Discussion When do you think the series dropped in quality substantially? (I.E Which arc/chapter)

[OtakuFreak]

I'm pretty sure that most can agree that the series has dropped in quality overall.. so I wanted to find out where most people thought in which arc/chapter this happened.

For me, the series dropped heavily in quality at around the mark of 4C-Mael getting defeated by King's power-up and the Demon King contradicting every ideal/belief he has in purgatory.

So, around 280 was when the quality fell hard.

 

[Arjuna]

For me post Meliodas's revival,it slowly started declining.But it had seriously good qualities then but when Mel defected to the DC the quality of the manga started falling heavily.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 31, 2019, Original Post Date: Jul 31, 2019 ---

The Arc will be Holy war 2.0

Chapter no. around 260 i think.

 

[Estarossa173]

I’d say it started showing signs with the byzel tournament. Where Escanor transformed at NIGHT.

But it really started to decline in the defense of liones arc, with the commandments being being fodderized/humiliated along with Merlins “oh, I forgot I was resistant to the curses of the commandments” BS.

After this arc, the quality started going back up for a little while until the holy war arc. Now THIS is where the quality fell the hardest.

 

[MrSchmitty7]

Started going downhill after King’s power up. I like King, but having him no diff (and hold back) against the dude with essentially the highest shown power level at the time was pretty depressing

 

[titantron91]

When the Commandments started dying like flies.
Lots of bullshit happened.
1. Escanor got buffed by having an imaginary sun in his mind. WTF that never even happened ever again.
2. Merlin started pulling out hax out of her butt and actually forgetting that she has stuff all along. Okaaay?
3. Fraudrin actually having a heart for Griamore out of nowhere wtf?
4. Drole and Gloxinia having to die for nothing substantial?

Quality resumed when Estarossa started hunting for Decrees and everyone discovered why Mael was demonified.
Went down once again when Nakaba couldn't decide on how in the world can he make Mael lose after all the buildup.

Outside Maelstarossa, quality resumed again when the Holy War resumed and shit went shittier again when the Demon King showed off his PhD on jobbing.

 

[Tio]

Second Byzel festival!

When Meliodas domined 8 commandments i vomited,the manga was dead.

 

[Samael Morningstar]

After king foddrrizing Mael 4C, after that there were a lot of retcons, inconsistency and logic got his ass handed to it.
I would Estarossa did it all, it was rightly said about Estarossa that when this man awakens from his dreams the nightmare begins, it actually became true he made the entire manga a nightmare for us

 

[Redworld96]

Not a fan of the moment when King had to get the power up (although I am still one of the few here which sees his power is accorded to his status and the power up wasn’t invented at all) but I wouldn’t have wanted that final for the Mael Arc. If some sins were together, they should have ended with a team work, not with a soloing of one of them. But the funny fact of all of this, is that the 4C Mael VS Sins was the best written fight of the New Holy War Arc, because since then things got to only worse: Meliodas at the very end of purgatory, The Sinner being such a disappointment despite of Merlin’s warning of being a big threat, and not gonna talk about Meliodas/Ban VS DK first round ....

Analyzing the New Holy War Arc, the 4C Mael plot was the only good thing. He even looked like a real good villain.

So I would say around 290-295s more or less.

 

[Shadowlord123]

Around chapter 180 for me. That is the Defense of Liones arc and god I've never seen a series going downhill so fast. This is the arc in which Nakaba thought that have all the Ten Commandments' roster be wiped out by Mel and Escanor (Merlin with the asspulls too) was a good idea. Not gonna lie, this arc almost ruined the series for me. He basically shitted on all the work done before. By that point, I also heard that Nakaba was sick and I thought that was the reason for this arc to be so bad compared to the others done before that. After chapter 200 it looked like the series got better again. We got a nice Holy War flashback introducing the AA and Elizabeth. We saw them fight with the Commandments, OG Gowther and Doll Gowther's backstory, Mel and Eli's journey with the curse (chapter 224 is probably still the best in the series), the Gods being intoduced and some fun fights. Mael's plot twist was also pretty well done and as a villain he was threating. His backstory was nice too. At that point, it looked like the series pretty much had regained its original charm but then chapter 280 came out with King fodderizing Mael with basically no effort because of his friends. From that point onwards, pretty much everything has been awful. The DK got treated like a joke multiple times and even Estarossa/Mael had more impact/threat as a villain. Some Sins like Merlin and Diane got way more stronger with basically no reason at all (Merlin fodderized the Masters and scratched the DK and Diane damaged an Indura of Favor). Even the power-ups that had an explanation were ridiculous and some of them even nonsensical. Some characters like the Sinner got introduced only to serve as hype tools for other characters and so on and so forth, and this is such a damn shame because the series as a whole has a lot of potential. Even as of now, I still think this, but for some reason Nakaba choose to not put that potential into use.

