Fairy Tail 449 Review: Mavis the Death God

Fairy Tail, Chapter 449: Mavis and Zeref

Overall... still mostly disappointing. And another reason that the whole spinoff Fairy Tail Zero didn't need to happen -- or at least it should've in my opinion completely replaced the whole 'let's gather everyone like utter idiots in an arc that has no substance whatsoever' thing post-timeskip. It would've been nicer, actually. Zero had pacing problems, but it was at least overall a decent read, moreso than the idiotic Avatar bullshit.

Thankfully this chapter subverts recapping the entire prequel spinoff manga in three pages... before adding even more material to it. And takes way too long to tell it. It's something, I guess, to see the actual creation of guild laws and the wars and Mavis being a tactician and whatnot. Necessary? Not. Interesting? Not really... though it's a whole lot better than last chapter, because this is at least world-building.

Then the rest of the chapter is basically Mavis meeting Zeref for a second time. We've got some generic shippy moments between the two that honestly just plain fell flat. And then apparently Mavis' attempt to use Law during the Zero arc has hit her with the curse of Ankhseram as well, causing her to, well, be just like Zeref. It's just that she's just so preoccupied with the wars and whatnot to think about the value of human life... which, uh, doesn't exactly make sense if you think about it, but Fairy Tail never runs on proper logic so yeah, whatever. Plot twist!!!!!!

So, yeah, I guess Mavis' death-god-ness and immortality is the whole reason why Lumen Histoire is so secret and powerful and desired and whatnot. She's basically sealed herself all naked into that crystal to curb out her own curse from affecting the world. It's... a plot twist, I guess? Possibly one that will be as "impactful" as Igneel's unceremonious death and the whole mystery about the dragons and whatnot. I'm sorry. I'm just still pissed about the shitty payoff for the big missing-dragon-parents myth arc that was barely a footnote on the mess that is Tartaros.

Also yeah Zeref is totally going to be defeated with the mother of all friendship speeches at the end of this courtesy of either Natsu or Mavis or maybe both so yeah. Let's hope all the manga in between this point and the final Zeref Friendship Speech will at least have something substantial to comment about.