Nanatsu no Taizai Manga and Anime Sequel "The Four Knights of the Apocalypse" Confirmed!

22.03.2020 the super popular and long-running medieval action shounen Nanatsu no Taizai / Seven Deadly Sins manga came to a close with a classic shounen ending for it's final chapter, chapter 346 - an ending where all the main characters finally get to leave their lives peacefully after dark times as the time moves forward for about 10 years. In the final chapter we got to see our main characters', Elizabeth's and Meliodas's, son Prince Tristan in action. Tristan has inherited the bloodline of both the demon and the goddess clans and it seems to have gave him heterochromia in both of his eyes as his left eye is green and his right eye is blue.

I've been on a journey with Nanatsu no Taizai since it began so I hold a lot of memories with it - the author, Suzuki Nakaba, is incredible because he doesn't work with editors. Naturally that also shows in his art style as he doesn't give 100% perfect drafts every time, but when he puts effort into his panels, Nakaba is able to present the atmosphere of the situation fantastically. While the series has been on an up-and-down sailing since the 2nd arc of the series started, the series has always had fantastic moments and heart-warming moments in-between of all the chaos.

The ending of Nanatsu no Taizai itself is alright but fans can tell that it feels incomplete as just last chapter we got to hear that Ban and Elaine were going to have a child named Lancelot whom we never see in the final chapter. This, along with the fact that there have been rumours (started by the author Nakaba Suzuki himself) that the series could continue with an Arthur spinoff, made it very possible for the series to have a confirmed sequel - which the author confirms at the end of chapter 346! The sequel will be called the Nanatsu no Taizai: The Four Knights of the Apocalypse and I want to talk about it and theorize about it here!

As the final chapter of the original Nanatsu no Taizai manga shows us, Tristan is going to be like the Seven Deadly Sins - a hero of the Kingdom of Lioness. What the name of the sequel, The Four Knights of the Apocalypse is going to mean is most likely Arthur and Merlin being the one training the children of the main characters - Meliodas's and Elizabeth's son Tristan, Ban's, and Elaine's child Lancelot & King's and Diane's child who is unnamed so far. Those three children and Arthur make the four legendary knights of the Apocalypse.

As for the what the apocalypse is going to be, I believe Chaos power is going to play a part of this epilogue story - maybe another Chaos God or something like that arrives.
Regardless of the popular opinion on the final arcs of Nanatsu no Taizai, it was a good series and I'm intrigued for more interesting character interactions from Nakaba Suzuki.

On other news, this epilogue story is actually going to have to play a part in the future anime seasons as well. The fourth (actually 5th) season of the anime was announced just recently along with the global release of Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross mobile game which has gotten immensely popular instantly after its release. The epilogue story is going to give us new characters for the game which raises its popularity the same way as Tite Kubo's Burn the Witch and Bleach Brave Souls crossover is going to, and there are other similarities with both of these series as Burn the Witch is getting an animated movie (which looks gorgeous) and a manga in 2020. The BtW manga follows the story of the BtW one-shot that Tite Kubo released a few years back.

So, the anime, sequel manga and the mobile game will be promoting Nanatsu no Taizai well in the future! I'll be interested in seeing the new sequel characters in Grand Cross!

BLEACH: face again project reveal (2020) - A long-awaited reunion

Bleach is one of my all-time most talked about series on multiple different anime forums. It's not a series that I could 100% sure say I enjoy the most or think is the best, but the world and the characters that Tite Kubo created had some weird kind of pull to them that just made me come back to the series week after week. Characters like Rukia Kuchiki, Shunsui Kyoraku, Ichigo Kurosaki and his family, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, Aizen Sousuke, Urahara Kisuke, Yoruichi Shihouin, Kenpachi, Unohana, Neliel, Grimmjow, Nnoitra, and so many others such as Hitsugaya, were intriguing in their own rights. There have been series like Kimetsu no Yaiba and Jujutsu Kaisen and so on that were inspirect from many aspects of Bleach, but none of them felt as right for me. For example KnY is almost like hopping right into Hueco Mundo arc Bleach with the main character Tanjiro holding a black katana (Tensa Zangetsu) and with his friends he goes against a group of 10 villains that have been marked by their power level. The same as Aizen giving Espadas power via the hogyoku. KnY is a fine shounen and a great-looking anime but it's just lacking compared to the build up Bleach had until they got to Hueco Mundo.

After the animated series ended in Japan, I hopped right into the manga. The beginning of the arc was insanity. While Bleach was always about Soul Reapers/Shinigami, the series rarely killed off important characters. The Thousand Year Blood War was thus incredibly entertaining to talk about weekly with other fans and it, honestly, was the peak of 2011-2013 of Shounen Jump, and much above its peers in entertainment.

The Thousand Year Blood War was the final arc of Bleach, telling the story of Quincies versus Soul Reapers from chapters 480 all the way to 686, so the arc lasted for nearly 200 chapters, or four years. After the arc we had the Can't Fear Your Own World epilogue series with an interesting corrupt noble as a villain along showcase of couple of the missing bankais (though we'll probably never see Aizen's) and some history lessons about the origin of the world created by the Soul King (Reio).

Tite Kubo's famous great minimalistic approach to art packs a punch.

Now though, four years later since the end we got a new announcement for Bleach called Bleach: face again that has to do with the Bleach story itself. Now, the announcement could be anything from a new game to the animated series getting a continuation, but regardless... anything Bleach related is nice to see. But that's not all! At the same time of Bleach: face again being revealed in March of 2020, Tite Kubo also reveals his new series project.

After the end of Bleach Tite Kubo (the original author of Bleach) had been working on multiple projects, from the CFYOW novels to  Bleach Brave Souls mobile game by KlaB (possibly the most high-quality anime mobile game as it feels like a real game instead of your usual gacha game) to Bleach JET artbook (an actually real high-quality paper artbook than what manga series get aside from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) being released to the new Sakura Wars game that also gets released in English in Spring of 2020 nicely near the same time as Bleach: face again and Kubo's new series. There will be a lot of Kubo next spring to look forward to.

I know that many people really hope that Bleach: face again would be the announcement of the anime returning since 2012. It's been 8 years since the end of the Studio Pierrot's long-running adaptation. However even if that won't happen - it will still be something that Tite Kubo thinks is worthy of Bleach's 20th anniversary, and that's good enough for me as the guy does have understanding of the art medium. I think what's interesting here is that Bleach: face again is said to be the 20th anniversary project. Bleach manga began in 2001, so 20th anniversary means that they'll be releasing something for 2021 and announcing it in 2020. The timeframe for this sounds similar to how Dragon Ball Super: Broly was announced before being released, so could we be possibly even getting a new Bleach film? Anything's better than nothing, I guess. I'm interested in seeing what the future holds for Bleach. But even more so I'm interested in reading a new series by Kubo as he did create the Burn the Witch manga one-shot couple years back - that was released in a volume along with Bleach JET artbooks - which had entertaining worldbuilding aspects to it. The main character for it wasn't overly interesting but I felt I would have wanted to see him get god-like overpowered to see what he does with all the power he gets. 
Anything Kubo brings out I'll be there. I'll also be getting Sakura Wars for PS4 along with Final Fantasy 7 Remake as the game looks really enjoyable, the soundtrack and characters seem fun. Let's get it!