Fairy Tail 545 Review: The End! At Last!

Fairy Tail, Chapter 545: Irreplaceable Friends

And so it ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. A prolonged, protracted, streched-out whimper of a series that should have perished a long, long time ago yet is allowed, nay, forced to endure and continue to dredge on and on, constantly getting worse and finding a deeper hole to bury itself... well, fear not, ladies and gentlemen. God, if this manga was in Shonen Jump they would've mercy-killed this like two, three years ago. The poor, sick, dying beast known as Fairy Tail... died today. 

And how glorious that is. The death, I mean, not the manga. Manga's still crap. The final chapter's still crap, though a fair bit better than all the Acnologia bullshit we had before this. 

PROFANITY WARNING! I was sick when I wrote this, so I'm not being particularly kind. So if you're offended by bad, bad cuss words, turn away! 

So, a quick talk about the series as a whole before we tackle the final chapter. I've always been on the record of saying that the earlier parts of Fairy Tail were okay. Were good, even -- there were great moments of world-building and hinting at a greater world and story that they're building up to. Obviously, Natsu's still shit all throughout the manga, a generic hero with the bare minimum personality with aboslutely no depth to him, and the other A-listers like Erza, Lucy and to a lesser extent Gray are also boring as fuck. But the manga was readable and fun. It started showing cracks in the Tenrou Island/Hades bits, but it was still enjoyable then. Just weaker. But once the Grand Magic Games started... and Tartaros (which had some enjoyable bits but mostly just a gigantic mess)... and the second, absolutely banal time-skip leading to this insanely huge trainwreck that is the Alvarez/Zeref/Acnologia arc? We get far more interesting plot-points dropped and handwaved within a couple of chapters as the manga goes on these long, uninteresting identikit fights and death-fake-outs. And I believe I have spoken way too many words on the Alvarez arc already.

So, yeah. The chatper's like fifty pages long so I won't break down every single panel -- got better things to do than that -- but we apparently start at a one-year-timeskip. Lucy wins a book award! Well, that's something that Fairy Tail won't be winning, certainly. Hyuck hyuck hyuck.

We get one-page talk of people gushing over Lucy before they realize she's part of Fairy Tail and that's why the party is so rowdy. And page three of the chapter is easily what I'm going to point to as the biggest problem Fairy Tail has -- its characters are barely more than one-note jokes, and in this one page the characters repeat all the same things that they have been doing in the past, oh, 545 chapters. Anyone who might have had the hint of something more has since had any potential reduced to simple one-note jokes like this. Oh, look, Natsu's eating meat and being a country bumpkin without any manners, sitting on the table. Happy's eating fish. How hilarious. Gray's stripping. Again. Mother. Fucking. Hilarious. Ha. Ha. Ha. Gajeel is eating iron while Levy and Lily act as his two sane men. Ha. So funny. I could die. Jet and Droy continue to be irrelevant yes-men. So. So funny. Maybe if I hit my head, get drunk and overdosed on drugs at the same time, any of the jokes in this panel would be funny. But it's not. They're not. They have zero effort put into them, they're just repeating the same bullshit over and over again -- this time they're just stuck in a single panel so it's easy to point at.

Natsu and Happy, such great role models and characters to root for, continue to ignore his buddy Lucy's clearly-distressed begging for them to show some modicum of human decency and not be like animals, but Natsu's response? "Too bad!" Is he supposed to be likable? Like, god, I've seen villains more likable than this ass-muncher. Fuck off, piece of shit. Friendship is important to you my ass, you goddamn selfish egomaniac. 

Oh, look, Gray and Natsu argue with each other! Erza kicks them! It could pass off as a loving homage to the first chapters of Fairy Tail if this wasn't literally the beginning of every single arc.

Juvia randomly decides to strip because she's drunk, and because Wakaba is such a great, swell person, of course he says out loud "let her drink some more!" What the literal fuck, man? The girl's drunk! She's not even stripping on her own accord the way Gray is, she's motherfucking drunk! Also, old enough to be your daughter! Piece of shit Wakaba, you're barely better than the pedophiliac Doranbolt.

Lucy then goes through a brief flashback and narration of how her novel got the author price.

