All the Announcements from Anime Expo 2024

The Apocalypse is Nigh: Season Two of The Seven Deadly Sins Four Knights of the Apocalypse

ANN's coverage of Anime Expo 2024 sponsored by Yen Press and Ize Press!

When we last left off, our titular four knights had finally been brought together despite the warning of the prophecy and we're now staring down the big bad of the series, King Arthur. The preview displayed at Anime Expo 2024 comprised the first half of episode two of season two, which is nearly finished with its production at the time of this writing. In fact, at the end of the panel, it was made clear that there's only one more recording session for the final episode.

Speaking of voice acting, it is still a highlight in season two based off of this preview. We have King Arthur boldly proclaiming his goals to save humanity by wiping out all other races as he tries to entice his citizens by promising a world where they could be reunited with those that have been killed by other races in the past. I do respect the fact that pretty much none of the background characters went along with King Arthur's plan and everyone was just in agreement that he was talking crazy.

It is a little bit of a shame that the previous protagonist of The Seven Deadly Sins, Meliodas, seemed to take center stage for this episode. A lot of focus was on him talking with Arthur while Percival just sits in the background. The action is at least fun and kinetic, but this episode felt more like it was celebrating the old than progressing the new. However, Nakaba Suzuki made an interesting point during the panel about how he'll be very sad when a certain character leaves the anime. It's unknown if he was talking about Meliodas or Percival, but whoever he was talking about, they did seem to be an important character and while vague, it did allude to a paradigm shift for the series moving forward. I am certainly looking forward to getting to that point.

On the subject of series creator Nakaba Suzuki, a lot of the panel was focused on his involvement in the production of the anime. It turns out that he is actually very heavily involved. On top of his usual chapter output, he is also overseeing a bunch of little story details to make sure that everything is true to the world he created. He even sits in on the voice acting and gives advice, though he also admits he does show up to the recording sessions as a fan and his editor has actually needed to pull him away from the anime recording sessions so he could focus on his other work. It's clear there's a great deal of passion being poured into this production and it's always nice to know more about the relationship between the original creator and the anime production staff. There's a lot of potential for season two to be even better than the first season, but we will have to wait and see.