Wednesday 9 December 2015

Fairy Tail 465 Review: Fucking Time Travel

Fairy Tail, Chapter 465: 400 Years


Okay, I don't... honestly, this plot twist explains a couple of things that doesn't really need explaining. Works of fiction generally have a mystery that runs throughout its length and getting bits and pieces revealed over time is tantalizing. For the longest time in Fairy Tail, that was how the dragons disappeared and why the dragon slayers are a thing. We got an underwhelming revelation in the Tartaros arc... and now it appears to be expanded upon. And, um, it doesn't really make sense. If anything, it brings to question the things that Zeref did in the past -- if he had this long-running plan with Igneel all along, why all the depression and all the moping around prior to meeting Mavis and everything? The fact that Zeref and Igneel are supposedly in an alliance all this while also raises more question than it answers. Yes, they all want to kill Acnologia and whatnot, but again if that was their main plan 400 years ago... why was Zeref suicidal? Why didn't Igneel, Metallicana and the rest appear in Tenrou Island? Hell, Zeref was even around at that time! 

Natsu wants to punch things because punching things is all Natsu knows. Zeref gives Natsu a fair shot, actually, noting that this was the only time where he thinks he could be destroyed, meaning he doesn't have to destroy the world (emo kid!). I guess Zeref knows Natsu is the main character, eh? Zeref tells Natsu his backstory, about their brotherhood and everything, and I guess the long, shocked expressions and whatnot are warranted considering this is supposed to be a big revelation to the main character.

And the justification for 'Igneel failed to defeat E.N.D.' and 'E.N.D. founded Tartaros' from the introdumps given by Atlas Flame and Mard Geer ended up being a play on words and it's an utterly moronic quote-unquote explanation. Yeah, Fairy Tail has always been crappy when dealing with handwaving foreshadowed clues away.

Also, apparently, the E.N.D. book deals damage to Natsu if Zeref laser-fingers it.

Zeref then talks about how he sought advice from his good friend Igneel, who apparently hatched this master plan with the other four dragons to train human kids, teach them dragon slaying magic, hide in their offspring and then time-jump to the future to fight Acnologia. That's... um... that's a weird justification for the whole 'disappearing dragons' thing. So apparently they went extinct in their own time and Natsu and the others are just dumb enough to not realize that everything around them is different? And no one told them that, um, nope, no one's seen a dragon in centuries or whatever? That's an utterly stupid time-jumping plot element that exists simply to justify Natsu being brothers with the immortal Zeref when really all they need is to make a simpler 'Natsu is immortal but asleep until Igneel found him' or, hell, a damned memory loss handwave or something like that.

Also apparently Layla Heartfilia opened the Eclipse door during the year X777, thus trying to force the Heartfilia family into importance once more. Yeah Lucy's probably going to get some stupid long flashback with Brandish, isn't she?

Natsu doesn't care, he wants to save the world from Zeref even if it means killing him in the process, noting that the Igneel power-up tattoo won't last forever (spoiler alert: it'll be back) but Happy pulls him back, gives some sappy friendship speech and it aborts the mission. Man, Happy, you're just being annoying now. Bah.

What a weird meeting. What a weird sequence of events. Definitely better than the previous chapter by virtue of having content, and it isn't horrid... but man, fuck time travel.

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