 

[RisaArias]

Kings power up left me dumbfounded. Then Emo Mel, Wild and Ban outdoing the DK was quite disappointing. So around chapter 280.

 

[everythingnice]

After Mael vs Sins ended began the time where I was somewhat getting bored. I didn't actually have a problem with it, but the disappointment which came from the Epilogue chapters and then the huge Trollslap on our faces... Plus with all the crap Merlin had already started invented at the right moment was probably the only thing that just made me furious. I was still disappointed, but not completely mad until the moment Escanor got Sunshine back. I guess I'm over my anger now, but there's no denying that my disappointment with the DK being a joke and lack of tension in fights where we know what would happen just kills me.

 

[Ema919]

It was still decent until we found out that the final boss was a complete joke. But the OG demon being trash was a low point too. I really liked how Nakaba handled Zeldris tho, best villain.

 

[Jorden Rivera]

The downfall of this series, for me at least, came from the mishandling of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments had arguably the best entrance and hype in this series. From their initial introduction to Galan's fight with three of the sins, the commandments felt like unstoppable juggernauts. This was something that the series had been missing, because a lot of the prior confrontations felt empty and without tension. Then Meliodas got his "full" power back and beat Galan in five seconds. Now, this didn't ruin things, because from an instinctual standpoint, everybody knew that this was going to happen and we also could infer that Galan was on the weaker half of the commandments. Those two reasons allowed the group as a whole to maintain its initial hype. However, when Escanor was introduced, it felt like their threat level went right down the drain. Meliodas fighting Gloxinia & Drole at the same time didn't help matters. Luckily, they once again found their footing when they "killed" Meliodas. Even if we knew that he was going to come back, the impact of killing the main character did help them maintain their intimidation factor (even if it was a 9 vs 1). Unfortunately, everything changed during the Battle of Liones.

The set-up of this battle was immediately sloppy, in my opinion, because of the one month time-skip we were given. The skip is ultimately unnecessary, and only creates questions that never get answered. Why did King and Diane abandon Liones and Ban? What made Gloxinia and Drole decide to go against the Ten Commandments? What was Escanor doing for a month while the demons ravaged Britannia? Where was Merlin? What took the demons so long to take over Liones? These questions don't really enter your mind at first, but on reread they stick out like crazy. Now Escanor vs Estarossa is a good idea that was concluded poorly. The strongest sin taking on (what we suspected was) the strongest commandment makes sense. The conclusion of the fight feels rushed though, with Escanor dispatching Estarossa and Zeldris for the rest of the arc. The slope gets even steeper once Meliodas returns with even more power than he had previously. Him easily beating Monspeet and Derriere, while making sense, killed the arc for me. The Merlin and Fraudrin disappointments were just beating a dead horse at that point.

This was the arc that marked the downfall of the series in my mind. These were incredibly hyped characters that all got taken out in the span of twenty chapters. After this, it was impossible to take any of them seriously again. Zeldris showed up later but by that point any hype I had for him was completely gone. The wasted potential of the Ten Commandments can even be seen in their actual commandments. We never learned what Drole, Gloxinia, Monspeet or Derriere's commandments even do. Nakaba screwed these guys so badly that he needed to create more antagonists (Chandler & Cusack) out of nowhere to justify any sense of threat in the series. Chandler and Cusack obviously suffered because they felt more like quick fixes rather than actual characters. There are a couple bright spots in the series after that arc, like the Meliodas vs Escanor fight or the Mael/Estarossa twist. Overall though, the series never really recovered from the treatment of the Ten Commandments. These guys could have been one of the most iconic antagonist groups in history alongside the Akatsuki, The Espada, and The Phantom Troupe.

 

[Seven777]

As soon as Hendrikson was defeated. Nothing later in the manga compares to his arc. The 10C's appearance wasn't especially amazing, Galand's entrance was bad, fodderizing everyone pointlessly made it a requirement for every single person to power up, and the introduction of PL's was the biggest mistake Nakaba has made imo.

Other than that, Mael vs King and co, the Zeldris' fights, the Sinner, and all the 10C fights were all around the same quality. The only standout moments were Mel vs Escanor and Purgatory, which were pretty good, and then there was DK Mel getting his ass handed to him which was pretty bad.

