Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest Chapter 70 and Eden's Zero Chapters 120 and 121 Review

 Written by Shiggins

Theme: Perfect girls.

If there's one thing that Mashima-senpai gets right, it's the women. Yes, his overly-enthusiastic tendency to seek out as much fanservice as possible can often distract or even hurt the argument of how great they are, but damn... Erza, Lucy, Juvia, Rebecca, Homura and so many damn others... I love them all! And oh look, another gorgeous vision of loveliness has arrived today! Hooray!

...Noi?!

Fairy Tail

Erza and Wendy are battling it out, immediately wiping away my theory they might be a peaceful town that are in pain, but none of the attacks are touching them! The ghost of Irene jumps in once again to help Wendy figure out what's going on. Essentially, they are spirits created by a villain who uses "Spiritual Arts" and they must be combated with a unique enchantment. In Elentir, Spiritual Arts are the main form of magic and the world is littered with Spirior, which is their version of Ethernano, so Irene leaves with that passing message.

Pandemo-nya-ium.

Wendy gives a nod and uses the Spirior around her as an enchantment, enhancing Erza and allowing her to fight back. Seeing they can now fight, Youko of Pandemonium reveals herself as the cause of their situation, and that she works for Selene as one of her "Moonlit Beauty Gods". Back to Natsu, Gray and Happy in the middle of a snowstorm and arguing as always, before they are greeted and threatened by Hakune of the Snow, Moon and Flowers, another MBG.

Our chapter ends with Lucy and Taurus, who are walking through the forest and trying to figure out the weird nature of this place. They get aggressively yelled at by singing flowers, before they run into Mimi the Immovable, another member of the MBG who is immediately attracted to Lucy because of her Edo-Lucy outfit. 

Opinion: Mimi is perfection.

So it looks like our next chapter or two will involve fighting off against these three new women. Youko is clearly a sadistic and smug type who wants to play with her food. Hakune is the stoic one with a sinister side she usually represses until it's time to fight, and Mimi is a Goddess who tries to act serious but has a shy side and deserves everything she wants and more. Since she's against Lucy and the chapter ended with her, I assume we'll see Mimi's battle first. 

If I had to guess as well, I'd say Mimi is going to be reminiscent of Kain Hikaru with a focus on brute strength and defence, and little actual magic ability. Youko will be summoning monsters, making me realise she could probably have been a good match-up against Lucy's Celestial Spirits, and Hakune controls the weather. My bigger question however is relating to these Spiritual Arts.

Don't do that. Don't show them on a date. Not right now. I can't...

When Tartarus introduced "Curses", it was important to their plot. They were going to erase all magic and only those with Curses would have power. So these Spiritual Arts, which is firmly established to be it's own thing, must be important in some way too. Will the characters be unable to recharge their magic? Is Selene going to wipe out magic and replace it with Spiritual Arts? There's a lot to find out, so let's keep it going and hope the rapid explanation wasn't a waste of time.

Manga Rating: 3/5

Best Part: Introduction of new foes, especially Mimi.

Worst Part: Spiritual Arts introduction is a bit clumsy.

Eden's Zero

Mora is down and Homura is victorious! However the heat gets to her and she falls down, being caught by Shiki who promises to get her back to the others as her friend. Before I can roll my eyes at Homura still needing to be saved by Shiki despite her awesome display, Shiki falls over in panic from a bug and this becomes a rather endearing display of friendship instead of an unnecessary rescue. These two really have grown on me. 

 

I recognise that shirt...

We now cut back to Rebecca vs Britney, but Rebecca's failed attack is such a bad idea that it literally enrages Britney. Apparently she has some resentment towards stupid women who flirt with a certain someone she likes, and so she begins to use poisonous gas on Rebecca. So Rebecca picks up the robots and does a runner, using the fire to block Britney for a moment.

Rebecca returns to the town of human slaves from earlier, and gets an idea from Happy's hunger on how to fight back. Somehow, this gives her the idea to go to the shop and grab a hoover, although I suppose most readers of this would prefer I call it a vacuum cleaner, and turns it on Britney. However, Pino's hacking to get her the password for it is too late and Rebecca is swarmed by the deadly gas...

