Wednesday 24 August 2016

Fairy Tail Alvarez Arc Review: Chapter 486-490: Deus Ex Eileen and Gajeel's UnDeath.

More Fairy Tail! Do you guys like this? I sure do. It's honestly quite therapeutic to just let off steam and just rant about something that utterly deserves to be bashed.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 486: The Fourth Guest

Oh yeah the titles are counting down. Wow. Such creativity.

Gajeel fights Braddman, who is the coolest-looking yet the most utterly boring member of the Spriggan 12. He doesn't even try to be original, he just has a generic skull motif and blabs a bit about death and even among Fairy Tail villains, it's absolutely clear that the writer was just phoning it in with Braddman. He's just so bland. His powers are just more skulls and whatnot... you know what? We've had these kind of villains in Fairy Tail before. Levy joins the fight, which is something, I guess?

Oh, and the Oracion Seis members show up. Will they ever be relevant, other than to show Angel's minimalist feather bikini? I don't think so. Eileen does some really boring-ass cryptic talk. You're fooling no one, Eileen. You ain't interesting at all. We get a big splash page of Acnologia and Eileen's apparently going to speed up this pathetic excuse of a war and put an end to everything, because who cares about established villain Zeref? I mean, built up for a long time, tragic past with Mavis, secretly Natsu's brother, sent a deathmatch to Acnologia? No? You'd rather have Erza's even-more-boring mother?

Natsu and Lucy have some fun with Brandish's powers that involve poofing up and shrinking down Lucy's boobs. Yay boob jokes yay much wow yay

Fairy Tail, Chapter 487: Three

The negotiation with August takes place. Everyone goes 'oh my god, August's power is insanely higher than Brandish'... which means nothing in Fairytailland, because, hey, remember when Brandish was like untouchable by the main cast and can shrink islands with a snap of her fingers? Yeah. She's a meek subversive personality-less nakamaaaa now. August points out that Brandish has neither been tortured nor defected (she has a stupid idea of loyalty, doesn't she?) and the Spriggan exist to enforce Zeref's will. Yeah, August. I like you. You're a cool sensible villain, not like 'spouts a bunch of dramatic shit and will do plot-breaking shit' Eileen, or the 'rambles on about some vague nonsensical theme' Braddman.

Apparently Braddman channels the power of the Tartaros demons... which honestly isn't that impressive, really. Man, the Tartaros demons were somewhat impressive back when they debuted, but Levy just makes a hole that sucks in the fish Tartaros demon's flood, and none of the explosions and blade slashes or whatever actually did damage. Also apparently Levy has been tanking the magic destruction particles just to save Gajeel... which is kind of romantic and would be romantic if I believed that Gajeel was even in danger. He's not! Even when Levy showed up he was being cool and going 'my lungs are made up of steel' and whatnot.

But what we do get is a pretty cool monologue from Gajeel that makes me at least suspend my disbelief that Levy is dying (she's not. The manga doesn't have the balls to kill off the freaking Tri-mens, let alone a major supporting character like Levy). We get a short flashback of all the shit Gajeel's been through -- holy shit, a flashback in an emotionally relevant place? -- and notes how he doesn't give a shit about looking weak or whatever as long as he can save the woman he loves. Gajeel absorbs the particles and becomes jet-black-iron and beats the fuck out of Braddman. Which would be cool if Braddman was an actual character and not a walking piece of scenery, but hey, Gajeel and Levy got a pretty cool moment.

Of course Braddman tries to self-destruct and take Gajeel with it. Yyyyeaaaah who's buying that? Not me. Would be col, would be something different, would've upped the stakes, would've been a tragic bit for Levy. But nah. Not even for a 'Gajeel will be revived later' story.