 

[LaserBeam]

As soon as Hendrikson was defeated. Nothing later in the manga compares to his arc. The 10C's appearance wasn't especially amazing, Galand's entrance was bad, fodderizing everyone pointlessly made it a requirement for every single person to power up, and the introduction of PL's was the biggest mistake Nakaba has made imo.

Other than that, Mael vs King and co, the Zeldris' fights, the Sinner, and all the 10C fights were all around the same quality. The only standout moments were Mel vs Escanor and Purgatory, which were pretty good, and then there was DK Mel getting his ass handed to him which was pretty bad.

The problem was not the introduction of the power lvls the problem was the author is not consistent to keep the representation as it is and the proof is looking at now when was the last time we saw power lvls? 286 was the last chapter we saw power lvls numbers now we are at 321 which means we are at 35 chapters without any power lvls the problem is exactly the same.

The thing is there are more things to determine someone's power aside from the power lvls and those are: Skills during a fight and how much damage they get.

The bigger the distance between the individuals in terms of of overall power the more damage the weaker gets with low tier skills.

Like let's pretend that meliodas power lvl never got introduced so he fights someone and he can beat the other with like basic lvl punches in his base form and he makes it look like he is also going easy on the opponent on top on that, the other guy seems to fight serious so we pretty much know he is not holding back and that meliodas is so powerful the other guy is like no challenge.

Now if all of a sudden you have the other guy suddenly start damaging meliodas out of his ass
you know that there is something really weird right?

The editor tries to make it look like the other guy was hidding power or some crap but when you see
the art and it looks like meliodas puts zero effort and the other shows effort so you realize there is something really weird.



You don't need power lvls to say to you that meliodas is stronger than the other dude but when the other dude suddenly start damaging the other guy you know that the representations is completely messed up because you are like: " but meliodas only poked him while been in his basic and the other guy got a damage from that attack so the opponent is a weakling and the conclusion is the editor tries his bullshits to hype out the fight"


For me the starting point was during the gallant fight because by making meliodas raising up to 10.800 power lvl downgraded the grey d hendy fight which meliodas used on his base form powers the whole time and the author made it like meliodas had such an difficult fight which ofc was not the case because if meliodas used the demon mark powers he would had destroyed grey d hendy without effort since he was more than twice as strong as grey d hendy even with a portion of his powers stolen by merlin.

That was the start of me doubting about the writing and ofc after gallant everything went from bad to worst.

After introducing us that meliodas power lvl after getting the stolen portion of his power made his at 30.000 he somehow manages to solo dolor and gloxinia and even went against the 9 of the commandments by himself and that revenge counter if it was not for the commandment of love of estarossa he would had killed them all at that point.

ofc we didn't doubt it back then didn't we? We were faithful because the text said they had their powers depleted by the magic seal and so they were weaker right?

Then what nakaba does? After like 2-3 months of timeskip and while we though the commandment had regained their full strength and we were expecting amazing fights with them been even stronger what good nakaba does? He brings us meliodas with even bigger powering boost and a curse of immortality but we all were like: " ok the commandments had 2-3 months so they replenished their powers so they will be much stronger" but then what happens?

Meliodas solos effortless derierre and monspiet, one punch after humiliating in a one-side
spanking fraudin, merlin effortless beats with one click of her fingers greyroad like he was nothing and makes escanor to beat like estarossa and zeldris....

I don't know like nakaba just tripped over himself and the writing fell from a cliff or something and died

 

[Seven777]

The problem was not the introduction of the power lvls the problem was the author is not consistent to keep the representation as it is and the proof is looking at now when was the last time we saw power lvls? 286 was the last chapter we saw power lvls numbers now we are at 321 which means we are at 35 chapters without any power lvls the problem is exactly the same.

The thing is there are more things to determine someone's power aside from the power lvls and those are: Skills during a fight and how much damage they get.

The bigger the distance between the individuals in terms of of overall power the more damage the weaker gets with low tier skills.

Like let's pretend that meliodas power lvl never got introduced so he fights someone and he can beat the other with like basic lvl punches in his base form and he makes it look like he is also going easy on the opponent on top on that, the other guy seems to fight serious so we pretty much know he is not holding back and that meliodas is so powerful the other guy is like no challenge.

Now if all of a sudden you have the other guy suddenly start damaging meliodas out of his ass
you know that there is something really weird right?

The editor tries to make it look like the other guy was hidding power or some crap but when you see
the art and it looks like meliodas puts zero effort and the other shows effort so you realize there is something really weird.