Oh. Someone out there is veeeeeeery happy right now.

Then her Ether Gear kicks off, and Rebecca finds herself back outside the town! Without a moment allowed to reflect on this, she goes back to do the same plan as before, but this time with the password already known. Britney is sucked up and punted off into the distance, and Rebecca ponders what this new ability she used actually is.

Our second chapter starts right where we left off, with Rebecca getting new clothes and running a test. She has Pino write down a word and guesses what it is, but gets it wrong. Rebecca then uses the power from last time to before she started the test, has Pino write down the word, then "guesses" it correctly this time! Of course, Rebecca decides to use it again and this is when things go dark.

Her head hurts, her body is sweating, and then her face cracks open! This power works in short bursts of a few seconds, but it's draining on her body and it's operating on different rules from the time she used Cat Leaper to escape Drakken Joe. She names it Reverse, before we go to a fanservice scene of Homura bathing and talking to Shiki. 

Found another talking butt!

Surprisingly, Homura is worried about the future. She's grown to care about these people, and the possibility of Mother granting only one wish might end up driving them apart. Shiki reassures her that he'd never fight his friends over it, but this moment is cut short when they sense the ether of three new powerful figures. And these six are Beast Squad 1, the superiors of Beast Squad 6 (Orc, Britney and Mora) and they are planning to get vengeance on Shiki for what he's done to Orc. 

Our chapter ends with a giant dogfight in space when we return to the Weisz side of things, as Weisz and Hermit manage to enter the satellite and Hermit assures him that she will be able to resist the virus, although trusts Weisz to destroy her if the worst should happen. He obviously refuses, and they enter the main room together to find a surprising and terrifying individual... A cyborg version of Hermit's former partner and torturer, Dr Muller?!

Opinion: Why did it have to be a crack?!

Hiro Mashima-senpai, we need to have a talk about this. I understand that you ar unconventional, but when a person messes with time travel, they are meant to have a bleeding nose, ear, or possibly even eye. We're used to this and expect it. A crack though?! That gave me a shudder! It's so effective and creepy, that I'm worried to see how far you go... good job, but argablgabhalah!!

A tengu?! That's so cool! And there's a bird-robot-lizardman too!

There's a lot of disturbing imagery here actually, although I'm not badmouthing it. Rebecca's skin burning seemed unnecessarily excessive to me at first, but then I thought about what it could mean for her in the future. What if she gets stuck in a time loop where she would keep suffering like that and can't go far back enough to escape it? What if she needs to go through death and despair in a bargaining situation with Dormammu? We could be about to see some disturbing growth for Rebecca, so I think we should all brace for that. Or maybe I'm just making excuses, it's very possible.

Once again, I gotta say that Homura is really just awesome. In combat, she uses swords and Wolverine claws. Outside combat, she's got a vulnerable side that feels like it has naturally grown over the past 100+ chapters but also doesn't take away from her strength and charm (see FT's Faris for how badly this  could have gone). And I'm not too much of a shipper type, but if Shiki doesn't end up with Rebecca, I wouldn't be too against Shiki x Homura. They're that adorable as friends together. It's certainly better than Weisz x Homura right now, at any rate.

Muller Prime!! (Although that just sounds like a new beer...)

For those of us who thought Orc went down a bit too quickly and wanted to see something more from these elites of Shura and Poseidon Nero, it looks like your prayers have been heard as we now have a brand new trio of Beast Squad members! One of them is a tengu type too, which is awesome! Of course, the surprising villain this week is the return of Dr Muller of all people! So it looks like our next review is going to be talking about Hermit's current situation and if she can team up with Weisz to confront her darkest fears and trauma. Let's just not speculate the chances of Muller having a chance to fight Hermit like this in this giant universe...

Manga Rating: 3.5/5

Best Part: Homura and Shiki.

Worst Part: More unnecessary torture.

I don't ship it, but if they become a brother-sister or senpai-kouhai friendship, I won't complain.