Fairy Tail, Chapter 488: Two of Us Forever

We get a rather long moment of Gajeel being sucked into the slowest black hole ever, bolting Levy in place, Levy breaking free with SWORD, Pantherlily holding Levy and stopping her from running, and Gajeel goes all "I used to be a scumbag until I met you, and you taught me something beautiful" or something along those lines. And it would've been great if Gajeel was killed... or, hell, even imprisoned until the end of this arc. Gajeel goes even sappier and we get longer and longer lines of how Gajeel wants to have babies with Levy and whatever and, yeah really should've stopped a few panels ago but I don't really mind this scene, to be honest.

It would've been cool to at least pretend Gajeel was 'dead' so that Acnologia can also pretend, for plot purposes, to be eliminating the remaining dragonslayers. Eileen shows up in front of Acnologia, and the two face down each other.

Brandish talks about how Zeref wants to unleash genocide... you dumb bitch, have you not been paying attention in all of Zeref's pep talks and, like, everything you've been doing? I mean, Fairy Tail has this effect on hot female villains to forget that, hey, they have been absolute degenerate scumbags (maybe Brandish not so much) until they converted. Brandish manages to get August to consider listening to Natsu and Lucy... but in one of Fairy Tail's more clever moments, Brandish suddenly stabs August in the stomach quite brutally, and apparently it is Doranbolt's fault, taking control of Brandish, and destroying any sense of peace, and causing August to enter his weird tattooed super mode thing.

Man, that was actually a good twist. It's utterly stupid for all the members of Fairy Tail to just accept Brandish from the get-go, and it's definitely cold and underhanded to use Brandish and force her to stab her own adopted grandfather like that, but yeah, the war isn't going to be solved by them talking things out. Good show.

Holy shit, a half-decent chapter? What is this?


Fairy Tail, Chapter 489: Universe One

August makes some huge explosion, that, like all Fairy Tail villains, fail to hurt anyone but the terrain. Cana finally manages to Fairy Glitter and break Mavis's naked underage body out of the lachryma, restoring her to her body and to life.

Eileen and Acnologia have a lot of dialogue that doesn't matter, just them going 'wow you strong, but I am stronger.' Eileen is a high enchanter, apparently? They talk for a bit, Acnologia blows up a bit of the land but doesn't go straight for the kill like he did with God Serena? Then Eileen does this long, boring monologue of activating a magic she sent throughout Fiore, we get a needless montage of every character as Eileen unleashes Universe One, a world reconstruction magic.

Yeah, it would have had a lot more impact if Eileen or her power had been foreshadowed. At this point I'm just going 'the fuck's going on and why do I care'.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 489.5: Ft. Stone Age

Bonus chapter starring the Fairy Tail cast reimagined as cavemen. Who are discovering that, hey, men have cocks that become erect if they see boobs. And erect cocks make women get funny feelings and run away. And Lucy is basically tied up and turned into a slave. No, seriously, penile erection and being aroused enough to be erected are actually a plot point referenced multiple times in this bonus chapter. Jeez, Fairy Tail, make porn already if you're so desperate to become fap material.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 490: Fairy Tail Zero

For such a dramatic buildup last chapter, Universe One doesn't rewrite the universe or the timeline or the rules of magic or whatever. It just... teleports random people to random places. Mavis gets a flashback to Fairy Tail Zero, gets some clothes and gets immediately greeted by Zeref. Natsu ends up mounting Lucy with his hand on her boob, naturally. We get a long, long montage of everyone going all 'oh no what is going on, hey there's a friend of mine' that is wholly unnecessary and 100% filler. Also, apparently Fiore is shrunk so the chances of the Alvarez army fighting the Fiore army is higher... BUT THEY WERE FIGHTING JUST NOW! What the hell, writer.

But Zeref and Mavis are next to each other, which at least is a desirable effect of Eileen, who's being used as fanservice as the panels that show nothing but her crotch while she monologues clearly demonstrates.

Oh and Gajeel is alive. Of course. Not even pretending that he's dead. I'm not surprised. And Ziera is back! Because she's so relevant to the story. This girl whose only point is 'Mavis's good friend that died and has been Fight Clubbing the entire time'.

