Lucy Heartfilia News

YES, FINALLY SOME DRAGONS. I have been waiting to see dragons since the manga began. Fairy tail is technically about the dragons and whatever happened 14 years ago, but one might almost assume that Hiro forgot what his manga was supposed to be about, considering how much time has passed since he brought up the dragons and actually showed us some. And Achnologia doesn’t count because its appearance was so brief. I can imagine just how much better this story would have been if Hiro has focused on Natsu, his goal to find igneel and what happened to the dragons years ago. We would have had a more adventurous story rather than a more mission oriented one.

Either way, we are finally here, DRAGONS, and it would take a really stupid side of Hiro to mess this awesome turn of events up.

THE PLOT:>

So the dragons are finally here. The Eclipse gate which was imputed to be the only hope of man against a deadly foe turned out to be his doom. Rather than a powerful canon capable of decimating nearly ten thousand dragons, the eclipse gate turns out to be a gateway through time to four hundred years ago, when the dragons ruled, and once it opens they begin to flood through. Arcadios says something about the moon corrupting the gate but i am not really sure what he really knows, after all, everything he thinks he knows he learnt from the princess.

Speaking of which, she reacts rather disappointingly to the whole situation, just standing their, lost in the thought that she might have brought about the end of the world. The first dragon that comes through is enormous, and with a scream, roar, breath, it sends everyone and everything to the ground, before beginning a rampage that tears through the palace and its grounds. The trembles and quakes can be felt for miles, all the way to the city square where all the guilds have assembled.

It becomes clear that the gate has to be closed as more dragons have began to come through. This mission falls to Lucy who has to use her celestial magic to get the job done. But with Dragons roars scattering shockwaves through the palace while the dragons rampage and stamp all over the grounds, it becomes a task simpler said than done. Below, Natsu is rising and preparing to jump into the action. No one knows yet, what awaits them in them palace; the danger that has been unleashed and is about to wash over them.

MY REVIEW:>

I can’t tell if we are approaching the climax of his arc or if we are simply striking the half way mark as we prepare to embark on the second portion of this story. With a new arc we will finally move on to a new location, with new characters and a new story and mystery to solve. But i would prefer it if Hiro chose to continue this dragon story on top of the current arc. It would make for a better plot. We have already experienced some descent back-story and character developments, developments that would be incorporated into the coming story, with these new characters playing important roles with regards to the dragons as well as their own individual plots. It would be a waste to only see these characters, the likes of Minerva and Kagura, as mere blurry figures, barely worth a close up, only important as part of the collective of mages gathered to fight the dragons, but making nor individual and personal contributions on whatever side they may choose to fall.

Hiro is most likely to do this. Chances are he has already forgotten about these characters as he has introduced a new set of pawns, the dragons, to play with. But seriously, these characters should continue down whatever paths they were following during the tournament whilst playing a part in this war. They shouldn’t be relegated to the edges of the panel, barely getting a mention.

I could say that it was a little convenient that Lucy happened to have been analyzing the gate at the time that the she chose to stop it from opening. I don’t want to say that she isn’t smart enough to have taken such a step of her own volition; instead i will say that she simply doesn’t seem curious enough to have taken the time to analyze the gate. She simply isn’t that kind of person and i don’t think she would have taken the initiative; so i guess i will say that i don’t think she is smart enough to have taken such an action.

I won’t say that her actions were unrealistically convenient. Because however contrived the result might have been, it isn’t impossible that Lucy could have chosen to have her spirits analyze the gate for any dangers. Either way it saves Hiro from having to write Lucy as a more interesting character. Because if he had chosen to write a more insidious explanation regarding her actions in trying to close the gate, he wouldn’t have had the guts to make some tough decisions regarding Lucy, which would have only degraded her character and the series as a whole. Either way i am happy with the turn out. More importantly, someone lied to someone about the gate, and i think that person is Rogue. Everything the princess did was based on Rogue’s information.

So if he sin;t evil, then he is just as pointless and useless a future being as Lucy was. Speaking of which future Lucy denied trying to close the gate. She should have known where the dragons came from. I could call that a plot hole, but then again maybe the only reason Lucy thought of analyzing the gate was because of what rogue said about her closing the gate. She probably needed to know why she would do so, if indeed she did close the gate in the future. But that again doesn’t solve the problem; future Lucy had to know that the gate released the dragons, otherwise how were they released in her time line. So the question is why didn’t she warn everyone about the gate. Maybe there is more to the Lucy story than i might have thought.

These dragons are clearly no where near as powerful as Achnologia. The mere beating of its wings threatened to tip the island over yet these dragons are rampaging around the palace with minimal damage. Still, i am curious to see just how the team handles this threat. Fairy tail seems to be getting better and better with each passing chapter. We are getting the answers we wanted to the mysteries introduced early in the arc. My faith in Hiro is restored. I have more or less forgotten the horrendous misses of the last days of the Daimatou Enbu. I can now look forward to each Fairy tail chapter optimistically.

This is my prediction with regards to this arc. Hiro is going to wrap it up in the next two chapters, maybe three or four even. Then i am going to hate him for it. Otherwise, i expect that Lucy will have to sacrifice, maybe even her life, to close the gate. Rogue spoke of ten thousand dragons. It would take Lucy just sitting their for quite a while before ten thousand dragons came through. Something hs to happen to speed up the process, unless they have to retreat and the gate stays open. Rogue will probably be revealed to be a dragon, send back to stop the gate form being closed by Lucy and hence allowing his dragon brethren to come through.

