Written by Shiggins
500 down! 500 more to go!
Yes, Fairy Tail has officially made it to 500 chapters thanks to Hiro Mashima-senpai and his wonderful assistants who must be working as hard as they can. I would also like to thank myself for being such a major member of the Fairy Tail community that has clearly been a huge reason Fairy Tail has come so far. So... you're welcome, fandom!
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| An unexpected setting, to say the least. |
So our chapter starts with colour, literally, as Brandish dumps Natsu, Lucy and Happy before shrinking down to her normal size. Brandish says she doesn't want to fight the trio, but since she can't betray her own homeland she's going to kill everyone else. As expected, the trio don't respond positively because this "deal" is a bit... well, stupid.
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| Damn, Dimaria's moodswings have been all over the place. Her hormones must be going crazy right now! |
Meanwhile, Dimaria watches from afar and she is pissed at Brandish's "betrayal". Of course, Brandish is 100% sure her side will win and we move to see the Spriggan 12 starting to obtain victory over everyone they were fighting against. And finally, we move to Gray who is fighting Invel. Of course, Gray is pissed off and starts to give Invel the shit he earned.
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| Gasp! You can't hit him! He's a man with glasses! |
Realising how angry Gray is and how quickly this fight needs to be over, Invel activates his ice armour which starts to freeze Gray because it's so damn powerful. However, this chapter needs to end in Gray's victory so Gray's demon rage-boner breaks it. Gray uses the power of both his own magic and Invel's super-duper-ice to defeat him.
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| REINHARDT! |
As Natsu declares he and Fairy Tail won't go down so easily, we get a surprise visit from Neinhart. His body has been enchanted by Eileen and he's ready to fight. When Brandish says she's negotiating with them, Neinhart takes that as a betrayal to Eileen and attacks. Natsu steps forward, gives another speech and... defeats Neinhart.
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| There are so many reasons to sigh at this, I'm too overwhelmed to do so. |
Next, we cut back to Juvia who has woken up and has been healed by Wendy because Carla predicted it would happen. As Juvia wonders where Gray is, we see the ice mage standing over the other ice mage. Invel somehow knows about Gray's parents, and he says that E.N.D is the cause of all of Gray's problems. And with that, Invel reveals to Gray that E.N.D is Etherious Natsu Dragneel.
Opinion: Oooh, that wasn't good.
It's a shame that the 500th chapter of Fairy Tail was not a celebration of it's best assets, but rather a formulaic slideshow of it's worst. What should have been a chapter about how funny or charming the series can be, instead became easily one of the most difficult chapters to deal with in quite some time. When the haters go on rants, it's chapters like this that give them ammo for their weapons.
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| While it does suck to have another fakeout, I will at least admit that Wendy using her healing magic makes 100% sense and therefore does not entirely piss me off. |
I've already talked about how I feel about Fairy Tail's death fakeouts, so I won't bother going on about it again. I will say though that we didn't even last one chapter to think Juvia was possibly dead. I'm unsure if this is extremely cheap, or just Mashima's way of saying "Yeah, even I know you don't believe it so I'm just going to skip ahead to the part where she wakes up again because Juvia is awesome". I'd almost applaud how he cut out the middle man here, if it wasn't so eye-roll inducing.
I've never been a fan of victories through pure impotent rage, and here it was surprisingly anticlimatic. I truly believe that Invel has more to do during this arc and he needed to lose because of Mavis' chain and how he hurt Juvia, but it was over so quickly that the conversation between Natsu and Brandish hadn't even ended so this big revenge battle almost felt sidelined for Natsu.
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| Next arc - Fairy Tail: Civil War? |
Speaking of Natsu, his victory against Neinhart... Just ugh! It was too fast. It was too random. It was too pointless. It feels as if someone told Mashima "This is the 500th chapter so you better make sure he defeats someone", so we had this last-minute fight scene that didn't even make sense. Since when was Natsu this strong? Surely this isn't the end for Neinhart, who could have done so much to survive this fight like use Edo Tensei. Just... Just so much ugh!
I love Fairy Tail and I'm glad I've read all 500 chapters and I'll continue to read the rest of them, but when you get a chapter like this, you have to sigh in dreary exhaustion. The only really interesting part of this week was Dimaria, and I am really excited to see her and Brandish have a face-off next time because I'm sincerely hoping for some improvement after chapter 500's fiasco. Bring on the love confession... please!
