Fairy Tail 544 Mega-Review: In Which I Spend Too Much Time and Words Talking Shit About This

Fairy Tail, Chapter 544: You're the King

I reviewed this properly when it came out, and that there is the tl;dr version. Which is: shit fight and a shit conclusion to a shit manga. But my abhorrence for Fairy Tail gets a lot of views, and I guess writing is indeed a form of entertainment, but let's elaborate a bit more as I try to go panel by panel and talk shit about this even more.

The title page is a zero-effort scribbled-in logo of Fairy Tail. Is it supposed to be minimalist and artistic? Art only has meaning when, well, it has some kind of meaning. What is this supposed to be, beyond "hey, we ran out of arcs to make into cover pages"? I dunno. Maybe it's a representation of the sheer effort that Mr. Hiro Mashima puts into this manga, or lack thereof?

The first page has closeups of Natsu and Acnologia in the soul-world. As always, Fairy Tail really, really likes to show closeups of characters taking up entire pages as if it makes up for the lack of content these chapters have. Acnologia continues to ramble on about how he has the power of destruction and blah blah blah, basically the same shit he's been blathering on and on and on about for the past arc. No, repeating the same motto does not make you a deep character. The page ends with Natsu and Acnologia charging towards each other with random unexplained glowing shit around them. Pay attention to this "almost-clash" moment, because even in this chapter alone the mangaka shows his utter lack of attention to his own series, since the next time we see these two they're not about to clash or are clashing.

Acnologia's soulless body is on Gray's ice-boat. Did Gray have to make it so intricate? I mean, it's not like Acnologia's dragon body is actually being destructive or killing anyone important, so yeah, I guess why not, Gray can take his sweet time making those stairs and the decorative markings on the side of the boat. Also, can I just reiterate, like a broken record, how absolutely stupid it is of a story point to have Acnologia's body be defeated partially by motion sickness? Also, more panels of people reacting! Trying so hard to compensate for the lack of content!

Fairy Sphere is active, and... what was the whole point of Lucy's book quest where they spend chunks of the previous chapter showing Lucy, Freed and Levy look for the book? Did Levy and Freed's book-savviness ever come into play? No. Did the book itself even come into play? No! All Lucy did was land and shout "Fairy Sphere Activate!" Evergreen and Elfman figured out the holding-hands part on their own. God, that particular subplot went nowhere.

Acnologia shouts "futile!" Because the body and soul are totally separated, and the body is totally a creature acting on instinct. Also, Acnologia is immune to magic, except when he isn't. Totally makes sense if you're high on weed or some shit. Yet another montage of faces reacting, because the last one was a single page ago and we cannot have that. Then Acnologia and Natsu striking the same pose -- that exact same pose that keeps getting repeated in every single Natsu-in-action pose. Wow. Much artisticness.

Acnologia says another random repetitive line! Random panel of Lucy-boobs and panty-shots, because, shit, Lucy's whole point in this entire climax is... very pointless, yeah? She's useless as a celestial spirit mage (then again, every other mage is), she's useless since the book, as I have pointed out, ended up being pointless, and even as fanservice she looks like crap and unappealing.

Oh hey Meredy shows up. Remember Meredy? I only do so vaguely. Since when does she wear like two strips of cloth to cover her nipples and nothing else from the waist-up? I dunno. I mean, it's not like this manga has ever been respectful to women ever since the first introductory arc ended. She tells Lucy that they're going to use her powers to gather magic from across the continent. Okay, cool and good, that solves the 'not enough power' bit in a way that's less brain-dead than a friendship woaoaooaoaah power up, but did the manga explain exactly why Fairy Sphere works other than secret magic shut tup?

Also, among Fairy Tail's like 60-strong cast, Meredy and Gray are the only ones to barely use their magic in a creative manner, but it's in service to two completely idiotic plot points ( power up the magic spell that can somehow harm the anti-magic dragon and give the dragon king vertigo respectively).

