FUCKING BORING.
Oh, and let's sneak in a bunch of funny scenes that's a rehash of old funny scenes to pad things out.
Really, I'm not trying to hate on recent Fairy Tail chapters... but it hasn't been that good. Oh let's build up this Avatar guild to be this big thing that worships Zeref and has an evil Gray oh wait it's a joke guild Natsu takes half of them out within three pages without even trying. Oh evil Gray no wait he's naturally just a double agent. Oh Gajeel as a council member no wait he doesn't do jack shit. None of the big things revealed are worth anything because status quo is god and friendship beats everything. There literally isn't any more tension because Fairy Tail treats all its non-Zeref, non-Acnologia villains like jokes and Avatar gets the brunt of it even moreso than, well, anyone else that Fairy Tail introduced before. I can't even remember their names, let alone their powers... though they don't really matter because even if you have shadow clones or diarrhea magic or torture magic or whatever it doesn't really matter because Fairy Tail members will just one-shot you with a big punch or sword slash anwyay.
Regardless, let's try to talk about each chapter one by one.
Fairy Tail 428: If Our Paths Are Different:
Oh look Romeo and Macao are hiking.
Two pages spent on Wendy and Carla treating Juvia who's caught a fever because Gray is a gigantic piece of shit for not telling Juvia that he's being a double agent and going to be off for a while because, uh, reasons. Why would Gray not tell Juvia, beyond the fact that he's being a dick? I dunno.
Natsu and Gray punch each other and we know this fight isn't going to worth jack shit because the most that'll happen is a draw. They spout generic 'I'm here to bring you back' 'I'm evil mwaha' dialogue that's so generic that even Naruto's regurgitated Naruto-Sasuke speeches sound better. It doesn't last long. Big fire attacks and big ice attacks, then Gray tells Natsu to spare the buddy-buddy stuff and fuck off -- yeah that's not going to happen in Fairy Tail. Lucy slaps Gray. Lucy cries because Lucy. Lucy gets diarrhea because of the diarrhea magic girl who at least has an original ability.Torture-magic old geezer and creepy puppet kid who has the same magic as Kain Hikaru shows up and immobilizes Natsu... yeah, those two dudes don't even look like a threat.
Other Avatar dudes show up and hold Lucy at sword point. Gray erased his guild mark oh no so drama. Levy returns to report to Gajeel and apparently she infiltrated Avatar as one of the minor cultists. Gajeel talks about how he'll bring Gray down.
That Natsu-Gray fight was... absolutely without tension. Because this is Fairy Tail and Fairy Tail members cannot turn evil -- hell, when someone like Minerva is redeemed without any real reason, do you think one of the main characters will turn evil for more than ten chapters?
Fairy Tail 429: Code Blue
They talk a bit about how Gray cannot be possibly evil, and then oriental torture fetish guy who's named Goumon shows up... and tries so hard to be a quirky anime character. And while Fairy Tail has its share of actually-funny quirky anime characters, Goumon only succeeds in making a gigantic embarassment because he tries so hard and he isn't funny at all. No, Happy and Lucy, bowing when there is nobody there is no reason to go all goggly-eyed. Oh, he is cosplaying Zeref. Oh he has the words 'green tea' tattooed on his forehead and he thinks it's Zeref. Whatever. Goumon, you're stupid.
He controls weapons of torture and we get some panels of Lucy being yanked around by chains because BDSM. Goumon then lists the types of torture he knows -- hot wax, whip, bondage, waterboarding and all that fun stuff. And then Goumon describes the horrors of the goat-licking torture, which, I won't lie, sounds pretty horrific. Goumon strips Lucy's fetish-maid socks and is about to release a goat while Lucy is drawn like she's about to be raped or some shit. Of course we get a gigantic panel of Natsu's face being all 'we believe in Gray'. Goumon then for whatever reason gets pissed off, pulls Lucy's limbs all spread-eagled and is about to chop her in half.
And, of course, Gray shows up, freezes the creepy pervert and returns his hair to normal. He's got a magic iPod or whatever and calls it in to his boss, Erza. Because, see, Gray is not actually evil oh no big surprise shock so much oh no it takes so much pages of people reacting no one is actually surprised
I'm just happy we don't get a big 'arc' like this bullshit for Erza.
Fairy Tail 430: Operation Purification
Wakaba is hanging out with his daughter. Apparently he has one.