There is no Eclipse canon What in the world are they all going to do? I am guessing that Zeref has to show up somehow in this situation.

MY RATING:>

4/5, this was a pretty good set up chapter. I can’t wait to see what happens next week. The dragons are here, all we can expect now is war, unless Hiro opts for a some easy and cheap resolution. I guess my faith in him isn’t completely restored.

THE LULLABY ARC

THE PLOT:>

The arc begins with Natsu filling Lucy in on the existence of dark guilds, illegal guilds unrecognized and unsanctioned by the council. At this point, Lucy begins to express trepidations over teaming up with Natsu on another mission, due to his predilection for choosing the most dangerous jobs available. Gray encourages her to journey out on her own and this leads to a fight with Natsu that end when it is announced that the famous S-class mage and the strongest woman in fairy tail, Erza Scarlet had returned from a mission, the giant hone of the demon she had been hunting under her arm. The mere mention of her name strikes fear in Gray and Natsu who immediately start acting like the best of friends the moment she appears. Lucy figures that Erza doesn’t approve of there constant quarrels and fights.

Erza had returned to request Natsu and Gray’s help in executing a mission; during her travels, she had come across a group of mages discussing something called lullaby. It wasn’t until later on that she had realized that the mages belonged to Eisenwald, a dark guild. She could only assume that whatever they were up to with this lullaby would lead to untold pain and suffering. During their investigations to locate Eisenwald and its members, it is revealed that lullaby is a powerful weapon created by Zeref, the most evil and most powerful mage to ever exist, a mage that was vanquished a long time ago but whose inventions and demons still live on.

Lullaby was a flute whose melody would bring death to any that heard it. Erigor, Eisenwald’s leader intended to broadcast it to all that could hear it via a subway’s audio systems. Erza and gang intercept this mission and tangle with Eisenwald, who are soundly defeated by Erza and her heavens wheel armor. Erigor escapes with the flute and traps the subway in powerful walls of wind that even Erza can’t penetrate, but not before Natsu escapes.

Erigor, having failed his mission, intended to make his way to the meeting of guild masters in some remote location and achieve his revenge against recognized guilds by killing all of their masters with the flute. With their master makarov, at the meeting, facing imminent danger, Natsu pulls out all the stops in stopping Erigor. They clash on train tracks, and while it seemed like Natsu had the advantage, Erigor activates a wind armor that negates Natsu’s flames, rendering his usually destructive flaming fists innocuous on contact with the armor. Natsu however overcomes this obstacle with some clever thinking and defeats Erigor.

Erza and company escape when Lucy realizes that she had inherited Virgo when she defeated Everlue. She digs them out and they arrive at Natsu’s location, but after he had wrapped things up. A member of Eisenwald manages to get a hold of the flute and escapes fairy tail, finally arriving at the meeting site. But he runs into makarov who lays some fairy tail words of wisdom upon him and by the time Erza and company arrive, the dark mage has been reduced to tears by their master’s kindness. He hands over the flute, but it activates and begins to speak. It unleashes the true lullaby, a vicious demon sealed within by Zeref.

The fairy tail team gears up and destroys it, whilst also decimating the meeting site; so they are forced to ran away immediately, leaving Makarov to face the consequences.

MY REVIEW:>

i enjoyed this arc the first time i read it. It felt like fairy tail was slowly and steadily moving forward, with a new story, new characters and more hints about the fairy tail world to portend what was to come.Natsu finally faced his first true match in Erigor, a mage that completely and utterly outmatched him. This wasn’t a villain Natsu could beat with raw power. He had to think. His flames gave him destructive strength. But they went out on contact with Erigor’s anti magic armor. So he decided to strike at Erigor with his bare fist while firing off flames from his elbow like a jet and giving his strikes there usual destructive force. It was a change, to see Natsu having to think outside the box. It was also nice to see that his flames could have more innovative uses than just burning opponents to a crisp. We saw Natsu use his ‘sticky flames’ which kind of reminded me of Naruto’s chakra arms, with the way Natsu held onto the bridge and pulled himself back up.Erigor also proved to be quite a powerful villain for the time, with the way he sealed an entire building away with just wind

This was also the arc that introduced us to Erza, the best character fairy tail has. I was disappointed that she didn’t fight Erigor, but at least we got to see a taste of her magic, especially the way she could drive a vehicle that was powered by the driver’s magic at full speed but she still had enough juice to destroy the Eisenwald goons.

The stakes in this arc were also darker and more sinister than before as Erigor had the ability to kill an insane amount of people with just one tune. You could feel the tension each time he had the chance to play the flute. The ending was a little bit surprising, with makarov talking the enemy down (in a good way), and Lullaby turning out to be a demon rather than a flute. It allowed Hiro to show us why Erza, Natsu and gray were fairy tail’s strongest team, when they took down a feared demon created by Zeref himself. There were some really funny moments as well. The way the team fled after destroying the meeting site because they didn’t want to foot the bill or face the council’s wrath, and the Eisenwald members who stopped fighting just so they could watch Erza requip because she first transitions into a nude form before donning a news armor. They seemed more than happy to be cut down by her.

I have forgotten most of the important fights in this arc, but i know Gray put up a really good fight against a mage that could control shadows, a chance to finally see his impressive ice make magic. I think this was a the first time we realized that Natsu had vehicle sickness. It was hilarious when Lucy was helping to carry him into the subway and he was still just as sick, at which point Natsu told her that he considered her to be a transportation as well. I laughed at that for several minutes, especially the expressions on both their faces. This was also the arc we found out that Loki disliked celestial wizards.