Manga Rating: 1.5/5
Character of the Week: Wendy for making the most sense.
Best Part: Dimaria is about to make her move.
Worst Part: Neinhart's (possibly final) defeat.
P.S
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| I think Mashima-senpai intended for this picture to be... Adorasexy. |
Shiggins:[Admin]
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Born under the stars of the Dark Gods, Shiggins owns the power of the Great Eye and is utterly magnificent in his omniscience. If you dare to discover more about someone as great as him, then go ahead. And to all my friends and family members, YOU are wrong and I should be disappointed! Not the other way round!,. You can find out about him or ask him stuff on ask.fm/shigginsishere or go to his tumblr page http://otakugajeel.tumblr.com/
This chapter was pretty crappy even though Gray is one of my favorites but i was wondering about your theory on God Serena being in August tattoo. It kinda looks like he was just pointing to his heart, so maybe August was just figuratively saying Serena is in his heart and the tattoo is just part of his natural design.
ReplyDeleteOh... That could be really bad if that's true. It would mean every Wizard Saint has been pointless in this arc... Then again, if he's pointing to his heart then maybe Serena is literally inside August somehow. Basically, I just cannot see this truly being the end for Serena. I am in utter denial over that.
Deletei agree with everything you said and here's another plot holet hat you missed
ReplyDeleteinvel clearly said that the chain won't break until either juvia or gray dies so how did wendy healed her whe she is supposed to be long dead
i love fairy tail and i have been following this series for nearly 6 year but bad writing is bad writing
i have never been this dispointed since natsu one shot the god and it' not even that long ago
i hope mashima step up his game cuz i read rave master and i know he can make a manga with good writing insteade of relying on fanservice
PS : i can't feel sad nor take a character death seriously anymore
I think Invel turned it off himself because he thought they were both dead/dying and he wasn't wasting his energy on them. It was never said but that's what I figured.
DeleteRave Master was really good, yeah. I hope this is just a hiccup in the road, since the majority of this arc has been fairly great. Just have to wait and see.
My take on the 'death' matter is that it was GRAY whose heart stopped and he was saved by Juvia's blood transfusion. Juvia herself was weak but still alive, which gave Wendy the chance to heal her.
DeleteThe interesting think is that Fairy Tail has some good, or at least decent writing... if you totally ignore Natsu and some stuff of the other main characters.
I suppose that's possible, yeah.
DeleteAnd I do agree, FT tends to slip up here and there but it's stronger than many people realise. Not the strongest out there but strong.
Yea, I do agree that this chapter was a bit dissapointing because of many things. However, I do not understand why people now say that the Alvarez Empire arc is one of the worst. In my opinion, it still is very great, 1st or 2nd place in my book(depends on the ending). Even though right now it's... not very good, this arc had one of the most awesome moments in the series. People tend to forget that.
ReplyDeleteOh, and about Natsu defeating Neinhart - it actually does make sense. I feel like people forget how strong Natsu became after the timeskip - he's already far above Erza at this point. However the fact that it makes sense, doesn't mean it's good. I myself felt dissapointed a bit, but I feel like Neinhart isn't out. I looked at all the matchups and realized that Lucy didn't have her battle yet, and it seems it may be with Neinhart(At first I thought that she would be with Brandish, but it's obviously for Dimaria now).
I absolutely agree with you. This arc is definitely in my top 3 right now, and I consider this chapter (and one or two others) a slight hiccup on the road. Depending on how this arc ends, it could even be above the Tartarus arc in my opinion.
DeleteI suppose Natsu is stronger but he's had trouble with other Spriggan 12 members already, been exhausted quite a bit, and Neinhart was supposedly enhanced greatly. It feels like a "power levels are bullshit" moment really. I'd be surprised if this was the end of Neinhart because honestly, every member of the Spriggan 12 seems to be unable to have a "final moment" in this arc. Even Bradman and Wahl haven't had a last moment yet and they died! They might have a last moment next week since Neinhart is down but we can't be sure.
Yes, you're right. I just hope that the end doesn't dissapoint. The end of Tartaros was something, that made the arc a lot better than it was, even though it was great even before the dragons came. So, if we are lucky, the end of the Alvarez Empire arc could be great too. And in that case, I agree, it may top Tartaros. It all depends on how it goes.
Delete