Oh, and this is a huge, huge ripoff of Dragon Ball Z's final Spirit Bomb against Majin Buu (which, by the way, is the weakest part of DBZ in my opinion), except this one sucks. Why do these two similar scenes suck? I don't think I have to point it out, but since we're discussing Fairy Tail I suppose I need to elaborate. The climax in Dragon Ball Z is the culmination of an over-long arc, yes, but it uses a lot of skills and powers that are a constant part of the series, or are introduced at the beginning or the middle of the arc and not an asspull. When has Meredy's powers ever been shown to be able to transfer power? Wasn't her linking power 'mutual pain between two combatants' or some shit? I guess she got it from the same spellbook that gave Wendy power-transferrance out of nowhere in a previous chapter. But at least with Meredy it's a somewhat logical extension of her rold powers, so I won't begrudge this too much.

And so let us break down the characters in a montage, and we'll see how relevant these characters are, yeah? (God, what have I gotten myself into?):

• Quattro Cerberus: If you know who the five dudes in the background are, you deserve some kind of award. It's a shameful award to have, but shit, man, I don't even remember if any of them actually even got an action scene in the Grand Magic Games. Bacchus is relevant for that one drunken-fighting fight against Elfman, which actually was one of the relatively cool fights in that shitty arc, but none of these morons have ever been relevant. So yeh, definitely the first characters that I want to see in a montage of 'every mage in the land'.
• Jellal Fernandes: Oh, hey, the human who Acnologia failed to kill even though magic doesn't work on him and he's a twenty-tonne dragon who is holding a man in his hand! I used to bitch about how much I hate Jellal, what a flat, boring invicible villain sue he was that overstayed his welcome and had like two or three different versions, and afterwards reduced to a generic Erza-shipping-awkward-moment tool post-timeskip whose whole Crime Sorciere bit never actually became relevant ever. I guess he's okay now by simple comparison to the likes of Zeref and Acnologia.
• Blue Pegasus: I kinda like Ichiya because he's always been ridiculous from the get-go until now, but the sight of Ana makes me want to vomit. Oh god, stupid-ass walking breathing plot device. There's also the bishonen trio who... I remember one of them had a cool information archive power but sadly this is Fairy Tail so whoever he is, he's never going to be relevant. There's a supermodel lady whose only function is 'more tits!' even though she got to have a cool machine soul version of Mirajane's power for all of one panel it's only in the services of 'tits and ass'. 
• The Wizard Saints: Jura's the only one out of these that has ever been relevant, and even then he's a flat cool old mentor guy who just happens to stick around for a long time. Warlord (Warrod? Warlod? Walrod?) the brocoli-head man is like the founder of Fairy Tail or some shit, but he's not relevant at all in the end, yeah? Defeated off-screen and sitting around playing cards or some shit. Dracula man and midget beardie are just there for the stupid-ass 'oh my god these are the strongest mages in Fiore and the Spriggan 12 are each stronger than these strongest mages in Fiore and the strongest of Fiore's strongest mage even defected!' Hey, Spriggan 12? You guys suck at a 10/12 rate and the other two are barely tolerable. 
• Mermaid Heel: Spider-Man cosplayer, fat lady and farm girl! Were they ever relevant? Does anyone remember their names? Only Kagura and Millianna are actually important, using that word very loosely, and they're not in this group. Apparently the three of them are like in a restaurant or something, because fuck the apocalypse dragon, right?
• Flare: And the giants! Flare's okay. She's irrelevant, of course, and her personality is 'weird sadistic psycho lady' but god, she's so irrelevant after her minor arc, wasn't she? Ah, and remember Raven Tail? Remember all the buildup that got as one of the three big scary guilds, led by Makarov's son, and Gajeel's a super-ultra-triple-agent? Remember how Raven Tail was taken out in one single chapter by Laxus (which was cool) and then proceeded to disappear from the manga entirely (which was not cool) other than the one with boobs? Because boobs = redemption. 
