Fairy Tail, Chapter 532: I Can No Longer See Love
Oh man, I haven't read a Fairy Tail chapter for quite a while, and people are telling me that 'hey, did you know Fairy Tail is ending?' to which I say, 'good riddance!' But I guess I'm going to see this car crash to its end, so from here on out, expect some... I won't say review, because reviews should really be more neutral and not vitriol-filled as my Fairy Tail reviews have turned out to be. It's more of a running commentary, I guess.
Anyway, since I last left off, we've got around a half dozen chapters. In quick succession, we have: Acnologia stomping on a corpse, Jellal being irrelevant and doing the exact same three magic spells that he knows ever since before he was regurgitated into this manga, Acnologia gets hit by a flying ship because Ichiya is literally the only awesome character left in this manga, boob jokes, more boob jokes, the big grand return of Anna who is a character we've seen in like a single panel before who everyone treats like the second coming of a major plot-relevant character, Anna being a huge introdump machine to tie up convoluted plot threads that are literally the most asinine plot twists ever, Happy crying, Lucy crying, random chapter-long flashbacks about a subplot no one cares about, the random introduction of this 'ravines of time' nonsense that literally was made up on the spot on the chapter it's relevant to, Natsu and Zeref shooting boring-ass magic beams at each other, Acnologia being the shittiest apocalypse dragon ever by failing to even cripple the Ichiya ship, and trite over-used lines.
Back to our scheduled programming.
Natsu activated Dragon Force. Which... is absolutely dumb, considering that it was literally the first power up he gets. I mean, Fairy Tail has been the poster child for every single goddamned character reusing the same three or four moves they have been using for the past 500+ chapters, but this for the ultimate climax just felt stupid. I mean, not that Fire God King Crimson Ultra Mega Demolition Dragon Fang Wing Attack really amounts to anything than a punch wreathed in fire, so it's not like we're missing out on much.
"I'm a human, I ain't nothing like Acnologia! Why do you ask? Because that's Igneel's will!" At no point of this sentence that Natsu is actually answering Zeref's question (your power isn't good enough, if only you can transform into a dragon) nor does it make a god damned lick of sense. Like, seriously, even at its most asinine, not even things like Naruto had dialogue that made so little sense like this.
Zeref's plot literally makes no sense. He literally just changes his plan every single chapter. If his plan was to get power from the ravines of time or some bullshit, why invade Magnolia? Why the whole convoluted nonsense to drain Mavis, or to create Natsu to destroy him, or to cut down his fighting force pretty significantly, instead of recruiting Makarov and/or Mavis to recruit literal dragon slayers to, y'know, slay the motherfucking dragon you're so afraid of? Oh, he wants to reset time to a time before Acnologia, because he's afraid that he's going to spend eternity as Acnologia's plaything? Yeah, Zeref, you're a fucking idiot, you know that?
Then what was the literal point of all the foreshadowings if Zeref's such a big fucking pussy and is afraid of fighting Acnologia? What about that big two-page spread where Zeref and Acnologia face off against each other at the end of the Tartaros arc? I mean, it's not like Acnologia's a real threat anyway, he spent like five chapters just smooshing Eileen's skull into a mush, he can't kill Makarov on Tenrou Island, he can't even shoot down the Pegasus airship, and he literally has been spending, what, the last century doing nothing but eat Gildarts' arm and blow up Tenrou Island (and, again, failing to even kill anyone)?
Oh, good, Mavis jumps in the way of the fighting. Of course Zeref doesn't give a shit, but Mavis continues talking for god damned ever anyway. And then Zeref drains her power. And takes up like half the chapter to do so.
And then Acnologia scores one hit on the flying ship, but fails to even bring it down. How the fuck do you even kill all the dragons, you stupid-ass gecko.
Zeref and Mavis have this chain of dialogue that was probably meant to be bittersweet or some shit, but all it feels like is kind of regurgitated. Thing is, it's hard to be emotionally invested when Mavis has as much personality as a wet paper towel, and Zeref's motivations are as muddled as my dog's poop on a bad day. Of course, Mavis doesn't even die. Doesn't even vanish like Gajeel did! Zeref literally says "she isn't dead".