Overall this was a good arc and it kept up the pace.

MY RATING:>

5/5 this would still be a pretty good place for a non fairy tail fan to start reading the material, as there is little to catch up on and their is enough story to keep the characters interesting.

FAVORITE MOMENTS: Natsu Vs Erigor. This was still a time when i thoroughly enjoyed Natsu fights, especially that moment when he pulled himself up with a large flaming hand. Every scene with Erza, Natsu and Gray was hilarious mostly because of how careful they would act, pretending to be nice to each other each time her eye fell upon them. The team battle against lullaby was awesome.

Then there was Lucy and Virgo’s exchanges after happy told her she had inherited the key.

it is times like this where i wish fairy tail was a few pages longer so i could get a little more of it each week. Unsurprisingly the battle in this chapter was a little too short for my liking, which is a surprising thing for me to say as an anime fan. Most otaku out there will admit to having wished and hoped on several occasions that a fight in an anime or manga would cut down to at least half of its multi episode excessively long size. Yet here in fairy tail, i am actually wishing for the opposite, that the fights would last just a little bit longer. And it isn’t like we are talking about something Hiro hasn’t done before; there was a time during the S class arc were the fights just wouldn’t end. I guess someone out there complained and Hiro is listening, but at the wrong time.

THE PLOT:>

The long awaited day is here, July 7th, the very day 14years ago that the dragons disappeared. Makarov and other masters are going about organizing the guilds in preparation for the attack. Fairy tail will take center stage defending the central square, while the other guilds wait in the outskirts. Clearly even the tougher mages, the likes of Laxus and Erza, are far from peak fighting condition, but it is fairy tail, so maybe they are hoping to depend on more Nakama power.

Rogue and Natsu are engaged in battle. The have barely began to even taste each other’s strengths when Natsu suddenly decides to take it to the next level by activating his Lightning flame mode and decimating the tunnels with an awe striking attack. But while mildly amused, Rogue is far from impressed as he too decides to bring the battle to an end even before it truly began, by activating his white shadow dragon mode and bringing Natsu to his knees with a multi directional attack that doesn’t allow him to retaliate or defend.

Natsu is down for the count mostly, bleeding all over and barely able to stand. Rogue, clearly superior prepares to take him out when he is assaulted by crystal balls (sort of) that devastate the area he should have been standing in. By the time Ultear arrives at the scene, Rogue is gone.But rather than chase after him, her and Meredy have to deal with a more pressing matter. Natsu is depleted physically and is unable to to fight against a pool of shadows that begins to drag him down.

Elsewhere the great gates of the eclipse have began to open and as they all marvel at the light coming from within, Lucy moves forth to close the gates and stop eclipse…

MY REVIEW:>

It is easy to see why i would call this a pretty good chapter.

1. ROGUE KILLED STING?! WHY? This was a pretty shocking revelation for Rogue to make. Last time we saw him, Rogue had lost to Gajeel and was suddenly reciting the fairy tail mantra about friendship and all that. What in the world could happen in seven years to turn him into a murderer? Well, that is obvious i guess. The dragons attacked; the place rogue comes from is probably more hell than anything and living in such an existence can change people. None the less it was a shocking revelation. But i don’t know how much of it should be believed.

We have heard this before, with sting and rogue claiming they killed their dragons, which is silly if you think about it; they couldn’t have been more than infants by the time the dragons disappeared; how in the world could they have acquired the strength to kill their dragons. It is more than possible that Rogue is jesting, or maybe sting willingly gave up his life to empower rogue. Who knows? But clearly not everything that rogue says should be taken as it is.

2. NATSU VS ROGUE. Admittedly i thought it would be appropriate for Natsu to lose, but i didn’t think he would lose so brutally, so quickly and for rogue to be so bad ass. That (fusion) dragon transformation, with one part dark and the other part light, is truly formidable. I have been waiting to see more of Natsu’s lightning flame mode in this arc for a while, but i was surprised by how ineffective it was. I want to complain that this fight was too short, but really, we all know it is far from over. Chances are Natsu will find another opportunity to even the score. But i can’t complain for now; it was satisfying.

3.EVIL LUCY? I doubt anyone is going to believe that Lucy has gone bad. Either that isn’t the real Lucy, or she is being brainwashed. What would make this plot better is if Lucy was actually acting on her own volition, rather than some external force, because then it doesn’t just become a matter of defeating this unseen force and everything returns back to normal. Hiro has a chance right here to make something more of Lucy. Let’s face it, even the future Lucy plot was a waste as Lucy would have been of absolutely no use in saving the future. Another reason her death meant nothing.

If anything, now we know that Rogue was right, and whatever his actions so far, it would be a stretch to call him evil. He came back to save the future and he has the power to do it, unlike Lucy. But that last scene did surprise me, that Rogue was right and Lucy would close the door. I can only imagine the anxiety felt by those watching as the gate opens, knowing that it took seven years to collect the necessary magic to empower it and one small mistake will not only throw away all their efforts but doom humanity; and then Lucy starts speaking of closing the gate. I can see Arcadios killing Lucy instantly, and he wouldn’t be wrong. The dragons have to be stopped at all costs; whether or not Lucy is under nefarious control makes no difference.

MY RATING:> 4/5, this was a good chapter. Now with Hiro being who he is, i can only hope he doesn’t mess things up next week because that would be within his character.

