Dammit, The Seven Deadly Sins. I am so disappointed in you. It all started off so promising. "This is great," thought I. A middle grade manga with action and adventure and a cool story. But no. No. It is not to be.
Because of the groping and the breast grabbing and ass touching and obnoxious innuendo turns what would have otherwise been a delightful middle grade read into something I can't justify putting in my library. And I am highly annoyed.
The first of the Sins Elizabeth comes across is Meliodas, who's apparently Wrath despite the fact he's perpetually cheery. Elizabeth faints pretty much as soon as she gets in the door of Meliodas' tavern. She was dressed in armor, so he's surprised to see she's a girl. He proceeds to confirm the fact she's a girl by sniffing her (the drawing is him sniffing her crotch) and squeezing her breasts.
The first chapter has Meliodas rescuing Elizabeth from various near death experiences. She keeps getting flung into the air. Meliodas catches her, and every time he does, we get another breast grabbing picture.
Elizabeth is portrayed as naive and dense. At no point does she tell him to knock off groping her. She is just so grateful for his help. At one point, they're searching for another one of the Sins in a forest. Elizabeth says, "Something's touching my butt." "Don't worry. It's just me" (illustration of him with her hand under her skirt touching her ass) "Oh, that's a relief. I was scared for a second there" is her response. Ew. Gross. Making me uncomfortable. Meliodas has a talking pig, Hawk, who tells Meliodas to "stop," and "this is not the time," and "That shouldn't be a relief!" I think having a character say those things is suppose to make the fact that those things are happening OK. But it doesn't. It doesn't stop it from being icky or from Elizabeth submissively taking it.
And it doesn't make it any better for a middle school librarian looking for manga. I cannot put this in my library, and that's frustrating, because there's nothing wrong with the story. Why'd the smarmy groping have to be put in? It doesn't add anything. Meliodas isn't even the Sin of lust. At least then he'd have a reason (although not an excuse) for his actions.. All it accomplishes is limiting who can read this book.
The Seven Deadly Sins is rated T, which is 13+ but I don't think that's appropriate. I mean, the story is definitely T, but the fondling puts it out of the T range. Again, it's a shame.
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