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Reign of the Seven Spellblades
(aka: Nanatsu No Maken Ga Shihai Suru)

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Reign of the Seven Spellblades (Literature)
Oliver Horn: Don't cry.
Nanao Hibiya: Thank you.
"Enjoy not the sword of vengeance, but the sword of mutual love."
Nanao Hibiya

As spring dawns in year 1532 of the Great Calendar, fifteen-year-old mages from all walks of life arrive at Kimberly Magic Academy to begin their seven-year-long formal education in the arts of magic. An altercation with a troll at the entrance ceremony forges bonds between six of them that will serve them well, for life at Kimberly is anything but safe.

And for series protagonist Oliver Horn, talented mainly at adapting and modifying others' techniques, those bonds—especially with Nanao Hibiya, a samurai of the far east for whom magic is more instinct than thought—are as much complication as boon, for he came to Kimberly carrying secrets darker than the labyrinth that lies below it.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades (七つの魔剣が支配する Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai SuruTrans.) is a Dark Fantasy light novel series with Teen Drama elements written by Bokuto Uno (author of Alderamin on the Sky) with illustrations by Ruria Miyuki, published under Kadokawa's Dengeki Bunko imprint beginning in September 2018. There is also a Spin-Off volume, Side of Fire: Chronicle of Purgatory, released 7 July 2023, which fills out the backstory of Student Council President Alvin Godfrey and the Kimberly Campus Watch. The series won the bunkobon category in both the 2019 Light Novel Suki Shotenin Awards and the 2020 Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! competition.

A manga adaptation by Sakae Esuno (creator of Future Diary) was serialized in Monthly Shōnen Ace from 7 September 2018 to 11 November 2023, adapting the first three volumes of the original novels across 46 chapters.

The novels and manga were licensed by Yen Press for English publication beginning in 2021. In April 2024, they announced that a translation of Side of Fire was in production, which came out 15 October 2024. An audiobook series read by Kyle Omori began releasing in May 2024.

An anime adaptation from J.C. Staff and Warner Bros. Japan, directed by Masato Matsune, was announced during the 2021 Dengeku Bunko Winter Festival. It premiered 7 July 2023note  on Tokyo MX and BS11, and was simulcast on Crunchyroll with English, Hindi, and German dubs. It ran for fifteen episodes and concluded on 13 October, adapting the first three volumes of the original novels. The Blu-ray set includes a bonus Short Story from Bokuto Uno titled "Encore", filling in some of the events in the aftermath of volume 3.


Of those tropers who join Kimberly, on average, twenty percent will be consumed by the spell.


 
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Alternative Title(s): Nanatsu No Maken Ga Shihai Suru

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The Origins of Sword Arts

"Sword Arts". Pete Reston and Professor Luther Garland explain why mages in the setting carry swords: 400 years ago, a prominent archmage named Wilf Badderwell was killed in a fair duel against a nonmagical swordsman; postmortems of this event revealed that, within a radius of about two paces -- the "one-step, one-spell distance" -- no mage can cast a spell faster than an opponent can strike with a weapon. Ever since, mages have traditionally carried short swords called "athames" as a combination magic focus and sidearm for close combat.

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