• The Royal Family: Because these morons are so relevant. Pumpkin King and Princess Hisui and Arcadios. Thank god the Garou Knights aren't shown here, they suck even more than the Spriggans. Apparently someone pointed out in the comments before that Hisui was reverted back into a human post Eileen's death? God, I don't care enough to look it up if it's accurate, and I certainly don't care enough to remember it. Do they have a personality beyond being plot devices? Nope.
• Fairy Tail, Part 1: Er... Macao, Wakaba and a bunch of those dudes that keep showing up in the background like big-lips-guy and blonde-generic-guy and Native-American-guy and girl-with-glasses. Three years ago I might remember their names, but shit, they're never relevant, they never fight and their personality are 'cheerleaders'. 
• Demon Dudes! From the Lyon arc! Not much I can say about these guys. Cool cameo, I guess? Like, they had to dig all the way back for these guys, but okay.
• Who the Fuck Are these People? Samurai looking guy, eyeless dude with a top-hat, and some... weird... long radish-headed thing in a suit? Are these Juvia's old friends or some shit? I don't remember them at all -- the comments section will fill me in, I'm sure, but I can't be arsed to look it up because guess what? I don't give two shits about this manga other than to make fun of it. I bet they're irrelevant after the arc they're in. 
• Two Dudes! Who I actually remember -- they're Jellal's minions and Erza's old friends in the tower of heaven stuff. Remember the tower of heaven? People actually died in that arc! Jellal was a crap-ass villain, but shit, at least the arc was structured well. Damned if I remember who these two morons are called. I don't remember bishonen guy at all, but I remembered that blocky-faced bearded dude talks in old cowboy gangster lingo and is like brothers with Hoteye, a plot point that, like everything else that doesn't concern the Fairy Tail members, went nowhere.
• Kagura! Oh here you are. So much potential when you first showed up. Vendetta against Jellal, cool samurai lady feel, one-shotted the most powerful celestial spirit, leader of an all-female guild... flash-forwards to this most recent arc and she is stripped by a shit villain and almost tentacle-raped by another. Strong female representation, folks! [/sarcasm]
• Old Ultear! Bitch, the whole point of this montage is showing how everyone is giving their powers! The fuck are you looking out of a window and not joining in for? Not a big fan of Ultear. She isn't as bad as Minerva but her heel-face-turn from evil manipulator with a flimsy excuse for being evil into Jellal's sidekick is dodgy and flimsy as all hell.
• Fairy Tail Dudes, Part 2: Jet and Droy, because haha friendzone is funny right? And fat people are funny? Do these two ever have more than those two sentences to their characters at all? Evergreen! The Raijinshuu member who never gets to fight properly and is reduced to Elfman's girl-toy and nothing else. Elfman! Who gets a couple of cool fights in the series but otherwise is reduced to just a strongman post-grand-magic-games. Who the fuck is the catgirl? Comments section will know. Bickslow! Cool design, zero personality. Reedus! I'm surprised I remember his name. His use is to illustrate something that people with a normal level of intelligence will understand from dialogue. Alzack and Visca! Cowboy mages! Remember when the manga was early and teased us with all these cool powers? Oh, Bickslow controls little spirits that possesses objects! One of Jet or Droy can control plants! Alzack and Visca has magically-enchanted guns! Have any of them ever been used creatively other than to shoot beams or punch people? Nope. Nope nope nope nope. 
• Edolas Cats: Okay, I guess these counts as old characters. If you put a gun to my head and told me to name even one of these uninteresting, unmemorable morons, though, I'll die.
