The Seven Deadly Sins the Movie: Prisoners of the Sky

劇場版七つの大罪天空の囚われ人 (Nanatsu no Taizai Movie 1: Tenkuu no Torawarebito)

10.0(1)

OtakuDen

7.1(185,811)

MAL Score

Ranked #4463

Popularity #895

Action
Adventure
Fantasy

Episodes: 1
Duration: 1 hr 39 min
Aired: Aug 18, 2018
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

While searching for the rare ingredient known as Sky Fish, Meliodas and Hawk discover a spring that whisks them away to the Sky Temple—a radiant realm floating above the clouds and home to the Celestials. Their arrival takes a harsh turn when Meliodas is mistaken for Solaad, a wanted criminal who bears an uncanny resemblance to him, leading to suspicion and imprisonment.

As the Sky Temple braces to protect the seal of the Great Oshiro—believed to contain an ancient evil sealed away for three thousand years—the demonic Six Knights of Black move to shatter it. When the Demon Clan is unleashed and chaos spreads through the heavens, the Seven Deadly Sins join forces with the Celestials to push back. The fight escalates further when an “Indura of Retribution,” a rampaging beast from the Demon Realm, is awakened, forcing both sides to unite against a threat powerful enough to end them all.

Otaku Consensus

Prisoners of the Sky works best as a theatrical shounen showcase: A-1 Pictures, Noriyuki Abe, and Yasuto Nishikata keep the pacing brisk, the comedy familiar, and the Meliodas/Escanor action beats flashy enough to satisfy series loyalists. Its feature-film side-story approach makes it easy to watch outside the core TV run, but that same simplicity is the dominant criticism, with fans often noting its unclear canon placement and thin plot mechanics.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Prisoners of the Sky if you want Seven Deadly Sins at maximum party-movie energy without committing to a dense canon chapter. It scratches the same itch as the more self-contained Dragon Ball Z movies or Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry: familiar ensemble banter, demon brawls, magic spectacle, and just enough lore expansion to make the setting feel larger. The appeal is not narrative complexity; it is seeing A-1 Pictures frame the Sins for a bigger canvas, with Hawk comedy, Celestial mythology, and action choreography built around impact rather than long tactical explanation. If your favorite part of the franchise is the collision of medieval fantasy, absurd power levels, and rowdy found-family chemistry, this is the lean version.

Key Characters

M
Meliodas(VA: Yuki Kaji)
Meliodas remains the franchise’s tonal switchblade, sliding from gremlin comedy to overwhelming battle presence in the exact rhythm fans expect from a theatrical side story.
H
Hawk(VA: Misaki Kuno)
Hawk functions as the movie’s pressure valve, turning high-fantasy stakes into slapstick without pulling the Sins away from their chaotic group dynamic.
E
Escanor(VA: Tomokazu Sugita)
Escanor’s appearances are treated like event programming, with fan discussion consistently singling out his action material as one of the film’s clearest payoffs.
S
Solaad(VA: Tsubasa Yonaga)
Solaad is memorable less for mystery than for how his design choice lets the movie play with identity, suspicion, and franchise déjà vu in a compact theatrical format.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
A-1 Pictures produced the film, and contemporary fan writeups repeatedly highlight the movie’s theatrical action polish, especially the Meliodas and Escanor sequences, as its strongest selling point.
2
The staff structure pairs Noriyuki Abe as chief director with Yasuto Nishikata as director, giving the film a feature-style hierarchy rather than presenting it as a routine extended TV episode.
3
Nakaba Suzuki is credited as original creator, while the movie operates as a self-contained side story; that combination helps explain why fans often debate where, or whether, it cleanly fits into the main timeline.
4
The film expands the franchise’s mythic vocabulary through Celestials and sky-based lore, which is why fan articles often recommend it for lore-building even when they criticize the story’s simplicity.
5
Character Design is credited to Keigo Sasaki, with Tetsuya Kawakami and Kento Toya on sub character design, indicating a broader design pipeline than a standard single-episode production.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Prisoners of the Sky was released on August 18, 2018, as a single theatrical anime film and is listed as the first Seven Deadly Sins movie entry.
Fun fact 2: AniList’s tag profile captures the film’s identity with unusually high genre-confidence markers: Shounen at 86%, Demons at 84%, Magic at 82%, and Super Power at 82%.
Fun fact 3: The movie’s production credits separate visual worldbuilding into multiple roles: Hiromichi Itou served as Art Director, while Hideyasu Narita handled Art Design.
Fun fact 4: Shiho Takeuchi is credited for Layout Design and Haruo Miyagawa for Prop Design, two roles that matter heavily in a film built around a new fantasy environment rather than a familiar TV setting.
Fun fact 5: Across audience platforms, the film sits in solid-but-not-elite territory: 7.08 on MyAnimeList from 185,811 votes and 69/100 on AniList, with 881 AniList favorites.