Oh god, then Anna shows up. Piece of shit pointless walking plot device that she is. Really? Anna? Lucy could've had like a meaningful moment at her parents' grave, or with Aquarius, or some shit that actually makes sense, but Anna? Choke on a dick and die,  Anna. Blah blah whatever Anna is doing, then random explanation about how Natsu feels calm about Lucy because she shares Anna's scent. Oh, fucking thank you, final chapter, for clearing that oh-so-important-and-vital plot point everyone so cares about up. That Natsu has some oedipal complex about his old nanny and projects it to Lucy or some shit. That goes against the whole 'the bonds we've created' bullshit thing you've made to be the whole point of your series, yeah? Stupid-ass writer. 

Oh god, the shipping montage. It  would've been interesting if everything wasn't so blatantly obvious throughout the series, you know? Like, I can't imagine people who are retarded enough to be waiting with bated breath to this chapter and go "oooh, I wonder if GRAY AND JUVIA WILL HOOK UP O MY GOD" nevermind the fact that the manga never ever presents an alternative despite how fucked-up their relationship is. God, if you're someone like that, seek medical attention. Or read literally any other manga. 

Gajeel and Levy whispers to each other about babies and shit. Gajeel probably knocked Levy up. Yep. Word of magic, and these motherfuckers don't know to use protection. Oh, and of course Wendy's face is super-red because Gajeel and Levy are discussing something lewd or some shit, because haha, underage kids being shocked by the existence of sex! What a classic comedy. NOT.

Wendy, apparently hangs out at Lamia Scale. Because that clearly is a guild that she fits in well, with some mages that are around her age, and her clearly fitting in there. But the horrid asswipe of an excuse of an arc that is the Avatar arc, of course, forces that no change in your life is permitted, and status quo is god, and Wendy must be dragged kicking and screaming back to Fairy Tail. Except she's as brain-dead as the rest of the cast so of course she randomly decides Fairy Tail is her home. 

Wendy and Chelia are still performing and shit, and we get an entire panel dedicated to "I can never tell what Toby's thinking". Yep. That's such an important thing to talk about at the end of the chapter. Not, like, trying to wrap up any hanging plot threads of the Alvarez arc? Or a sendoff for the oh-so-important Igneel who died like an irrelevant bitch in an aborted plot point barely explained with handwaves? No, what Toby's thinking is such a huge enigma it's required to be addressed here.

Oh and of fucking course Chelia learns how to make magic. Because god forbid any kind of lasting casualty is allowed to be done by the shitheads at Spriggan. Not even Chelia's magic is allowed to die. Because Chelia is so relevant.

Then we get the montage to the other guilds. Sabertooth has an eating contest. Apparently their aspiration to be number one in Fiore? Just forgotten because they're not as AWSUM as Fairy Tail. Also Minerva, you smug torturing bitch, fuck off already, why are you good? Ichiya gets elected as like the king or whatever of Blue Pegasus, whatever.

And, in an exemplary and utterly damning panel of the manga's attitude towards women, Mermaid Heel is reduced to being the exclusive bikini models for the Fiore Playboy or whatever. Like, I'm not like a hardcore social justice warrior or whatever, and while I believe in gender equality I also think that the SJW's on the internet really overreact at everything... but this? This is just so much horse shit. The only all-woman guild in Fiore, with Kagura being this 100% super-serious samurai lady throughout her entire career in this manga, with none of the more outlandish and easy-goingness about female exploitation the way the likes of Mirajane or Cana has... why the fuck, why the utter mother fucking hell would she even turn her entire guild into basically a Playboy photoshoot? "What in the world am I doing?" indeed, even Kagura herself is confused. What a waste of a character. But of course, all women are only here for the purposes of titillation and I'm genuinely impressed that Hiro Mashima resisted the urge of drawing every single identical-looking women in bikinis or whatever as a final sendoff. 

Cana forces Lucy to drink! Juvia strips even more! Gildarts continues to go "let them drink more, heheehehehehehe" because it's sooooo funny to see someone get drunk and accidentally reveal their bodies. Like, in what universe do anyone sees a girl get so drunk she rips off her clothes and go "YEAH, MAKE HER DRINK MORE!" instead of offering something to cover her up or to get her to a room where she can sleep? Like, unless you're some kind of gigantic rape-y creep like apparently half of the Fairy Tail population. 

Some talk about how Juvia still has a scar, and ooh, MEN can keep their scars, and it's so different. Like, okay. And Gray goes on and awkwardly says about how Juvia's body... "is mine"? Okay, Wendy, go blush now. That was a horrifyingly bad thing to say to a woman. Or a man, really. Not when you've been a total hard-to-get cunt like Gray who has been nothing but dismissive to Juvia, who in turn has been nothing but masochistically obsessive about Gray. God, these two. 

