Fairy Tail 447 Review: An improvement, I guess?

Fairy Tail, Chapter 447: Escape Battle

Both Nanatsu no Taizai and Fairy Tail have chapters this week that focused on a member of their current villainous group who was built up to be super-badass and able to wipe out the entire main character team no problem... be taken out, no problem, by one of the heroes. And while thankfully Fairy Tail managed to save some face this week by retconning the big chapter-ending punch last chapter to not be a knockout punch, unlike Nanatsu no Taizai there really isn't much justification for them to suddenly be on the level of the Spriggan Twelve -- Natsu didn't get a powerup in-between facing Brandish and Ajeel, so thankfully he doesn't one-shot Ajeel like I was worried about before.

Don't get me wrong, the chapter is still bad and overloaded with over-cheesy moments and lines and just eyeball-rolling panels, but at least it isn't just "FAIRY TAIL AWSUM NAKAMA POWER PUNCH" and call it a day.

The chapter starts with Ajeel being blown back like so many of Natsu's enemies before and Natsu wearing that smug-ass look of 'fuck yeah I just beat the enemy with jack shit effort for no reason at all' but Ajeel just jumps back up with a bruised nose, and starts to attack with sand waves and whatnot again. Gray's attempts to freeze Ajeel is easily thwarted, and Makarov, finally, gets off his ass and attacks Ajeel with his stretching-expanding ability, which lasts for like two panels before he pussies out, grabs all his kids and shelters them again while Ajeel summons this gigantic tsunami of sand to swallow up Makarov.

Everyone acts like it's some kind of big, scary thing, but partly because we know Makarov will be protected by plot armour, and partly because Ajeel's threat level has effectively been annulled for me when he took that gigantic punch, whether it affected him or not. We've got even more scenes of OH NO WE GUN DIE before a lightning bolt randomly shoots down and blasts the sand away, and of course, it's Laxus. (Also, Gajeel, the rest of Team B, the Raijinshu and Ichiya for whatever reason)

Laxus, who at least has the excuse of us not having seen his power levels after the second timeskip. And the fact that he's, y'know, been shown to want to train after being beaten up by Tempesta. And usually being stronger than Natsu except when he's not. Again, thankfully, Laxus doesn't just go down there and Main Character Mary Sue Plot Armour Punch Ajeel to the ground.

We get like a full page of random bullshitting as Team B fight over the speaker thing which, again, breaks whatever tension's left of this fight. And as if we haven't gotten enough of it, we get Freed and Bickslow talk about how Wendy is 'a woman' now, though at least they aren't anywhere as creepy as Doranbolt or whatever are. Jeez fucking stop with the pedo vibes tho.

Also Laxus jeez you are already sorta cool please shut your mouth with all those trite lines please

Doranbolt teleports them on top of the ship, and Laxus unleashes a gigantic lightning thing that ate Ajeel's giant sand attack, but it was blocked by Hades II August. Ajeel claims he won't die over something like that, but he does look kind of fucking terrified. Zeref talks about how the war is going to begin or some generic bullshit.

So yeah, overall, thankfully we don't have Natsu or Laxus actually take out one of the Spriggan Twelve, so their badassery kind of sort of remain intact. Maybe. I certainly can't take them seriously anymore after how Ajeel kind of proved ineffective beyond being flashy with his giant sand tsunamis. But I guess there is still hope, right? I guess the writer realizes how utterly and brain-numbingly moronic ending every single Natsu fight with some banal eyeroll-inducing one-liner and an entire page devoted to a punch with no explanation to the surge of strength beyond 'friendship'. So yeah, there is potential for this arc to continue having the good vibes it had before 446 happened, but if I'm a betting man, I won't bet on this ending good.