Boom, Fairy Heart, and Zeref... looks exactly the same, just with all the black turned white with some glowing white wing-flame things on his back. Which, honestly, as far as power-ups in anime or manga go, looks absolutely underwhelming.
Good lord, this is just so funny to read. It's just so far off the rails that if you showed these sequence of chapters to me I'd brush it off as a sixth-grader's fanfiction. Holy crap. Is there even the semblance of a well-written story in this thing? Like, seriously, I don't expect every manga to be at the high standards of something like Tokyo Ghoul, but even some of the less serious and more trope recycling mangas like Naruto or Toriko or Bleach or Dragon Ball, all of which went off the rails at the end (Toriko and Dragon Ball more elegantly than the other two, but still) never felt this asinine to read. Like, jeez, it's an actual crime to think that some actually genuinely good mangas are put on permanent hiatueses or rushed to an unsatisfying end, while this piece of crap gets like two entire years for Zeref and Acnologia.
Because Acnologia's shit, that's why. I'm wholly unimpressed with everything revolving around Acnologia since he's been nothing but ineffective ever since he entered this arc. Jellal can block Acnologia because... because power levels are absolute horse shit as far as this manga goes.
ReplyDeleteWhy did Zeref use August's ultimate spell? Because Zeref's an idiot with convoluted plans and motivations that I'm not even trying to understand beyond 'emo kid shit', that's why.
Zeref is able to drain Mavis in seconds makes an absolutely valid point, and I wished I remembered that it was a plot point between him, Eileen and Glasses Ice Man Whose Name I Don't Care Enough To Remember... but then that would require me actually remembering shit about this manga, so eh. Add that to the already huge pile of 'Fairy Tail Plot Holes'.
Anna is a bigger offender of the Mary Sue bullshit than Eileen was, which I did not think possible.
1 - You mean “why is Jellal still alive when Acnologia downed Gildarts in one minute?" Lots of reasons (Jellal being “just that powerful” post-timeskip, Jellal putting out more than he can handle because Erza’s on the line, “love equals power-up” on the Jellal front, Acnologia suddenly deciding to toy with his prey instead of crushing them, Acnologia suddenly being cautious rather than rampant destruction, Acnologia’s injuries from Igneel suddenly meaning he’s less powerful, etc) - they’re all equally dumb or contrived in this instance, so you won’t be wrong for picking any of them.
ReplyDelete2 - Actually… I don’t think that had ANYTHING to do with August’s failing to attack; that would make too much sense. I don’t think the attack killing her was even a factor - hell, it probably couldn’t have; I think the sole reason why that ended was because August just… froze. To use an example, it’s like someone pulling the pin on a hand-grenade but getting distracted before they can throw it, thereby resulting in only themselves getting blown up - by all accounts, whether or not it could kill Mavis had nothing to do with why he didn’t attack; he basically just blue-screened. Plus, I think it’s implied that Mavis ISN’T immortal anymore anyway; her near-death experience at Zeref’s hands way back when apparently broke her of the curse, and her being in that lacrima was supposed to preserve her life-force until she regained enough strength to emerge - or in short, her being killable now doesn’t/didn’t mean Zeref was.
3 - She didn’t; apparently, Mavis thought she actually could appeal to Zeref’s heart. The same heart that she herself had noted was being driven to schizophrenic behavior that she outright pointed out in a flashback. The same heart that has already led a war this deep into her home. The same heart that was just now perfectly willing to kill the very same little brother he got that life-eating curse of his trying to resurrect in the first place. That’s the heart that, for the record, the supposed greatest strategist of her age (A) sacrificed letting Natsu at least try to incapacitate Zeref so as to negotiate from a position of power and (B) placed herself, who holds the power he needs for his plan, in arm’s reach of him, thereby dangling the key to victory in front of him while trying to convince him of something that for all he knows is an untested hypothetical. To make a long story short, she didn’t deliberately hand herself over to him - she really was that brain-dead as to think she could get him to stop if she talked to him despite him currently being the one in control of the battle.