Elfman and Evergreen are together. I'm not sure why Lucy is 'worried', beyond the stupid need for the chapter to have a proper monologue going on. GOD I'M BARELY HALFWAY THROUGH. Oh, and Mashima mocks the shippes by having Lucy herself speculate whether Laxus is banging Mirajane, or Lisanna, or Cana. Probably all of them. Like, this is just mocking the utter banality of trying to make ships happen in a Shonen. Oh, Laxus and Mirajane are both S-Class heroes at the same age, of course they're together! Oh, Laxus pat-pats Lisanna in the head that one time, of course they are together! Fucking morons.

Blah blah Erza dialogue. Fuck off, Erza. Oh, the shit pumpkin king quit being a king and went into retirement, and Hisui the mouse princess became princess and wanted to re-establish relations with Alvarez. How... how is there a fucking Alvarez left? How has it not degenerated into anarchy, with its king, its entire governing body and like twenty hundred thousand of its troops killed in battle? How is trying to bring wealth back to this country equate pardoning Crime Sorciere? How does Midnight do his hair, that looks weirdly fabulous? I guess the Crime Sorciere dudes aren't the worst kind of villains out there, but that's because by and by Fairy Tail villains are all kind of ineffectively shit. Hey, remember Acnologia, great dragon of apocalypse and destruction? His death toll in a war? Exactly one, God "piece of horse shit" Sereana. 

I honestly don't have much else to say. Fiore pardons Jellal's group which I guess, yeah, why not? Good enough of an actual epilogue in this chapter. There's an oh-so-smart (NOT) twist of Erza going "it's complicated"  before freaking out and noting that it's about the book. Like, does anyone actually care if Jellal and Erza got together or not? It's one of the pairings that this chapter doesn't actually wave in our face, but fuck, I kinda care a bit more about Jellal being pardoned than whether Jellal gets to fuck Erza. Also, how stupid is it for the line of "Erza started doing her hair every single day" when, y'know, she has consistently been drawn with perfect hair since the very beginning?

Oh, look, Makarov. Apparently he got crippled. You raised her, Makarov? Drunk geriartric piece of shit with one foot in the grave, you undying piece of filth that keeps living despite having no relevance to the plot whatsoever, you knew her for like, four, five years. I've had pet fish who lived longer than that. Polyurschischishica whacks him in the head, and by default, she's became my favourite character in the manga. Fuck off, Makarov. Also, is that Doranbolt? Canonically-pedophiliac piece of shit, may you be castrated with a rusty knife.

Oh, and let me talk about the utterly nonsensical, stupid and ill-conceived aborted fetus of an idea that is the reincarnated Mavis and Zeref. It would be sappy -- if sensible -- if it were just Zeref and Mavis's ghosts. Or if the scene took place like 10 years after the fact. But apparently, in a single year -- expli-fucking-citly a single year after the end of the Alvarez arc -- Zeref and Mavis are reincarnated,  and in that single year they grew into their vaguely-teen bodies. That look identical to how they were before. We also get requisite random-face-montage bullshittery that I despise this manga for, but god, the whole plotline is so stupid. It lasted like five pages long and it's torture to read through this nonsensical, senseless crap. How? Just... just how the fuck? Like, who in their right mind would think that this is a good idea? I legitimately want to find down the people who genuinely think that random fully-aged-up Zeref and Mavis showing up a year after their deaths amnesiac and meeting each other as a good plot development and punch them in the face. 

Oh, didn't they have a son, August? Remember August? He's reduced to a joke. "August this year sure is hot." Zeref didn't acknowledge him, Mavis didn't acknowledge him, his whole, sad existence is summarized with that joke. His whole point as a character is to be a plot twist that, shit, this irrelevant Spriggan member is actually the son of Zeref, born out of wedlock, instead of this other irrelevant Spriggan member, but the shitly-handled tragedy is that, oh noes, he disappears because he sees his mommy even though mommy and daddy have no idea he existed! God, poor August. If I actually did care about him, I would legitimately feel upset. But hey, fuck August, he's just... in purgatory or hell or elsewhere, it's not like anyone except Fairy Tail members matter, right?

God, this is so stupid.