• Brandish: Oh, look, one of those horrible Spriggan 12 people! Classic crappy Fairy Tail villain. More attention is given to her fanservicey design, a weird-ass name that means nothing, a power that looks cool exactly once before it's reduced to generic punching fights, and a flimsily-established backstory with one of our main characters that doesn't exactly really make that much sense, and everyone forgets about after it's told.
• Makarov and Polyruschshcsuchisaia. If you can spell the name of Not-Grandeeney, you deserve a medal. A non-ironic medal in this case. Poly is yet another symptom of a cool concept that was never explored beyond 'hey, a medic!' or 'hey, Wendy needs to be taught three super-powerful skills that she never uses after this arc!' Also, why the fuck is Makarov alive? God, what a shitty-ass old man, go keel off and die. Has Makarov ever won a single fight? Nope, his whole job is to get knocked out but somehow never die. He had a couple of appropriate death moments against Hades, Acnologia and that stupid-ass enforced death scene in this very arc, but nope. Piece of shit Makarov. I think I may hate him more than I do Ana. 
• Charle and Chelia: Oh hey look, Charle! The girl cat! Who gets a humanized form, because Hiro Mashima must appeal to all the people who has a fetish! Note that Charle is the only exceed to get a humanoid form because she's a girl! Just like Minerva, Ultear, Meredy, Flare and Juvia, the villains from their respective groups to explicitly join a good team when their male counterparts are forgotten! Also, Chelia -- god, poor kid is irrelevant after all, yeah? Also why the fuck is she glowing with magic? You just established that her magic powers are completely wiped out! Shit, even a symbolic death of fighting abilities gets annulled! Also God Slayers, ooo, what a scary-ass concept when it's first introduced! What could it mean, these God Slayers? Nope. Never relevant.
• Mirajane: Apparently Juvia, Gildarts, Cana, Freed, Levy and the Sabertooth guys don't count to be important enough to be included in the montage. Also a couple of others, too, I'm sure. Mirajane! Remember how she's introduced as an S-class mage who never fights, because her powers are so savage and scary and she's all satanic and shit? Hey, remember that? Because I sure as hell don't, she's reduced to a tee-hee miss fanservice who has full control of her satan transformation, which just reduces her to a skimpy bikini mode who... shoots magic beams like everyone else. How novel. 
• Erza: Eat shit, bitch, I won't waste any non-profanity words on you. Fuck off. Piece of shit.
• Gray: Gray entered this manga a flat, boring hero-type character. He's going to leave this manga a flat, boring hero-type character, but at least he can't be accussed of decaying like 90% of the cast. He's already generic from the get-go, he just has a pretty decent backstory. 
• Happy: Hello, irrelevant cat who's only lovable if you watch the anime! I've never ever thought Happy was funny. He is an exposition tool at best in the comics, and a horrifyingly annoying plot device that can survive a city-destroying demon explosion for no reason. But hey, it's the fifth-hundredth joke about how he wants to eat a fish! Love the character! Like, what makes the running gags in other mangas -- like One Piece, who really loves running gags -- is that if you take away the running gag the characters in One Piece or Taizai or Academia or even less-stellar manga like Naruto or Bleach still has something to them. Take away the bullshit 'strip my clothes!' or 'eat fish!' stuff from Gray and Happy, and what do you get? Boring, flat caricatures of characters.
• Lucy: I hate Lucy slightly less than Erza, Makarov and Ana, but that's like comparing being told to eat my own shit to eat someone else's shit. It's still shit. God, Lucy, one-third of your career is to be a pair of jiggling tits, one-third is to be a damsel in distress, one-third more is to have a crying panel. I swear, you make other female characters like Chi-Chi and Sakura look so much better in comparison.