You don't need power lvls to say to you that meliodas is stronger than the other dude but when the other dude suddenly start damaging the other guy you know that the representations is completely messed up because you are like: " but meliodas only poked him while been in his basic and the other guy got a damage from that attack so the opponent is a weakling and the conclusion is the editor tries his bullshits to hype out the fight"


For me the starting point was during the gallant fight because by making meliodas raising up to 10.800 power lvl downgraded the grey d hendy fight which meliodas used on his base form powers the whole time and the author made it like meliodas had such an difficult fight which ofc was not the case because if meliodas used the demon mark powers he would had destroyed grey d hendy without effort since he was more than twice as strong as grey d hendy even with a portion of his powers stolen by merlin.

That was the start of me doubting about the writing and ofc after gallant everything went from bad to worst.

After introducing us that meliodas power lvl after getting the stolen portion of his power made his at 30.000 he somehow manages to solo dolor and gloxinia and even went against the 9 of the commandments by himself and that revenge counter if it was not for the commandment of love of estarossa he would had killed them all at that point.

ofc we didn't doubt it back then didn't we? We were faithful because the text said they had their powers depleted by the magic seal and so they were weaker right?

Then what nakaba does? After like 2-3 months of timeskip and while we though the commandment had regained their full strength and we were expecting amazing fights with them been even stronger what good nakaba does? He brings us meliodas with even bigger powering boost and a curse of immortality but we all were like: " ok the commandments had 2-3 months so they replenished their powers so they will be much stronger" but then what happens?

Meliodas solos effortless derierre and monspiet, one punch after humiliating in a one-side
spanking fraudin, merlin effortless beats with one click of her fingers greyroad like he was nothing and makes escanor to beat like estarossa and zeldris....

I don't know like nakaba just tripped over himself and the writing fell from a cliff or something and died

Sure, we haven't had a PL revealed 35 chapters and things aren't any better, but that doesn't matter, the idea of PL's is already embedded into the story, regardless of if they are mentioned frequently. If we go back into Hendi's day, there were no PL's, it wasn't a concept in the manga, and things were near perfect.

So nah, PL's themselves are the problem. Good writing can help the consistency last longer, but in the end inconsistencies are gonna show, and the PL's themselves will start limiting how the story is written(if you stick to them, like Nakaba used to).

Letting the reader know exactly how powerful certain characters are, and then establishing how the gap between PL's affects various fights, pointlessly limits how much certain characters should be capable of doing. It boxes characters like DIane and King into being entirely useless until Nakaba can find room in the story to write a power up for them, which is likely why he has given up on sticking to them, they're just a useless inconvenience.

You gave Meliodas vs Galand an example, and said it downgrades Grey Hendy, but that downgrade only actually happened because of PL's. If there was no PLs, Galand's strength would be left ambiguous, and Mel's performance against him wouldn't make Hendy look like a bitch. Nakaba could still say that Galand was leagues stronger than Hendi without giving an exact number, and it would all still be fine, because Meliodas still got trashed in the end.

 

[Mythoclast]

The Liones defense arc is when it began callasping.But things really went to shit after the King vs Mael fight.

 

[ZeWaDo]

So nah, PL's themselves are the problem. Good writing can help the consistency last longer, but in the end inconsistencies are gonna show, and the PL's themselves will start limiting how the story is written(if you stick to them, like Nakaba used to).

Power levels are also divided into 3 categories (magic, strength, spirit), which while more diverse than the DBZ style power levels in the sense that they wouldn’t necessarily end up as the biggest number wins all the time, it ended up just being the biggest number wins all the time.

I feel that he didn’t intend for it to be that way, but it ended up turning into that.

 

[OtakuFreak]

Eh, you could argue that Nakaba simply inflated the PL's by too much.

We saw 142k Mel and assumed he was on the higher end of the entire cast besides the Gods and predicted that other demons & Goddesses like the AA/Elizabeth would be around 100k or higher.

Then Nakaba dropped 4C-Mael being 200k and getting fodderized by King... lol

142K Mel should've been where the PL's should've stayed at max (with exceptions to Gods, Sun Esca/Mael)

 

[Redworld96]

(with exceptions to Gods, Sun Esca/Mael)

Yes for them but not for the one who can draw the true power of The Holy Tree? Hmmm
The Fairy King/Queen should be also an exception (not refering only to King, maybe the next one or the one two generations later could be even more powerful than Harlequin, you never know, The Holy Tree is a very powerful being).