ReplyDelete4 - Can’t say too much on that front; who knows why Zeref had Eileen doing the draining. At best, maybe he either went “I have lackeys, so why not use them?” or “she’s draining a dummy-clone; I’ma wait and see how long it takes her to notice!” but this point, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just Mashima seeing how many ways can make Eileen’s presence in the story even less relevant and/or pointless than it already was.
5 - Putting aside the shit-talking, my issue with Anna stems more from how she thought her plan would go down. She didn’t think Zeref would know about the time rift and use it himself, she didn’t have a backup plan for if things went wrong, and she didn’t even seem to test if the rift was open to use in the first place (which could have been accomplished by something as simple as, well, just tossing a rock into it). It honestly seems like she’s there either to be the exposition source, Lucy’s replacement mom or the meat-shield that dies to kill Acnologia so that Jellal won’t have to.
6 - Well, I don’t think that comparison’s fair, actually. At least with August, there was a *reason* given to why that fight turned out as it did; August’s “magic mirror” powers automatically negated the magic of any attacks against him, so nothing Jellal did was even hitting/reaching. Yes it plot-contrived, but it was still a reason - are you honestly going to tell me any such (sensical) reason has been given for why Acnologia’s not killed him instantly besides plot-armor?
Know you hate hearing this, but as much as I too want this series to end, I'd rather it be for the actual reasons (bad story, bad writing, etc) rather than an "I hate FT" bandwagon.
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ReplyDeleteSince I already commented on Anna's failure to proof-test her plan and Mavis's throwing logic away for what's basically "I love him so he's got to listen to me" in the chain with Ryo, I'll focus this one on Zeref himself... or rather his all-across-the-map characterization.
ReplyDeleteI mean… yes, as the likes of ForneverWorld pointed out, Zeref's not sane. In fact, Mavis’ flashback chapters way back when, where Zeref was having a breakdown going “I want to kill my brother - no, I want him to kill me”, established that Zeref’s pretty much completely off the rocker, so there's that. Mavis even flat-out lampshades that Zeref’s not making sense when he says his empire isn’t game, yet the very next page says he can run it because it’s a game to him, only to voice confusion when she points out he contradicted himself. Or to put it simply, Zeref’s “madness” looks like its supposed (emphasis on "supposed") to be schizophrenia that resulted from his compartmentalizing his mind and emotions for ages (the more he values someone’s life, the stronger the death-curse’s effect on them will be, so he had to suppress and repress and yet things still kept dying around him until he just plain gave up).
But, like I’ve also said before, even madness has to have some kind of METHOD to it. This illustration of him being emotionally-compromised is rather poorly done because it doesn’t seem like the story/Mashima can decide whether Zeref’s supposed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist turned Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, if he’s outright raving mad but trying to do what he think's right, if he’s indecisive but plagued with too many regrets to see it another way - hell, it doesn’t even seem like the story knows if we’re supposed to sympathize with him, hate him or whatever. The message is every bit as conflicting as his own emotions; I can understand showcasing a character as emotionally-damaged, but without a *context* (even a nonsensical one) to all of it, the character's just a rambling mood-swinger at best and a meaningless filler-tantrum at worst.
Mashima seems to think that saying/showing “oh, he’s schizophrenic” means Zeref doesn’t need to have some kind of consistent feeling to contrast his changing viewpoint, or a consistent viewpoint to contrast his changing feelings - all characters have to have one thing that grounds them with something identifiable to them, or otherwise it’s just “generic madman of the month.” Zeref doesn't have anything consistent to him - as far as Mashima is concerned, "he's insane" means that he doesn't have to ever settle on a set pattern for it. The closest example I can think of is it's be like if someone wrote a story about the Joker and had them go through every incarnation of his personality in one go and in one plot, without any of the "wear the right mood for the punch-line/joke" foresight that normally accompanies how the Joker does things, or even a context to why he's in his current mood in the now. It’s that indecisiveness on WHO the character is as opposed to what they are that killed Eileen as a “character", and it’s honestly what I think killed Zeref as one even before this point as well.