I don’t want to say this fairy tail chapter was bad, because it wasn’t. It was simply boring.

THE PLOT:>

Lucy escapes and joins the princess at the gates. Everyone is caught up on the whole Rogue matter. Lucy quickly denies any intentions of stopping the eclipse. Some distance off, news of the coming dragons has reached all ears. The king of Fiore explains that even with the power of eclipse, there are a few hundred dragons that will definitely survive, at which point he calls upon all the guilds assembled in the square to join hands and help him fight the coming dragons. Everyone pledges their strength, and they all rejoice.Elsewhere, Natsu and Rogue have engaged in battle.

Natsu pledges to stop Rogue and his ways, and since Natsu died in the future in the dragon war, rogue sees no reason not to kill him.

MY REVIEW:>

There were some high points in this chapter. Jellal showing up to two magic council members was pretty bold and exciting. But then again even if they wanted to arrest him, what could they do?

We now know that if the gate is closed, it’s game over because it apparently takes seven or so years to accumulate all that magic.

Rogue Vs Natsu just isn’t exciting to me. Natsu is going to decimate Rogue quickly and efficiently using nakama power, which will be an unfortunate ending; but it will be better than natsu talking rogue out of his killing craze.

MY RATING:> 2.5, not bad but still boring.

Erza Scarlet is an S-Class mage of fairy tail, famous for her requip magic; she is a member of team Natsu (actually team Erza) and one of the main female protagonists of the series.

Erza is very strict, and will often criticize other members of her guild for their habits and behaviors. She is also impatient and will get short with people that take too long to reply to her, all of which make her one of the more socially awkward members of the guild, at least at one point. Most guild members will avoid her as such, afraid of incurring her wrath; though their is no doubting Erza’s sense of justice and her immovable loyalty to the guild.

Lucy once described Erza to her mother as Strong, warm, beautiful and full of passion, while her Edolas counterpart, Erza knightstalker, called her cool and strong. Erza has referred to herself before as someone who was always crying because she couldn’t protect and defend her friends. This also stems from the numerous occasions others have had to put their lives on the line to protect her. As such,Erza has always described her armor as a defense, not only against threats to her body, but to her will and spirit, going so far as to say that without it, she feels naked and vulnerable, which is why she is rarely seen outside of her heart kreutz armor.

Erza has been known to be quite liberal with herself, in that she seems to have no problem with men seeing her naked body. This is shown on the occasion that she went to take a shower and asked Natsu and Gray to join her, as the three of them had take baths together often as children. On another occasion, when the team was off at a hot spring and it was realized that the boys were peeping at them, Erza was quick to invite them to join the girls. In both cases, Lucy is shocked at Erza’s casual manner towards such matters,and each time Erza doesn’t see what the big deal is.

Erza’s childhood is a tragic one. Born in the village of Rosemary, Erza’s home was attacked by a zeref cult; Erza managed to save kagura, but she was captured and taken, along with other children to an island where they worked as slaves to build the tower of heaven. There , despite harsh conditions, she met and bonded with Jellal, Simon and the other children working besides her; it is Jellal that adds Scarlet to her one name, Erza, because of her long beautiful red hair. she also befriended Rob, a fairy tail guild mage and a friend of Makarov that was kidnapped to help complete the tower. He tells her about fairy tail whilst also teaching her about magic.

At the height of cruelty in the slave encampment some time later, one of the other slaves, Sho, makes a plan for eleven year old Erza and her friends to escape but the guards foil it. They decide that the mastermind be taken to the disciplinery chamber. Jellal announces himself mastermind to protect erza, but the guards work it out that Erza was responsible, sending her off to be punished.

Erza is tortured to the brink of death, and even loses an eye. Eventually Jellal can’t take it, and launches a rescue attempt; he rescues Erza but he himself is captured. Finally fed up with the way things are ran, Erza leads a revolt, and it is initially successful, with the slaves overpowering the guards. Then the tower mages arrive and begin to drive back the force. Erza watches in horror as her friend Simon’s lower Jaw is blown off by a magical attack; rob also sacrifices himself to save Erza. Finally overwhelmed, Erza access her latent magical power and turns the gurads’ weapons against them, slaughtering them all.

Erza rescues Jellal, but he has changed, having fallen under the power of Zeref. He mercilessly slaughters the guards, and makes clear his belief, that to stop bad things from happening, they must complete the tower of heaven and use it as a weapon against all others. Erza won’t join him, so Jellal throws her out of the tower into the sea. He won’t kill her because took care of the mages for him. But she tells her go on, alone, without the rest of the slaves, or their friends. They would stay on and work on the tower. She was not to say a word to anyone else about the tower and or even attempt to stop him. He held their friends’ lives in his hand and if she did anything to jeopardize his plans in anyway, he would end them.

Erza leaves washes onto the shores of Fiore and finds fairy tail, where she quickly becomes famous for her anti social attitude and strength. Natsu and gray often challenge her to battle, eager to prove themselves her betters, but each time she beat them down. This coupled with Erza’s attitude makes her less than popular with the pair, until the day Gray runs into her by the river and in challenging her, sees the tears rolling down her face. He and Natsu quickly realize that all those times Erza would shun company, she was off on her own, weeping for her lost comrades.

Together, they force her out of her shell and into the warmth of fairy tail. Around that time, Makarov takes her to the guild medic who gives her her new artificial eye. later on, she takes her S class mage test and passes, becoming the youngest ever S class mage in a fairy tail history, at 15 years.

