You have to be pretty into Arthurian lore to know that the parents of Tristan (of Tristan and Isolde fame) are a couple of relatively minor characters named Meliodas and Elizabeth. Fortunately for us, original manga author Nakaba Suzuki did know, and this sequel film to the TV series followers the two well-known children of their minor character parents. The other child in question is none other than Lancelot, son of Ban and Elaine; for the purposes of this review, it is perhaps best to say little about him, and I dare say his role will be somewhat more significant when the second half of the story is released. But it is important to note that he is a part of the tale as a whole, if only because of the nod to Suzuki's original.

This fifty-minute film's plot is fairly basic: young Prince Tristan, who looks to be in his early teens, is struggling to reconcile the two halves of his heritage. As you may recall, his father, Meliodas is a demon, and his mother, Elizabeth, is a member of the goddess race. That their child would have aspects of both of them appears to be a shock to the child, and this sets the stage for his character growth. The story opens with Tristan recalling a training fight with Lancelot that got out of hand when a mysterious power rose up within him. Frightened, he doesn't appear to have told anyone what happened, but his father noticed a change in him relatively quickly. This is because Tristan's goals appear to have changed dramatically overnight - he went from wanting to be a holy knight to a healer, which is almost certainly a manifestation of his interferent turmoil. Both parents try to speak to him to figure out what's happening, but Tristan can't bring himself to tell them. The implication may be that he is too frightened by himself to feel safe telling anyone, even his parents or his tutor Gowther. Tristan is so committed to wanting to be the proverbial knight in shining armor that he can't bear to think that something within himself might make that an impossibility.

However, he is soon handed an opportunity to figure things out when his mother suddenly collapses. In his attempts to heal her, he realizes that she has been cursed, and before anyone can talk him out of it (or talk to him at all), Tristan jumps on his horse and takes off in the direction of the curse caster. Naturally, there is more to this than one measly cursed cast on a single queen. We quickly discover that someone has kidnapped fairies, demons, and giants. A quick step into the villain's viewpoint lets us know that this is the king of Edinburgh Castle. He has a bunch of very nefarious plans involving a creepy tentacle-faced priest and solid monster designs, all fueled by his hatred of those who are different. Tristan may only have set out to save his mother, but it looks like his first real princely quest is staring him in the face.

There is a genuine attempt to balance Tristan's character development with physical action. It mostly works; Tristan and an unexpected companion have some decently impressive fight scenes against the various monsters the king of Edinburgh sends against them. We can see how the prior generation is present in their children's fighting styles. Although we don't spend much time in Tristan's inner monologue, his actions clearly show how conflicted and scared he is. He's trying desperately to live up to his parents, but he lacks the maturity or skill to fight at his absolute best, and his fear of what happened that day when he fought Lancelot for fun does function as a limiter on his abilities. He fights through the fear, and that's one of his most impressive traits. But the film doesn't let us forget that he is a scared child, which feels like a crucial element of his character.

The film is animated using CG, and it doesn't look all that bad. Hair and cloth suffer the most, but for the most part, the walking and other movements look smooth, and faces aren't too uncanny. If backgrounds aren't quite as detailed as they could be, that's more or less made up for by the character interactions against them. Both dub and sub tracks are good, and it comes down to a matter of personal preference which you watch; there are no nails-on-a-chalkboard voices in either. Place and character names aside, there's not a lot of Arthurian content here. In fact, in Arthurian legend, Edinburgh Castle is known as the Castle of Maidens, not a horrible mad science den where different beings are spliced together. (Monty Python fans may recognize the Castle of Maidens from a different movie.) But the story details are good enough and carry over from the original series that it doesn't really matter. If I'm being honest, the Arthurian stuff has always felt more like an Easter egg than anything.

The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh Part 1 is clearly only half of the story. It is better to wait until the second half is out before watching it because things are just getting started when the film ends. But it's nice to reconnect with the characters and to see what their kids are up to, and overall, this feels like the start of a pretty good adventure.