Hoo. That's exhausting.

More Acnologia roaring! Human Acnologia roaring! Laxus and a faceless Gajeel curses! Acnologia shouts for 'more blood', because you totally killed someone already! Hey, look, Wendy's still alive! Remmeber when Gildarts notes how surviving with losing only one arm and all his organs is 'lucky'? Well, Wendy's stronger than Gildarts! Hell, Cobra's stronger than Gildarts! God, Cobra's still relevant in this final battle. Acnologia is shouting, standing on the ground with the ground exploding ranting about bathing in the blood of dragons. Now I put a gigantic wall of text between then and now, but remember when Acnologia and Natsu were charging at each other and about to clash? Apparently they then decided to stand facing each other between then and now.

God, I could forgive this manga a lot more if its fight scenes were entertaining, or at least not-sucky, but it can't even get action scenes rolling well! Like, what the hell, how do you make a fight between a dragon and a fire mage be reduced to 'stand menacingly' or 'punch'? God, I've seen action scenes on the Game Boy Color more exciting than this.

Acnologia roars! He suddenly can't move, because the body is held in place by Fairy Sphere! But wait, the body and the soul are separate! Also, the Sphere doesn't immobilize what's in it, right? Also, ACNOLOGIA IS IMMUNE TO MOTHER FUCKING MAGIC! But I guess fuck that, right? God, what a horrible mess this is.

Natsu charges Acnologia! We get a montage from the other dragon slayers about how only Natsu can do it. Why, may I ask, makes Natsu so special, even moreso than Gajeel, Wendy, Sting or Rogue? (Cobra and Laxus are fake dragon slayers, they don't count and I still can't believe they're included in this final battle, Cobra in particular) Did he unlock a certain level of dragon-slaying magic like Goku did with the Super Saiyans? Did he master the inner chakra beast/appetite demons within himself like Naruto or Toriko? Did he master a different skill to add to his own fire magic like Luffy mastering Haki? Is he the product of the union of like all the different races in the world like Ichigo? Just what makes Natsu so special other than some arbitary 'main character' bullshit? Nope!

Also, quick rundown of the dragon slayers! Natsu -- shitty main character. Laxus -- formerly a cool jackass, now a shit cheerleader. Gajeel -- also formerly a cool jackass, now a shit cheerleader. Rogue and Sting -- the jobber squad. Cobra -- what the fuck are you doing here. Wendy -- pedo bait to titillate sick men.

Natsu creates a big, big fiery fist and roars and charges at Acnologia. Because that's totally what you do with fire -- you make a big fist with it. Not, y'know, burn something. I look at so many other characters that wield fire or heat in manga, and none of them are dragons, and even a crappy killed-in-a-single-battle character like that one volcano Arrancar in Bleach (Edrad Liones?) uses fire and lava far more creatively in two chapters than Natsu ever did in 544 chapters. 

Acnologia looks at his missing left arm and is surprised because he forgot Igneel ate his arm way, way back. You know, if Hiro Mashima was a better artist, and didn't continually obscure the left-arm stump with Acnologia's cloak throughout the entire fight that human Acnologia shows up in, this would probably be a bit of a 'haha!' bit. But why show this scene at all? Also, why would Igneel ripping Acnologia's physical left arm wound his soul as well? Aren't the body and soul separate? Also, why is the Fairy Sphere immobilizing the body outside still allow Acnologia to turn his head and shake off the cloak to reveal the stump of his hand? If he can move, why not block with his other hand? If he can't move... he's a fucking ultimate mage of destruction, why not create another crystal to trap Natsu, or use the space-time magic he never ever uses? God, what a messy sequence.

Ugly-ass sketchy close-up of Natsu's eye. God, it's ugly.

Acnologia going bwaaa. Big punch. Big explosion that takes up two pages. If anyone genuinely tells me that this sequence of events is actually exciting, god, go watch... literally any action movie out there. You genuinely need medical attention if this is an exciting action sequence for you. 

Acnologia flies through the air and in some faux-artistic monologue he thinks about how he wants blood and destruction and more destruction and destruction-in-my hands. More random closeups of Wendy and Gajeel and Laxus. 

Some random bullshit speech from Natsu. "You gotta treasure your friends and I don't need anything else hurr durr hurr" as if it's some kind of ultra-wise zen saying on the levels of what Gandalf or Yoda would say. Like, what? You finished this fight alone after absorbing the powers of all your friends through some ill-defined deus ex machina. What a stupid-ass line.

Acnologia then dies and shatters apart and goes "I see..." No, no you don't, you stupid-ass moron piece of shit lizard, you son of a whore, you mother fucking cunt of a final villain. Was there any moment, any moment at all in your fight against Natsu where your world view was changed? Or that Natsu really shows the merits of friendship and teamwork? No! No no no no NO! Also why the fuck is Natsu worthy of the title king? In what sequence of someone's retarded mind does "Acnologia rants about destruction" to "Natsu puncches Acnologia to death" to "Acnologia realizes the error of his ways" to "hey, you're a king now!" makes sense?