REVIEW:>

I have always thought that most anime and manga series that try to create strong female characters get it wrong. it usually feels like they are way too self aware of the fact that they have in their hands a female character and they must somehow maker her a strong female person on screen. Usually that plays out in two ways. They will male the female character as egregiously anti ‘normal female character’ as possible by usually making her bigger than normal, maybe meaner looking, with a very violent streak, the kind that breaks heads, pulls off arms and tears guts out of enemies; basically a monster. The other way is to compare and make her superior to the most ideal male counterpart around. Usually you will have male person A that can do act x better than anyone,but the strong female character breaks that record a hundred times over. Or male person B can do very difficult task Y that no one can even begin to accomplish, but the strong female character can do it without even trying.

Basically they define the strength of female characters by how much better they can do something than their male counterparts. So their very definition is determined by how they fair in relation to male characters. This, to me, always seems so forced, like someone out there is out to make a point. It simply doesn’t work; and as far as i am concerned, when they think they have pulled it off, they haven’t created strong female characters. They have created lunatics.

Erza is the masterpiece of Hiro’s mind.She is Hiro at his best. To me, Hiro didn’t look at a blueprint of Erza and ask himself how he was going to make a great strong female character. That is what most idiotic mangaka do. It seems like Hiro looked at a blueprint of Erza and asked himself how he was going to make great fairy tail character; female or not, it didn’t matter. And by focusing on that, by not trying to simply make some point, Hiro succeeds so well with Erza.

I like the fact that Erza is called the strongest female mage in fairy tail, and the strongest female mage in Fiore. The ‘female' in the title adds a little something to her character, in that Hiro isn’t going to define Erza by comparing her to her other male S class mage comrades, otherwise he would have called her the second or third or whatever strongest mage in fairy tail. We might ask who the strongest is. Some think she lies at the bottom of the S class mage list, just above Mira Jane. I think she can go toe to toe and even stands more than a good chance of beating each and everyone of them, minus Gildartz and Makarov who are monsters. But that isn’t mentioned. There is rarely a mention, either by the other guild members or Erza herself of whether or not she is stronger than Laxus, Mystogun and the rest. She doesn’t even make mention of her title as the strongest female mage. it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t have to say anything.

Hiro lets us see Erza in action and shows us her feats, and rather than tell us, he lets her actions speak for themselves, that she is strong. Erza isn’t my favorite or even the strongest female character. That would be Clare and Revy and whoever else i might have forgotten. But erza is way up there. She is an icon in anime. I have come across anime and manga fans on the internet that, for unknown reasons, absolutely hate fairy tail. And most of them have admitted to possessing a grudging respect for Erza, a character they don’t even know.

As far as Erza is concerned, i will just point out some of her highlights. Firstly is her story which is truly tragic. We saw her interact with Jellal so many times in the beginning, but never truly understood why she was so antagonistic towards him. Then we learn of who they were, their friendship during times of hardship. They both suffered and felt great anger for the pain they had been forced to endure. But Erza focused that anger on her friends and developed a passion to protect all that were dear to her. Jellal however focused that anger towards those that had made his dear ones suffer, and that grew into a hate that consumed him. I have always thought that the S class arc was the best arc of fairy tail so far-let’s wait and see how this one ends. But after thinking about it, i realize that the best ever arc of fairy tail was this tower of heaven arc.

It wasn’t merely brilliant (sort of) it was brutal. Here Hiro shorn as a story teller. I won’t lie i was surprised at the kind of carnage involved in what seemed to me to be a kids’ manga. The way Erza cut those guards down, Simon getting his jaw blown off, Jellal’s actions. it is no wonder she fights so hard to protect fairy tail. She knows what it is like to lose friends, and it is indeed a testament to her self control that she met with and tolerated Jellal on several occasions, while knowing that he held her friends at ransom.

I was first blown away by Erza during the phantom Lord arc. The guild’s entire HQ had walked to fairy tail, charged its super canon Jupiter and was ready to decimate fairy tail and everyone and everything around it. Makarov was temporarily dispatched, mystogun, laxus and Gildartz were no were to be seen and the only other S class mage in sight was Mirajane, who is still useless here.

So what does Erza do? Does she run, using her magic to evacuate as many of her people as possible before the attack? No. She changes into her Adamantine armor and takes the Jupiter blast head on, a blast mind you that can level a small town. Sure she was down, but not dead. And when things began to go side ways, with phantom lord’s four strongest unleashed, she stands herself up and saves natsu after he has beaten by the strongest of the four, the telekinetic wielding Aria. Yes she straggles, she just took a canon to the body. But she beats him, then she faces off against Jose, Phantom Lord’s master minutes later, and while she was beaten, she actually gives him a good fight, to the point that he compliments her awesome power. I was convinced that at full power, Erza could have torn Jose apart.

Here we see Erza’s durability and power

Then there was the tower of heaven arc itself, in which i first begin losing faith in Hiro, that Erza lost so easily to some less than impressive enemies after carrying out so many great feats, until we find out that these new enemies are dear friends who think she abandoned them and are now working for Jellal. We then learn why Erza is constantly armored, that she is protecting her heart.

When Simon dies at Jellal’s hands, we finally see adult Erza break into tears at the passing of a great friend. But this allows her to shed her fears when she faces Ikagura, who possess a powerful katana that easily destroys each all her armors. she then sheds it and faces Ikagura, a great swordswoman, head on, with nothing but cloth to protect her. Basically she puts faith in her abilities to protect her body, and in defeating Ikagura she shows us just how skilled she is a swordswoman, and that she isn’t just a powerhouse dependant on magical armor. She proves this strength further by taking on and beating Jellal (granted he wasn’t using his meteor magic, but still).

