Fairy Tail 450 Review: Baby Makarov

Fairy Tail, Chapter 450: The One and Only in this World

This chapter is... decent, I guess. I mean, I wasn't reacting particularly strongly to any of it because a good 80% of the chapter's events could've been inferred from last week's chapter, and, again, it would've worked a lot better if it was a single chapter. As it is, the earlier bits with all the obviously-padded-out scenes of Makarov being born felt, well, exactly like padding. Like the author has these scenes that would work in a single, very busy chapter, or in one-and-a-half chapter, and decided to stretch things out. There's the rather eyeball-rolling thing of Makarov's mother wanting to give birth in the guild building because LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP before she, well, died. That part was written relatively well, though personally it still kind of fell flat on me. 

And Yuri's probably going to become evil to exact revenge on Mavis for stealing his wife. Or something.

We have a bit more padding as Mavis runs around and her death aura thing goes out of control, before meeting Zeref and speaking in riddles for a bit. Again, nothing particularly bad or regurgitated like some of the scenes from recent chapters, but nothing particularly groundbreaking either. We also have Zeref re-iterating his plans to create the Etherious Demons that can kill him (they suck) and the totally-not-a-retcon plan of him building an empire and the justification that he views them as chess pieces so the curse has no effect there.

Yeah, that's totally bullshit and the writer is just making it up to go along with the brand-new idea he had at the start of this arc. After seeing the sheer amount of foreshadowing that some manga like Tokyo Ghoul have, this kind of sloppy "oh this is his plan all along" kind of leaves a bad taste. It's not anywhere as poorly handled as Naruto's Zetsu bullshit, though, I'll give you that.

We then get a bit of an interesting view at Zeref, who, apparently, is crazy under all his cool-anime-boy demeanor. Which is actually kind of interesting -- he wants to have fun enjoying playing chess with his country, but he doesn't want it to just be a game. He wants to see his brother, but to destroy him, but wants to be destroyed by him. It would be interesting if I had any faith that this would be truly explored and built upon, but it's probably going to have a single line or two as a payoff, if it even has a payoff (RE: Frosch, Dragons Disappearing).

What I realized later after writing this review, though, is that it does give Zeref's rather... cryptic and differing characterizations over the series some kind of explanation. And does it set up Zeref for eventual redemption and Ankhseram (if he/she/it's ever going to appear) as the true big bad? Eh, we'll see. Zeref being redeemed is way too obvious, but we'll see if it'll be done well.

We then get a bit of a romance-y moment as Mavis tries to get Zeref to find a cure together and they cry and kiss and it would be kind of creepy if you consider their ages and their physical appearances. There's a narration about the abyss of magic and love, and their love for each other was the largest contradiction and apparently it caused Mavis to go into a coma.

Okay yeah I don't get that bit either, but I did like the little backstory they got going on with Mavis over here. I really still think that this should be the whole backstory of Fairy Tail Zero instead of the humdrum Generic Anime Filler Plot #3 we did, and maybe the actual chapter in regular Fairy Tail could've been a one-chapter recap. But while I admit that I kind of glossed over many of the pages when Mavis and Zeref are talking, it still overall reads relatively well. Though, again, it's rather padded out.

Still don't have much faith in this final arc. I really don't. But at least I do hope that this last myth arc about Zeref and Acnologia can be done relatively well, unlike the bullshit we got for the dragons.