Acnologia's body disintegrates! Remember how the body and soul are completely, totally separate thanks to the Ravines of Time, which the soul is in, but also has been devoured by Acnologia?

Random montage of characters reacting! Why does Gray look so angry? Why does Mirajane look like she's trying to remember if she left the oven on? Who the fuck knows? Oh, hey, like clockwork, a big panel of Lucy and tears. 

Everyone cheers. Anna hugs someone that is not Lucy because Lucy is in another panel, but really looks like Lucy. Elfman hugs Evergreen because, hey, shipping! Did the two ever have a proper moment before they decide to randomly pair up in the Tenrou Island arc? Nope! Gildarts and Cana! Two very, very irrelevant characters! Gray and Juvia! And even worse pair than Elfman and Evergreen, where their entire "love story" is based on a running gag. Though Hiro Mashima is a guy who thinks a running gag is a valid reason to take down the final villain, so maybe he also thinks repeating the "Juvia wants to be dominated by Gray-sama!" line twenty hundred times is enough to force people to think the two of them are romantic? Because they're not. The cats! Remember how Frosch had a whole prophecy to make Rogue evil or some bullshit? Nope, Gray husg Frosch and it's over. Levy and Freed! Levy, who fell in love with her abuser who crucified her to a tree, for no real reason other than Gajeel's a lot more macho than Troy and Jet. Freed, a character with a genuinely cool power-set who after his debut never gets to do anything but create black swords to slash people. Erza! Fuck Erza. Lyon and Chelia, plus dog-dude and eyebrows-dude... isn't Chelia like the younger sister of the rat lady who hung out with Lyon in the original Galuna Island arc? Whatever happened to Chelia's older sister? Is she simply not loli enough?

Kagura and Minerva shake hands! Hey, there's Miliana and Yukino. Remember Yukino? She has the thirteenth zodiac key zomg going to be so cool and relevant NOPE never seen again outside of a filler arc. Missing sister? Waved away like a joke with no drama whatsoever. I talked about Kagura already. Minerva can go choke on a dick, she's such a horribly written and inconsistent character who has a complete 180 from 'alpha bitch' to 'waaah waah love me' and everyone does because this is a crappily written manga and why am I still typing this I could be playing Legend of Zelda.

God.

I need to get this over with. Three more pages! Be strong, me.

The skies crack and the dragon slayers fall down! But didn't the Ravines of Time get eaten by Acnologia? Also, like, in the middle of the sea? Logic and Fairy Tail, two things that don't mix. 

Kya kya some random reaction panels and of course Natsu clonks his head in Lucy's face. I guess it's a small modicum of restraint that Mashima doesn't have Natsu smoosh his face in Lucy's boobs. What a stupid scene. Natsu and Lucy is also a pairing that doesn't really have that much of a great deal of romantic scenes throughout the manga.

Cobra gets welcomed back by the rest of the Oracion Seis, and Laxus by the Raijinshuu. Okay. No comments on this. Gajeel gets welcomed back by... Pantherlily, Levy, Jet and Droy? Hey, you three morons, remember when Gajeel crucified you to a tree? I'm not sure how Levy's "okay, I guess I'll forgive Gajeel since he feels bad" turned into "I wanna fuck the man and have his babies", but Fairy Tail is the poster child for stockholm syndrome treated into a romantic hook.

Sabertooth! Irrelevant. The lolicon squad! Also irrelevant. Natsu and Lucy and Happy's faces, because "I'm home" is such a touching and non-generic scene.

God, are we over yet? Yes. Final page. Destroyed guild building. "The beginning of another era?" God, the end of the era is a great line and all, but do not insinuate that this bullshit is getting a sequel. Mother fucker.

Fuck off. What was I thinking, doing a full review of this chapter? Eat shit. I wasted two hours of my life I cannot get back and I feel so dirty inside.