This was one of the most epic moments in the manga, to see Natsu going dragon force; fairy tail was at its best; and one of saddest, to see Erza sacrificing her self to stop Etherion from exploding, because she could not bear to live while abandoning her new friends to death again. Here Hiro did what he did with Lucy last week, where he killed off a main character without actually doing it. Of course natsu emerges from the smoke and rubble with Erza safe and sound. But for a whole chapter before that, Hiro showed Erza dead, watching her funeral as her friends put her in the ground after she sacrificed herself to save them. It was so well done that if Erza had died there and then, i would have been completely fine with it. Because she had gone out in a perfect manner and she would go down quite well in fairy tail as an amazing character. Actually fairy tail might have taken a different more epic turn if that had happened.

There was that Laxus arc when, after Laxus traps the town in Lacryma that would not only destroy the town but would unleash a powerful bolt of energy into anyone that destroyed just one, Erza summoned more than two hundred swords and destroyed all of them in one go. It was an impressive display of her power in summoning all those swords and taking the resulting blast and surviving it. More than that, it showed her loyally and how far she would go to protect her guild. Actually i would have preferred Erza vs LAxus rather than Gajeel and Natsu Vs Laxus.

On the occasion that she met amnesiac Jellal, it was hard to tell if she had forgiven him, but even with him killing Simon, she didn’t seem to hold a grudge ag

ainst him. Rather the most heartbreaking moment in fairy tail was when the magic council took Jellal away even after he had helped stop Oracion Sais, to serve his life sentence. Erza secluded herself and broke down completely for the first time as she wept and wailed uncontrollably.

And of course there was the Erza Vs Erza fight during the Edolas arc, one of the best fights in fairy tail, far better than Natsu Vs Gajeel, because it was so dynamic. First they matched magic, The Knight Vs the ten commandments, then they turned to sword skills. And when all that had failed, weapons and armor broken, they turned to fists and tumbled and rumbled. No wonder even Natsu was so afraid to be anywhere near them when they were fighting. He turned and ran in the opposite direction as fast as possible.

But her greatest of fight was agains Azuma on tenroujima. He matched her srtength and surpassed it and she had to do more than she had done before to get a win. Sure the Minerva, Kagura business was impressive, but they had lousy endings. Though i won’t deny that the armor of Nakagami and Erza going second origin were awesome moments.

Erza is the best character fairy tail has. She should be the lead (or maybe gray or even Gajeel) instead of Natsu and Lucy. But she isn’t because Hiro doesn’t know what he is doing. She usually carries most arcs because she will either have the very best plots and stories-just look at Erza’s competition, minerva and Kagura; then consider Natsu’s rivals, String and rogue. It is like Hiro saves the best for her. And even when the stories aren’t great, you can expect that something awesome will happen so long as she is involved.

Erza uses requip magic, which allows her to summon a variety of armors with different attributes and weapons, and which endow her with different abilities. Right now all i can remember is the giant armor, which has super strength, the dark stalker armor which is meant for evil and dark forces and the wheel something armor, which has all those swords surrounding her body, ready to cut anyone in their range.

Erza’s particular requip magic is called THE KNIGHT. She has the ability to change armor so fast that she can do this mid battle in an instant, making her very unpredictable and powerful. Erza can also use sword magic and is in possession of telekinetic abilities. She also possess immense magical power, able to requip multiple powerful armor in succession. She has been shown to requip her heaven’s wheel armor which has over 200 swords around it and the mighty lightening empress armor without running out of magic. erza is said to have over a hundred different armors and 200 different weapons. If you still don’t understand why even Natsu is so afraid of her, then i won’t say any more.

As one of the strongest, Erza is also called TITANIA, THE QUEEN OF TEH FAIRIES.

RATING:> 8/5, EXCEEDS MY EXPECTATIONS.

Ugh, this chapter irritated me, and it wasn’t even that bad, just…irritatingly…irritating.

I had high hopes for this chapter, well maybe not high hopes since I had learnt to expect little from Hiro, but none the less, something about this chapter didn’t work for me, and I am not sure why. So little happened, which isn’t a surprise since the tournament is over and we are now focusing on a smaller amount of stories,but what did happen was quite prominent and important. Yet, something was somewhat off. But before that;

THE PLOT:>

So we now know that Rogue is the other mage from the future. The princess explains that while Lucy returned to warn her friends of eminent danger, rogue returned to warn her. SO they are all on the same side in the end. The princes casts Arcadios’ silly suicide gesture aside, hands him his sword and commands for the Eclipse gate to be opened.

Below Rogue explains that eclipse can perform two purposes, to jump through time, or as a canon to destroy the dragons. As it turns out there is a reason Rogue looks so different. He is from seven years in the future. IN his time, dragons rule and only ten percent of the human population still lives.

Apparently in his time, someone closed the gate, preventing eclipse from being used to stop the dragons and thus dooming the world. Rogue returned to kill that person. The others are quick to point out that killing might be a bit harsh and that a simple warning might do; but Rogue is determined, and as far as he is concerned fate has been decided and words will mean nothing. That someone will close the gate no matter what, and that person must be killed. That person is Lucy.

