The gradual shift away from the new characters and the 3KotA and back to the old established main characters of NNT has really hurt this manga in its pacing and its content, not to mention that Lancelot and Cath as a villain duo also suck.
Why are we wasting time on Meliodas and his mental state or the feelings of Elizabeth and Meliodas as a couple for each other? Their conflicts were solved, their relationship status is completely irrelevant to this story arc and if it only serves as a tool to give Meliodas motivation back to stand against Lancelot then it is an ill-chosen narrative tool. The focus on Diane and King and their family after the timeskip was still fine since it also introduced new characters and exposed new and old readers to their extended family. I said this before and I don't wanna mope needlessly on about this but Meliodas, Elizabeth and Ban take up waaayy too important roles and panel time in where we are right now in the manga. Their participation should not be as relevant as it is portrayed because this no longer feels like a sequel to the first series but more like an extension of NNT. Funnily enough Nakaba said he wanted to have this series as a stand-alone that can be understood even by new readers who have had no experience with NNT but in the process he has begun to rob it of the aspects that distinguished it from the first series. Tristan, Gawain and Percival, the 4 Perils and their related characters, the platoon members, Balin, Gareth, Bors, none of these people are in focus, none of them seem to matter. I didn't start reading this series only so that the dynamic all-powerful duo of Ban and Meliodas can heroically step up again and fix shit once more. I wanted to see a baton pass to a new generation that still hasn't happened and I wonder at this point if it will ever come because it isn't even clear if Nakaba will have the balls to kill of established characters in the long run. We might not even see that.
What are we doing here? I feel like week in, week out I am living in that meme of "trust me bro, just 50 more weeks, bro, then the manga will be back on track. It will be so good, bro, please, don't quit, just stay for a little longer, just half a year so Nakaba can cook bro, it's worth is, I promise"
I really, really want to like this manga, I really want to give it a chance but at this rate I feel like I am losing all interest with every week that passes and focuses on things this series absolutely doesn't need. Even art-wise Nakaba can't even be arsed anymore to finish drawing some of his newer characters. We get huge close-ups and double page spreads of Mel and Elizabeth and Beltreipe dueling Tristan is drawn as a fucking silhoutte. You can't find a more fitting and equally sad and pathetic visual display that sums up the state of this manga currently. Hollowed out, devoid of idendity, utterly subpar and uninteresting.
