Following its purchase of Knights of Sidonia, Netflix forayed into the exclusive anime market by acquiring the English streaming rights to one of Japan’s most popular series, The Seven Deadly Sins. The programme is based on the popular manga of the same name published by Kodansha and published in their Weekly Shnen Magazine. It follows the Seven Deadly Sins, a gang of disgraced knights on an action-packed epic adventure across the World of Britannia, a well-known faux-medieval European setting.
On November 1, 2015, Netflix released the anime’s complete 24-episode first season with subtitles and an English dub track. Three more seasons were released shortly after the Japanese release, and fans are already on the edge of their seats waiting for the next instalment of the saga.
The Seven Deadly Sins has been a regular performer for Netflix since its debut. The anime’s first four seasons all attracted a lot of attention, while the most recent season dropped in and out of the streamer’s top ten lists following its debut. Since the series’ Japanese production firms have already stated that season 5 is in the works, fans in the United States are wondering when a fresh batch of episodes will arrive on our side of the Pacific. Here’s what we’ve learned thus far.
When is the release date of The Seven Deadly Sins season 5?
TV Tokyo, which broadcasts the show in Japan, revealed early this year that Studio DEEN (a new production house this season) was hard at work on a fourth narrative arc. Due to variations in the way Netflix carves up the tranches of episodes they get from Japan, this “fourth arc” translates to the fifth season on Netflix. Initially, TV Tokyo planned to start showing new episodes in October 2020, but the epidemic thwarted those intentions (via Newsweek). The October release date would have meant that English-speaking fans might anticipate the new content to be on Netflix as early as July 2021 – a scenario that now seems doubtful.
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TV Tokyo is currently promoting a January 2021 debut date in Japan. In the past, Netflix has started streaming English episodes roughly five months after they first aired in Japan. Netflix customers will likely get their first peek in the autumn of 2021, presuming the newest arc has the series’ normal 24 episodes and airs weekly beginning the first week of January 2021.
It’s unknown whether Netflix would split up the new storyline into two seasons as they did in the past, but it appears to be a strong possibility. On American television, 24 episodes used to be the normal season length, but that is no longer the case.
What is the plot of season 5 of The Seven Deadly Sins?
Each group of episodes comes with a subtitle, as the Japanese distributor separates the episodes of The Seven Deadly Sins into arcs rather than seasons (which is really a more rational way of doing things). In Japan, Season 5 — or arc 4 depending on how you count — will be dubbed “Dragon’s Judgement” (via Monsters and Critics). Some sites mistranslated this subtitle as “Anger’s Judgement” at first, although the former has now been verified as the proper translation.
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We can only speculate on the narrative of the new storey because the episodes are still months away from being released in Japan. Meliodas revealed his demonic real form as the “leader of the Ten Commandments” towards the end of season 4, a revelation that appears to have enormous ramifications for the upcoming arc. After some critics claimed that A-1’s terrible work on the previous arc interfered with their ability to enjoy the programme, we can at least look forward to higher quality animation from Studio DEEN.
Which characters will be in The Seven Deadly Sins season 5?
According to Anime News Network, all of the primary Japanese voice actors from the previous season will reprise their roles in the next arc of The Seven Deadly Sins. Yûki Kaji and Bryce Papenbrook as Meliodas, Misaki Kuno and Cristina Valenzuela as fan favourite Hawk, Sora Amamiya and Erika Harlacher as Elizabeth, Aoi Yûki and Erica Mendez as Diane, Jun Fukuyama and Max Mittelman as King, Mamoru Miyano and Robbie Daymond as Glithunder and many more should all be back if Netflix follows suit and brings back the entire.
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What good would a fresh season of The Seven Deadly Sins be if the Sins themselves weren’t included? Meliodas’ whole team, as well as Liones’ youngest princess, Elizabeth, are set to play major roles in the new plot. While it’s not unheard of for an anime to switch gears between arcs and focus on a fresh group of characters, The Seven Deadly Sins’ creative DNA doesn’t allow for such a drastic change. Meliodas and Elizabeth are at the centre of the manga, and the anime is expected to follow suit.