Rogue attempts to impale Lucy with a shadow sword, but future Lucy takes the hit and dies. Before rogue can launch a second attack, Natsu sends him flying, and prepares for battle…

MY REVIEW:>

First of all I liked the revealations here, that rogue is from 7 years in the future and the whole dragons ruling thing. This has a lot of potential to turn into a good arc, or at least set up a future arc. But of course this is fairy tail. I doubt Hiro will do much with this. AS usual he does amazingly with the set up, but we all know he can’t deliver.

Seriously, there is so much he could do with the tools at his disposal. I shudder in excitement to think of the mind blowing madness that Kishimoto or Oda would do if they had access to fairy tails line up of characters and plots. There is literally no way an average mangaka can fail to produce chart topping stories with this. But this is Hiro; he simply can’t bare to make hard decisions.

First of all I don’t get rogue’s explanation, that seven years is today/now; what in the world does that even mean? Hiro has a way of being vague sometimes. wait, unless he meant seven years ago is today, but I am sure he didn’t say that. Never mind.

My problem with this chapter is future Lucy dying. It all seemed so…forced. It was almost like a cope out, like Hiro couldn’t bear to kill off a main character, and so he chose to do it without actually doing it.

And the reactions of the others irritated me; I get that Future Lucy was her own person, an individual different from current Lucy, or so the manga said. But that is just ridiculous. There is only one Lucy, future or present; she isn’t actually dead, and she said so herself, that if present Lucy had died, she would really be dead. So the reaction, like Lucy had actually died irritated me.

Again I will say that this felt a lot like a cope out. Oh yeah, and what was with Rogue looking surprised that there were two Lucys. She was right there, and I can only assume that before he decided to take out the soldiers, he had taken a couple of minutes to observe the fight. He couldn’t not have seen her. Again, it seemed like a silly excuse to find a way to kill future Lucy off, though she was ultimately useless. Admittedly that was a surprise, and when rogue was speaking of the person that closed the gate and who he must kill, I actually thought he would say natsu

It was strange that Natsu took it so logically; there was no screaming and ranting on about how rogue had killed a special friend of his and all that. He rose up and took Rogue out to protect current Lucy.

Speaking of which, I am going to hate this. I have seen rogue fight at least twice, and each time it has been ridiculously disappointing. Again here he is, from the future, with cool shadow powers and obviously so much more power; so we should expect a real showdown this time, but I know it will turn out he same. Add up the years and Natsu is actually fighting a rogue that is 14 years older than him; yet this fight is just going to suck. I know it. Natsu will trounce him without even trying.

Like I said before, Hiro knows how to set these things up and knock them down so pathetically. All I know is I want to see some dragons, and if everything is resolved without ten thousand dragons coming into the picture I am going to be really disappointed.

I will say again why it is hard to get excited about fairy tail. Hiro Mashima simply can’t take difficult decisions or chances. if he got over that, we could finally start getting somewhere.

HIGHLIGHTS: Lucy dying, of course

MY RATING:> 3/5, this wasn’t a bad chapter, the whole Lucy thing just pissed me off.

It’s funny, when I make the conscious decision to act like last week’s fairy tail chapter didn’t exist, things quickly begin looking up. Now that we are finally out of the Daimatou Enbu, the story has began to pick up, and answers are revealed

THE PLOT:>

Fairy tail has won the Dimatou Enbu, it’s all cheers, with many surprised and happy that the guild has returned to its former glory as Fiore’s number one strongest guild.

Elsewhere, Arcadios has tracked the princess down, matters are quickly settled regarding Arcadios’s betrayal of the kingdom, who immediately confronts the princess. Arcadios makes a speech about how a knight cannot doubt his monarch, and he proves this by drawing his sword, placing the handle in the princess’ hands, and the blade against his neck.

Apparently if his doubts are allayed and the princess’ words prove to be true, he will take his life in penance. Stupid. Arcadios knows that Lucy wasn’t lying, yet her prophetic words of what is to happen next completely contradict what the princess has been saying the whole time.

At that point, we get a shot of Jellal, who just suddenly realized the anomaly in the story. Lucy had claimed to have come over from the future on the fourth.The eclipse gate was created using the book of Zeref, which is why Jellal sensed zeref’s power around Lucy; his energy would have wrapped itself around her when she went through the gate. More importantly, Jellal first encountered the hooded figure wrapped in Zeraf’s magic at midnight on the third, the day before Lucy is said to have returned. So if Lucy wasn’t lying about that little detail, then it wasn’t Lucy that Jellal encountered on the third.

It is at this point that the princess, who had claimed that they would be launching Eclipse2, instead of eclipse one which was designed to stop Zeref, informs Arcadios that the man that told her about the future and what she needed to do was male, not female.

Natsu and wendy are murdering the Garou knights in the tunnels, when they are all, along with the soldiers, suddenly swallowed up by a wave of shadows. And who should suddenly show up at the end of the tunnel but Rogue Chenney from the future. This is a different looking rogue, one that is in control of the shadows.

What could he want? If Lucy is here to save Fiore, then what is Rogue after?

MY REVIEW:>

Really, sometimes I think Hiro is in the wrong genre of manga, because the way he works and twists the mysteries is truly masterful and impressive. I mean really, who could have ever thought that we would be seeing such intrigue and mystery in a manga like fairy tail.

After last week’s chapter, I can’t help but approach fairy tail cautiously, sure things seems like they are getting quite good; but this is Hiro, the king of setups. We have seen just how easily he can knock fairy tail down. None the less this was a pretty decent chapter.

While not a whole lot happened, we got answers, and any chapter that tears away at the burning questions introduced earlier in the arc usually works for me.

