of the 7 Deadly Sins. However, they were part of the original list of 8 Evil Thoughts crated by the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus. It was only two centuries later that Melancholy and Vanity were absorbed by Sloth and Pride, which is probably why Belphegor and Astaroth are close friends in the series. Also, the only sin in the standard list that wasn’t in the original list by Ponticus? Envy, which is also not one of the original group of sins in the plot of the anime.
- The writers also know quite a bit about Dante’s Inferno. In the first episode Lucifer falls into Cocytus after being banished from Heavens, as it is described in Dante's work. Episodes 9 and 10 shown her going from the Gate of Hell all the way back to Cocytus, with each circle being based on their equivalente from Inferno. We also get to see the appropriate Mortal Sin guarding some circles, though there is a bit of artistic license here (Satan is found on the eight circle, when those guilty of the sin of wrath are sent to the fifth. There isn't a circle for the slothful, so Belphegor is put on the sixth circle, meant for heretics.)
- Skinny Dipping: Both Leviathan and Lucifer are doing this during the Pool Scene in episode 2, as neither of them have prepared swimsuits or care about showing off their bodies. Lucifer then forces Maria to follow suit with magic. Lucifer is seen doing this again in episode 5.
- Slut-Shaming: Defied and then Inverted. Lucifer explains she doesn’t see anything wrong with loveless sex, and even mocks Asmodeus in her face for thinking that "evangelizing about the benefits of sex" is an action sinful enough to qualify her as a Mortal Sin.
- Soul Jar: Lucifer traps Maria's heart in one.
- Spit-Trail Kiss: A spit-trail can be seen in one of the BD specials when Belphegor and Astaroth kiss. Although it was all inside Astaroth's head.
- Stealth Pun: The third Blu-ray exclusive Short Special shows Satan trying to give children their Christmas presents, complete with a matching outfit. That's right, Satan was cosplaying as Santa!
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- In episode 3 Leviathan sees Asmodeus pole dancing and tries to one up her to impress Lucifer. Asmodeus quickly demonstrates that there is far more skill involved in pole dancing than meets the eye, and Leviathan makes a fool of herself in her attempts to mimic her moves.
- In episode 6, after losing a fight with Lucifer, Belphegor replaces Maria's destroyed clothing with a Garden Garment. Maria quickly notes how unpleasant it feels, saying it's itchy.
- The eating contest between Lucifer and Beelzebub finishes with both girls being sent to the hospital due to gastric problems.
- In the series the fact that Leviathan uses a Band-Aid in lieu of panties is treated as a source of comedy and Fanservice. The second Blu-ray exclusive Short Special shows that Levi’s trips to the bathroom are quite painful and uncomfortable because of it.
- In the following special Satan learns that climbing down a chimney is not the easy task Santa Claus makes it look like, especially if you are six feet tall.
- Through His Stomach: Attempted by Leviathan in episode 2 when she offers to cook a "Hellish full course meal" for Lucifer. It doesn't work, but Lucifer did enjoy the food.
- Training Montage: Maria goes through a very tongue-in-cheek and Fansevicey one in episode 6.
- Translation Convention: Episodes 3, 4 and 7 respectively take place in Miami, London and Paris, so it's safe to say that a good chuck of the dialogue in those episodes isn't actually being spoken in Japanese. As for the main characters, the Mortal Sins are explicitly stated to have been alive for centuries, if not millennia, and their "job" requires then to interact with humans, so them knowing many languages is no surprise (But which language they speak when they are not in the presence of humans is anybody's guess). And Maria is a high school student, so her knowing English also isn't a big deal, though admittedly the idea that she just so happened to also be fluent in French does pushes the Willing Suspension of Disbelief a bit, even if it's not impossible. (Alternatively, the nurses in the hospital in Paris were the ones speaking English for her convenience.)
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Lucifer, Maria and Leviathan change clothes several times through the series.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: We see many people interacting with the Demon Lords unawares of their real identities and none of them seem to care that they all have horns. There may be some disguise magic involved, but since nothing of the sort is specified, this trope is still very much in effect.
- Subverted in episode 7, where it's finally confirmed there is indeed magic involved.
- Visual Pun: In episode 11 Lucifer gives Maria her heart. Figuratively and literally.
- Villains Out Shopping: Some of the special shorts seem to have be made to answer the question: "What the Mortal Sins do when they are not gathering followers and corrupting them?". The answer can be quite silly sometimes. For example, the 11th special has Belphegor challenging Belial and Mammon to a Twister game, where she cheats by using her tail as an extra limb.
- Walk on Water: Lucifer does this in Episode 2.
- Wham Episode: Episode 7. At first it looks like just another episode in the same Monster of the Week format: Lucifer challenges the Mortal Sin of the week, there is some Fanservice in the middle of the “fight”, Lucifer and Maria get a bit closer, Lucifer wins and they depart to meet the next Mortal Sin. But this episode ends with Belial stealing Maria’s heart and then kidnapping her, destroying the status quo of the series.
- Wham Line: This line said by Lucifer in episode 9 when the Mortal Sins question if she is planning on destroying Hell.Lucifer: "God is the one trying to do that."
- What If?: The seventh and last BD short special seems to be an alternative take on the scene where Asmodeus kidnaps Maria in episode 3.
- Wimp Fight: The "fight" between Leviathan and Astaroth in episode 10. It starts like you would expect of a battle between Demon Lords, but it quickly degenerates into Mud Wrestling. When the episode cuts back to those two later, they both have completely lost control of the situation. Leviathan is even being dragged along with Astaroth by the current of a river despite being able to control water!
- World of Buxom: The only girls in the series with a small chest are the Token Mini-Moe of each group. Everybody else has a breast size that varies between "moderately big" and "humongous".