"All across the map characterization" is absolutely on-point in regards to Zeref, man.
DeleteI know that fictional depiction of madness is almost always inaccurate to how it really is, but compared to so many other crazy characters in other fiction like you said there tends to be a method. There is a way for them to 'rationalize' things in their mind, and there tends to be a consistency to the things they do. Like the Joker is absolutely batshit crazy and unpredictable, but he tends to follow the logic of 'cause the most mayhem' or 'do the thing that I find the funniest' (in varying degrees of the comedian-to-mass-murderer scale depending on the media) because he's a crazy clown, and that's the logic he follows.
The fact that Zeref quite literally changes the main goals of his motivations from 'I wanna fight Acnologia!' to 'I want my brother to kill me!' to 'I wanna pussy out from the fight with Acnologia!' and several dozen variations of all three is just so absolutely spastic and honestly made the dude just not at all fun to follow or care about.
It's actually not just a problem common to Zeref (or Eileen, for that matter) as far as Fairy Tail goes. One of the biggest problem I had with the 'good' era of Fairy Tail has always been Jellal, where he literally goes through absolutely different characterizations in every arc he shows up in that's justified by 'oh, he's just pretending' (justifiable, I guess) to 'amnesia, motherfuckers, now he's a good guy so he can get in Erza's pants!' But where there's at least a reason for Jellal's moodswings -- as bad as amnesia is -- it's a lot, lot better than what Zeref is going through at the moment.
Still, I would not hate Fairy Tail so much if it wasn't for the bad story and bad writing.
ReplyDelete1 - Personally it's more like Acnologia > God Serena > August; and August one-shotted Jellal. Considering Natsu one-shotted Bluenote (a.k.a. dude that was almost Gildarts' equal) pre-timeskip I don't put a lot of stock to the comparisons before and after the timeskip.
3 - So Mavis is just a complete idiot, isn't she? Like, after the first time Zeref showed he was willing to torture her and drain her slowly (for no reason!) you'd think Mavis would grow a brain. Apparently she's just stupid. Greatest strategist my ass.
5 - Anna is all of the above. She's just even more utterly pointless than Eileen. I honestly can't get really get myself to care about her.
6 - Besides plot armor? I dunno, does bad writing count?
1 - Point taken. Still, I guess that they haven't given Jellal a new plot-induced power-up means they don't plan for Acnologia to get beaten in a frontal fight... but then again, this is the series that had it's legendary black dragon puke his guts out last chapter because, hey, turns out ALL dragon-slayers get motion-sickness when they set foot on a ship (and no that isn't a joke - Icthya breaking the anti-motion-sickness lacrima on the ship and causing Acnologia to retch from being aboard the ship is literally how they escape being crushed by him... fuck my life).
ReplyDelete3 - Well, ironically, that's probably actually where point four I made to Ryo came in; namely that I think the fact Zeref wussed out of ripping Fairy Heart himself and had Eileen do it (coupled with his asking Invel to unshackle her because he didn't want her to be imprisoned) made her mistake his reluctance to do the job as him being unwilling or unable to do it. Which, considering everything else the guy has done and the *known fact* that he's prone to polarizing mood-swings, may actually make less sense - so he decided to have a Pet the Dog moment; that constitutes risking the whole damn world over his not doing it then meaning he won't do it now? I honestly don't get how Mavis was supposed to be a strategist when she's so abysmal at reading people :P
6 - I guess? I think abuse of plot armor in and of itself is just another variant of bad writing, after all.