3 comments:

  1. ha fairy tail ! nothing in more amusing thant seing this series self-destruction .really , it's fun (like a indulgence).

    warning , big comment. and as likely spoil.

    first of all , the only good point of these chp is duranbolt ,without any discussion . this guy is literallythe only fu?/%er with a brain in fairy tail (even if it is rather easy ) .
    and i just love the reaction who have the other at his action .
    they are like :
    " dude ! you are crazy ! you use somebody who that our enemy was there five hours, all this to kill a wizard who was present as powerful enough to kill all of us ! WE ARE JUST WAR, DUDE!"

    otherwise , for the stupid thing :
    -the huge magic who do nothing
    a timeless one really .it's like if everybody is incapable to have real injury (except Acnologia) .
    and just for speaking , in nanatsu new chap , we see somebody have his hand vaporize , and not "bleach cut style" clean cut , but with just the flesh of the hand burn and the bone in detail . just for saying .

    -die and revive .
    two word : two chapter . it's just bullshit

    -the logic
    it's something that bother me in no end . and it's tree thing in particular .

    first of all , acnologia itself . the big bad is strong and they need
    infinite magic for that . i call bull for this . i know that he is super strong , but they have REALLY no method to take of him ?
    just for reminder fiore has a satellite who launch a ultrabeam , for what reason they cannot do it ? (and how fiore has all they cool superweapons yet they are just little spot in their continent with shit millitary ) . and even without it, they have probably the best mage of the world , with one who can transformer peeble in meteor and another who can rearange a entire piece of land with the bonus to teleport the big bad in the sea ( and why not in the center of the planet , another dimension , or in space , nobody know ) .

    secondly , what stop zeref to do more demon ? really , he can and the only who is create is one with all the abilite of the tatarus members ( and no , on dont know why he do no see them and recruit them for more firepower ). who is lazy as fuck from the author .

    and for the final , i will talk of it for the chapter 495 and more .



    oh! and, are you reading fanfic ? it really good if you search enough ,and some exceeds even the original material .

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    Replies
    1. It's really not that hard to exceed Fairy Tail's current regurgitated crap, though -- so I'm not surprised if a lot of fanfiction is better than this. I don't care enough for the franchise to look for any, though.

      Yeah, all your points are sound. The 'oh no this character is dead but the death is so ambiguous and we're going to bring her back two chapters later' trope has been used in the worst manner possible. Having characters "die" and return at the end of the arc isn't anything new, especially in shonen, but it's utterly ridiculous.

      Acnologia needing 'infinite magic' to defeat is just Fairy Tail's usual three-year-old way to build up a villain. It's like how they meet Brandish for the first time and go 'oh my god her magic is so powerful, as powerful as the wizard saints and we are powerless before her and she's the weakest of the Spriggan 12' and then twelve chapters later we've got one of the more powerful members of the Spriggan 12 be defeated because he's a piece of bad comedy like Jacob.

      Fairy Tail has a track record for re-recruiting the enemies (but only the ones with titties! And Gajeel. But mostly ones with titties because the writer likes titties) they meet, but Brandish in particular is ridiculous. I wouldn't mind it so much if they only trusted her information and kept her locked up somewhere, but actually springing her loose? Jeez. As much as Naruto or Bleach or One Piece likes to do the same trope, at least the reformed villains are treated with suspicion by... by everyone fucking else other than the main hero, and had to prove themselves. And usually that happens after the arc that they were villains.

      I totally forgot about Etherion and all the magic cannon things. They used Jupiter at one point against Ajeel or Azir or whatever the fuck you want to spell his name, but yeah. You'd think that Fiore's magical military would work better. I think I would like the manga a lot better if it didn't ignore its own history.

      Honestly, is there anyone out there who still thinks this is quality manga? It's hilarious, that's for sure, to watch it self-destruct like this, but over the past... past whatever chapters there's only like two or three that are semi-decent and those are fully-actionized chapters.

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