A good one-third of the chapter is just recapping how Erza sent Gray to infiltrate Avatar because of reasons and they keep Juvia out of the loop and Avatar is, again, built up to be this super awesome Zeref cult with so many cells all over the world and it's impossible to just crush the guild and they have to wait until a big attack where all the cells gather together. Why keep Juvia out of the loop, beyond Gray and Erza being jerks? Dunno.
We get a couple redundant page of headshots as Gray says some friendship stuff and Natsu says some fired-up stuff. You know, if you do these headshots and friendship speeches every single time it loses all meaning. It's just a waste of space.
Avatar is gathered and they want to sacrifice a big city and they talk and talk about Gray and how they have a lot of people and they worship Zeref. Apparently robot dude was still fine from after Natsu blew him up. A shit-ton of random mooks charge at the main characters and, well, basically Dynasty Warriors happens. Avatar people is surprised! Panel of Natsu's grin! Two-page splash page of them blowing mooks apart! Grinning faces! It's... really kind of boring. No tension, and we get closeups all the time for no good reason. Lucy dons 'Star Dress Tauros' and we get yet another two-page splash of Erza destroying a small army on a horse. And then even more reaction shots of Natsu saying 'I'm all fired up' and all the others repeating what they say around three or four pages ago.
My god, the dialogue in this chapter... they're not even trying to make this readable, are they?
Fairy Tail 431: My Sword Is...
Even more two-page splashes of Fairy Tail members blowing up random mooks with unnamed big fire and ice attacks. Lucy gets to be useful against the nameless people, creating a giant wave of earth while looking like a cheap stripper. Even more scenes of them just wrecking shit up and doing generic ice and fire stuff to blow people away. The Avatar generals banter for a bit before deciding to go forth and show them their 'black magic'. Yeah, when the standards of your black magic involves causing people to get diarrhea and goat-licking torture, I don't think you pose too much of a threat.
Erza fights a bunch of mooks, then dons this armour that, I have to admit, looks quite cool. It's got these devil-wing things that are made up of curved blades, and she's just spinning them around to gut the generics around her. Granted it's not quite original -- I've seen blade-wings several times in other mangas and comics -- but it does look cool.
Jerome, the bishonen dude, shows up with his sword of darkness and breaks one set of Erza's blade-wings. Apparently Jerome has a sword that rots everything it touches, but because he is fighting Erza, y'know, Mary-Sue-Erza who can defeat someone doped up on magic without having magic or any kind of senses 'because she's Erza'... she apparently has this big thick sword that can land blows without making any contact.
So Jerome, naturally, falls within two pages. Yet another one-shot because these Avatar jackasses don't matter. It's just an arc to show how 'badass' these Fairy Tail members are, when beating up a bunch of people who don't even seem like a threat doesn't really make them any more badass than they already were.
Fairy Tail 432: If Our Paths Are Different
Oh look Alzack, Bisca and Asuka are hunting this fucking weird hyena demon.
Anyway, Briar, the dark-skinned girl with big boobs engages Gray. We get a generic 'I thought you were one of us' 'nah you guys are jerks' exchange and Gray repeating the whole 'I'll destroy END' that he just introdumped two chapters ago. Meanwhile, Lucy and Taurus are afflicted by the powers of Mary the diarrhea girl. Lucy gets brought to the ground and is struggling because, y'know, Lucy is like the reverse-Erza in that she will get brought down on her knees by any opponent. Wendy shows up because of course she does and cures the virus no problem, and then Mary tries to, uh... glomp Lucy or something. Lucy does a Lucy Punch (hey, a named attack) and knocks Mary down, exposing Mary's panties to the readers.
Briar's magic is apparently clone magic and we get a chunk of a page showing Briar's oh-so-funny split personalities. One of the Briars is 'Loving Briar', so Juvia shows up and Water-Claws her to death or something. Gray one-shots the rest of the Briars (what does she expect multiplying to even do?) and then they both strip (Juvia only to her underwear) to fight.
Wendy goes into Dragon Force and does Sky Dragon's Tornado, which actually looks like an actual improvement over her repeated Sky-Dragon's-Roar and whatnot. We get a montage of yet generic destruction, then Arlock the metal-mask-spike-mustache dude speaks about how it's all part of the plan. Well okay, but you're no Aizen.
I don't... really give a fuck. Really. Apparently we get two more weeks of double chapters. Joy. This really feels like it should be an anime filler arc that lasts two episodes... not five chapters in a manga. It's just so uneventful, the villains are jokes and, again, still absolutely nothing justifies the time skip and the whole 'let's rebuild Fairy Tail' thing. Sometimes I wonder why I'm still reading this thing.
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