1 - On the other hand, I kind of am happy to see SOMEONE actually fighting Acnologia instead of running around in that stupid ship and trying to use the deus ex plot ravines of time to stop Acnologia. At least Jellal is trying -- what's the point of introducing so many dragon slayers if none of them are going to pull off a last stand against Acnologia? I doubt Sting, Rogue, Cobra or Wendy are going to so much scratch Acnologia, but still, come on. Like you said, Ichiya giving Acnologia motion sickness was literally the only thing that seemed to even faze Acnologia before Jellal decided that, hey, maybe shooting a bunch of powerful spells at the dragon would be way, way more effective at slowing him down than hoping that he'll run headfirst into a spinning ball of time-death.
ReplyDelete3 - I guess Mavis and Zeref are truly made for each other -- they're both stupid, inconsistent and consistently make decisions that no one can understand.
1 - A spinning ball of time-death that's closed up, to boot. God, I can't believe I'm saying this, but in hindsight that little tidbit might just make Jellal fighting Acnologia the *most logical* part of these past few chapters - and that's saying something. I mean, even though the fact he didn't die in the first few moments is contrived as all hell, the fact of the matter is that Jellal's doing SOMETHING; Anna's reaction is to keep trying to use the clearly-inaccessible McGuffin, which is equivalent to repeatedly slamming on a broken button in the hopes it's magically going to work the 12th time you try it.
ReplyDelete3 - Yeah... I actually looked into that yesterday and found out something surprising. Apparently way back in Mavis' flashback chapters, she discovered/confirmed that Zeref's "Curse of Contradictions" actually extends to his mind - the more he wants something, the more he'll get an urge to do something to the opposite effect. Example; he told Natsu a few chapters back he's resigned himself to fate, yet his master plan is a temporal retcon that's pretty much the epitome of flipping fate off.
I admit; I'm shocked. I really didn't think Mashima would give an actual reason for why Zeref's personality is so inconsistent, let alone make it a plot point. The issue is that I really don't know whether or not I like that or if it just pisses me off - On one hand, at least we know it wasn't just Mashima thinking this is how madness works. But at the same time, it feels like it’s done solely for the express purpose of Mashima being able to switch characterizations of Zeref whenever he wants without justifying it by saying “his thoughts endlessly contradict themselves - he thinks one thing, he’ll get feelings on the opposite spectrum, which will eventually cause thoughts on the opposite-opposite spectrum and it’ll constantly shift and invert.” Yes it turns out we have a reason for him being all over the map, but said reason just feels more like a plot-enforced excuse for it rather than anything that makes Zeref feel like a sympathetic character.
1 - But Anna's an idiot though. Jellal's also the only one that's doing something remotely cool with his magic -- yeah, it's the same set of two or three magic spells he's been doing since Rave Master, but at least it's not another goddamned fire punch.
ReplyDelete3 - So basically Zeref's whole character is established to be Mashima going "yep, this character is going to do the most stupid thing every single chapter because I put together this contradiction curse thing"? Yeah that's absolutely stupid writing. Also I'm pretty sure that's just Mashima trying to justify why Zeref is in his whole 'zen zen kill no one' meditative state when he first appeared in Tenrou Island.
Thing is, I'm sure if we went back to the beginning of, oh, the Alvarez arc (not that I ever want to) to see if Zeref's characterization fits the curse of contradictions thing I'm sure it'll be just as inconsistent. The thing is, if the contradictions are done well, then it would be the keystone of Zeref's characterization, not an excuse that we have to dig out to justify his crappy writing.
3 - True. Hell, that in and of itself is probably the worst part; there won't be any consistency because Zeref as a character was never given any consistent personality or characterization to form a basis off of in the first place. And with this curse thing, it's basically an excuse for Mashima not to - or worse, to handwave any and everything he's done as the product of insanity like he tried to do with Eileen.
ReplyDeleteI'd argue that handling Zeref this way is much, much worse, though. Eileen, as badly handled as she was, was ultimately a one-shot character. Zeref was the ultimate and final big bad of the series, and jeez I never thought I would actually see a final villain worse than Obito. For all my hatred towards Obito at least I can see where Naruto's writer wanted to bring Obito's character towards. Here with Zeref I have absolutely no fucking clue what his goals are or why he's doing any of this, beyond "all of the above".
ReplyDelete