Kaguya and co vs 7 Deadly Sins/Holy Knights

[Nik Hasta]

While this is an understandable complaint, I feel like it holds up well enough on its own.

We see the swords start to swing, we see the lightning emerge from the cloud; and we see the sword strike complete concurrently with the lightning strike. So either it was "slow" lightning (though do we not tend to treat normal-looking lightning from the sky as the genuine article?) or Gil's swing speed is proportional to lightning over the smaller distance it needs to travel. Another interpretation is that Gil simply triggers the lightning to strike at the moment he completes the swing, but that doesn't change the fact that Meliodas easily counters said lightning.

As you have pointed out, Gil then dodges the reflected lightning, which further supports that he is that fast.

Later, we get a very clear look at Meliodas staring at a lightning bolt from the sky with enough time to counter it. https://imgur.com/a/tf8vT

The manga never gives any other objective reference points for speed. If we throw this out, even Galan's teleportation-dodge feat is useless to us, because the only thing we know about the speed of teleportation is that it seems instantaneous to the likes of Meliodas. You either have to accept it or not.

I personally don't buy them reacting to lightning that early. There's too many caveats in that sequence for my money and it makes other things in the series weirdly inconsistent if we are to accept that. Like Meliodas is faster than lightning but can't cross a room faster than Vivian can think? Three of the sins being thrown at a speed of (generously) 4 miles per second is radically slower than lightning but also is noted in series as being impossibly fast movement? Meliodas is noted as cracking the sound barrier when dueling Gilthunder and Hendrickson and handling them both and this is noted as significant speed for them when it really shouldn't be?

I don't think I personally could sign off on that level of speed that early in the curve myself.

What does that mean? How, in a manga, would you be able to tell whether a couple of speedster are going Mach 30 or Mach 300, in the absence of objective frame of reference?

This is more in reference to a macro view of a series I tend to factor in to my analysis of feats. Over the years of doing Rumbles stuff, I've personally began to look more closely at how characters are presented within the context of the larger narrative well as the context of their feats.

Like, authors generally don't really care how fast things are and will go with what they want/think is cool. They have an idea of how their characters are consistently portrayed in terms of stuff they can do. In a broad sense, y'know?

My feeling is that the cast on Nanatsu no Taizai aren't presented as "every named character from Gilthunder in the first arc on up is capable of blocking lightning in terms of speed," so I don't feel I can agree with that as a fair assessment of their intended abilities.

[Morning]

Like Meliodas is faster than lightning but can't cross a room faster than Vivian can think?

So, props to Vivian... Sorry for bringing power levels into this, but hers was 2580 compared to his 3370. That's not so big a gap that he should be able to cross the room and blitz her before she can at least think. You just don't want to think of her as that fast.

Three of the sins being thrown at a speed of (generously) 4 miles per second is radically slower than lightning but also is noted in series as being impossibly fast movement?

And how does your long distance movement speed compare to your reflex speed?

Meliodas is noted as cracking the sound barrier when dueling Gilthunder and Hendrickson and handling them both and this is noted as significant speed for them when it really shouldn't be?

NO, it shouldn't be. Even if you lowballed every speed feat you could find, it would not make sense for Mach 1 to be impressive to anybody. And yes, the depiction of atmospheric effects and collateral damage are wildly inconsistent throughout the series. It's just sloppy writing. But paying more attention to that "note" and less to the actual feats on the panel is going to be, I imagine, a difficult decision to defend.

Meliodas stares at a lightning bolt descending upon him mid-battle and decides to use Full Counter. That did happen--as do the other lightning-related feats. The deeper the characters go into the manga, the more everyone is surrounded by people even faster, which maybe makes the relative speed to the viewer seem like it isn't escalating as quickly as it logically is.

Like, authors generally don't really care how fast things are and will go with what they want/think is cool.

Why stop there? If the manga can't be trusted, and it's lightning is slow, then maybe its mountains are fragile a and light and the characters aren't as strong as we thought either. I really don't see what can be accomplished with this kind of thinking. If there are actual contradicting feats, like someone being not fast enough to dodge lightning later, I would welcome that. But it seems like this is more a case of you not wanting to see it.

[Nik Hasta]

EDIT: Given that Vivien has pretty much nothing in the way of speed feats, yeah, I don't want to think of her as fast.

Like I said, I don't feel that their speed is consistently presented. When I get time I'm happy to re-read the manga to get a better view of where I think they sit but I don't feel I can sign off on them being able to outpace lightning from arc one. I'm sorry if that feels unsatisfying to you but that's how the series reads to me.

All that said, we're talking about arc one stuff when there is a bunch of powerups between then and now.

If we work on the basis that speed is either equal or to the Sins advantage then they should likely take it due to their absurd firepower. The only person who could potentially stop them is Jyuubi host Obito and his stats were quite wildly above everyone else's as I recall and Kaguya via dimension dump.

[Morning]

EDIT: Given that Vivien has pretty much nothing in the way of speed feats, yeah, I don't want to think of her as fast.

Actually, she does. It was just cropped out of the pic earlier. https://imgur.com/a/AD4QWtf

For context, here is the fight between Meliodas and Griamore. Griamore's power level is about 40% lower than Vivian's (or 20+% lower than Gilthunder's) https://imgur.com/a/jjeOc

Approx. 200g tea cup falling 1/3 to 1/2 a meter from a resting position*--0.25-0.32 seconds--apparently long enough for a useless Act One fodder like Griamore to notice Meliodas has arrived, try to draw his sword, notice he's been prevented from doing so, take a hit and recover, draw his sword and unleash a dozen slashes and punches before being beaten.

*Actually it was already accelerating. I don't want to do that math, but it makes the feat more impressive.

Yes. Everyone in NNT is fast.

[buutenks]

Mel and Demon king statued cloud to earth lightning in the recent chapters. So that is another speed feat.

Note: This is base Mel and base Demon King, Ban and Escanor scale to this.

Its somewhere in chapters 311-318 I think.