Fairy Tail 472 Review: Emotion Transformer

Fairy Tail, Chapter 472: Laxus vs. Wahl

A decent fight chapter, if nothing else. I never believe for a second that Laxus or Wendy (or even those C-listers in Mermaid Heel) are in danger of actually dying, so there really isn't any suspense to this fight. We get some awesome lightning moments from Laxus, and Wahlricht tries to look cool by pulling off a Edward Elric and going all 'fuse copper and zinc to form bullets!' which, yeah, your foe transforms into lightning. Bullets are totally going to hit him. I mean, he straight-up transforms one of his arms into a metal one later on, how can you not think Edward Elric?

Wahlricht mentions the magical destruction particle things within Laxus's body and is all like 'you shouldn't be alive!' and, y'know, I think that fight with Tempesta is the only real fight with a lasting damage on one of the Fairy Tail main characters.

We get a needlessly-slow-paced scene with Erza and Kagura yapping about how the situation is, and we get a needlessly-slow-paced scene where Wendy, a newly-dressed Sherria, Wendy and Di Maria discuss 'going topless in battle' and how the battlefield is not a playground for children. Honestly, the dialogue here is so banal and boring that reducing it to just their mugshots glaring at each other and maybe one or two 'I have to win!' lines would be far more effective. Just talking for several pages straight just kinda, y'know, ruins the flow of the fight. 

We get some cool 'rampage through the city' scenes with Wahlricht and Laxus, and, again, Laxus is 100000% going to win this fight unless Fairy Tail gets off its plot-recycling bit and actually throws a twist in there. Wahlricht re-iterates a long analysis about the magical particles, before transforming from 'frivolous' personality to 'cold-hearted' personality. Which I thought was a cool little character quirk, far more interesting than Di Maria's "like to strip random girls while in combat". He transforms into this Iron Man with folded Gundam wings thing, and, well, Laxus's heart acts up. 

Maybe, just maybe, we might get Laxus defeated due to his disease. It would suck and feel depressing and we'll get a big moral about not overestimating your own abilities especially when you're wounded. Maybe we'll get some actual teamwork that involves the stronger members of the minor characters there -- Sherria, Lyon, Kagura -- and they can help out in defeating Wahlricht and Di Maria. But nah. Let's not fool ourselves. If Laxus doesn't straight-up BURNING DETERMINATION his way through this fight, Gray will probably come in and kill-steal it just like what he did to Tempesta during the Tartaros arc.