Another montage of scenes that don't make sense. Droy and Jet are sad because Gajeel and Levy are apparently trying to make a second baby offscreen. Big-Lips-Dude-That-Is-So-Relevant is talking about something about the First or whatever. Romeo and Wakaba continue to be horrible perverts chasing after random girls like the type of douchebags you see actual heroes in proper fiction beat up. Reedus paints a random couple. Someone wants to work tomorrow, whoever the fuck he is. And is that Kinanana the snake girl whose boyfriend is apparently Erik?

God, Cobra is fucking his snake. I have no words.

Lucy wakes up in her room and thinks if it's one of those "it's all a dream" endings. Which, I won't lie, would  be pretty fucking hilarious. But we spent an entire page repeating the 'oh, Natsu shows up in Lucy's room uninvited' joke which was never, ever funny and always felt like a dick move on Natsu's part. Of course Happy fucks up Lucy's trophy while pretending to be stupid. Such lovable people, yeah? No, Happy and Natsu are utterly disgusting cunts, and I'm not sure why Lucy hangs out with them.

Oh, more funny nekkid girl scenes. Of course Lucy gets drunk and strips in front of Natsu and Happy and sleeps with them. Like, seriously. Mashima has some weird drunken-girl-strips fetish or whatever.

Two page collection of flashback panels! Is it relevant? Probably not, fuck that, I'm not reading and analyzing that, I'm just rushing down to get to the end because shit I could be doing so many more interesting things with my life.

Lucy cries! There's a surprise. You're a useless little bitch, aren't you, Lucy? All you exist for is to cry and be abused by all around you. Gigantic two-page spread of her thanking Natsu and Happy. Entire page of her just with voice bubbles going "WAH WAH WAHHHHH". God, five hundred and forty-five chapters and I still can't tell you a single thing about Lucy's character beyond 'generic protagonist lady, likes her friends, has daddy issues but he's dead so fuck that shit'.

Natsu grabs Lucy and is all serious and shit like a confession but then drags her off to work. Yeah yeah, it's nothing we've never seen before. Natsu goes all "who cares? We'll always be together!" or some bullshit. I dunno. Does anyone care that Natsu and Lucy get to fuck? I don't. Blah blah, panty joke, because Mashima treats all his female characters with respect, and not treat them as soulless whores whose only importance to the story are boobs, asses and tears.

Oh, they meet the rest of the A-cast. For all Gray's talk about accepting Juvia, he's standing there without Juvia. They bring Carla, but not Juvia. Yep. Shipping matters, guys.

Gigantic two-page roar about how they're taking the hundred year quest. Um... I vaguely remember that to be a thing. But because I clearly cannot be arsed to give half a rat's ass, I can't be bothered to google it up and make sure what that is.  

A little recap of the 'do fairies have tails?' monologue, and then Lucy closes the chapter with a monologue about friendship which I don't care enough to read because, hey, it's the exact same mother fucking shitty monologue as every other thing. Oh, and look, the whole point of the Fairy Tail guild, of whether fairies have tails or not and that the mystery is the important thing... gets spoiled by Mashima showing a fairy at the final scene. Yep, the supposedly unanswerable question gets an answer. Good fucking job, missing the fucking point of your fucking manga's name. Amazing. Not many writers can do that.  

God, what a sordidly boring ending. Like, this just feels like it's the ending of a season, like a half-assed thing you put as a stopgap before the next installment, except it's meant to be the big ending of the series. Like, the whole 'flash forwards to ten years later, show everyone living their lives' epilogue ending like what Naruto, Bleach or Harry Potter did is trite and overused, but even at their worst, they're at least functional at being, y'know, a conclusion to a story. Like, at least things like the Naruto and Bleach endings made me nostalgic to the older parts of the manga where things weren't so bad. Not even then here -- it's just a symbol of how static and utterly rotten the series has became, how utterly blandly repetitive everything is.  And even without being nostalgic or conclusive, the chapter is just a string of shippings, inane monologues and creepy overused jokes. But then Fairy Tail has always been great at discarding important plot points in favour of reusing old ones or introducing irrelevant new characters to be disposed like the bitches they are. 

But, shit, at least Fairy Tail is over. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. This is just exhausting. Whatever Mashima does next -- make a new series, do a spinoff sequel to this -- I'm out. Like, nope. No more of this. It's grown less and less fun in the couple of months I've been doing this, and I'm not going to review something I clearly hate anymore. It's taken way, way too long, and way too many words, to review this trainwreck of a piece of dog shit.