The first half of this chapter was unnecessary and uninteresting. We see the joy and elation, fairy tail has triumphed and all its defeated foes are accepting the news with grace; even sting and rogue, this arc’s biggest losers.

We knew fairy tail would win,but I hated the way they won and I would be the first to say I have no interest in seeing these celebrations. But a tiny part of me was slightly touched, barely, but still; the first half of this arc introduced to us a totally defeated fairy tail, that had lost all its past glory and power.

It would be a rare fan that was happy to watch the fairy tail name booed and degraded by the less informed members of Fiore, and most of us fans were routing for the moment the guild would finally rise and unleash some serious payback against all those that had stomped on it, raven tail and saber tooth being chief amongst them.

This is surely something we wanted to see, sting and rogue, put in their place and Minerva punished, but Hiro just executed it rather badly. So I can’t really knock the celebrations, as I also wanted to see the guild regain its name.

If I ever see the Garou knights again, I am going to…I really don’t know what I will do, but enough of them already.

Things changed in this chapter story wise; we know that rogue from the future has been at the Daimatou enbu for sometimes. That was a great surprise, heck it was an awesome reveal, and only goes to show how good Hiro is at playing with mysteries and misdirection.

We know that Lucy isn’t up to anything bad. But we also know that just like current Lucy she is completely useless and stands no chance of stopping the coming disaster. Rogue on the other hand is a different story. The question is what is his goal?

We can guess that he was the shadow that enabled current rogue to fight Gajeel, and that could have been mere fun. More importantly, what is the shadow power that he is controlling and where did he get it. How could he change so much in just four days time?

Because he really looks like a completely different person. I heard a hilarious idea that Rogue and sting probably fused, but that seems unlikely. Either way we know he has been working for/with the princess. We will just have to wait to see his end game.

Arcadios surprised me; actually this manga surprises me. Whatever its rating, I have always thought of fairy tail as a kid’s manga, sort of, but some of its themes have surprised me, such as raven tail’s master stripping and brutally beating (Hisana?) for failing at her task.

Now we have Arcadios ready to take his life, effectively committing suicide, to assuage his honor. He’s surprising me. Now we know that he is no villain, but that doesn’t mean the princess isn’t being played by Rogue. He can’t be working alone, not with his shadow powers.

This was a good fairy tail chapter. it doesn’t make up for last week, and if I put that into consideration, this chapter seems more okay that anything. But if I ignore last week, this was pretty good. This mystery is really intriguing, and I have never been intrigued by fair tail tail.

It is truly a new sensation, and one that I like. I have been energized to keep following fairy tail. But I have also learnt to keep my expectations low as far as hiro is concerned.

MY RATING:> 3.5/5

MY HIGHLIGHTS:> Rogue’s appearance, Arcadios’ decision to take his life

NATSU

Technically Lucy is the primary protagonist of fairy tail but she is so irrelevant most of the times, kind of like a sakura of sorts, that most of the time it is Natsu at the helm of the show rather than her.

Natsu is a dragon slayer. AS an infant he was adopted by the dragon Ingeel who, other than raising him, taught him fire dragon slayer magic, a magical power capable of channeling the power of the dragons and which can be used to fight dragons. Igneel disappeared seven years ago and it has been Natsu’s goal to find and locate him.

Natsu is a member of fairy tail, and one of its strongest. He came to live at the guild as a child after Igneel missing. There he came to know many of the friends and team mates that he fights along side with.

Natsu spent a large amount of his child hood obsessed with the idea of locating Igneel and returning him to their home. Little is known of what Natsu’s actual feelings are as to whether Igneel abandoned him or was forced to leave. Though most times it seems that he has chosen to believe that Igneel had a good reason to leave.

Natsu is for the most part, carefree and reckless in nature. He enjoys battles as much as any other fairy tail member; his good nature is such that he never holds grudges against those that he fights, not even when Laxus attacked and pulverized his own guild for the sake of forcing his father to resign.

Natsu did show resistance to forgiving Jellal over what he did to Erza and her friends during the tower of heaven arc. But when it came down to it, when the council of magic acted to imprison Jellal for life for his crimes, Natsu was first to move to defend him, and was quickly to consider him an ally.

Natsu rarely holds negative feelings towards any one, and has been known to show compassion to his enemies, such as cobra, after Zero, his own comrade betrayed him just minutes after cobra had attempting and nearly succeeded in killing Natsu.

Natsu is a very direct mage, in that while he has shown great wit and strategic abilities in battle, he will tackle all problems and fights in a straight forward manner.

Natsu believes that most problems can be solved with pure force, though he has shown an uncanny ability to judge, ascertain and take advantage of enemies weaknesses in mid battle. Natsu will also never admit defeat.

He has, on many occasions, challenged Erza, Laxus, Mirajane, and even Gildartz, all of fairy tail’s S-class mages to battle, and been defeated thoroughly with little to no effort in each and every case. None the less he has shown now signs of giving up on his quest to prove himself a superior mage.

Natsu has, along with gray, shown an unhealthy fear of Erza. The first time her name was mentioned, the two immediately cowered in fear. And in the Edolas arc, natsu was ready to march ahead to the throne room of the king and challenge him head on, until he ran into Erza and Edolas Erza fighting, at which point he immediately retreated and ran off, screaming that he had just encountered two monsters fighting. Even after challenging her so many times, Natsu has never been afraid to admit that Erza is stronger than him and truly worthy of his respect.

During the S-class test, Natsu learnt to fear Gildatz when he showed the dragon slayer his power, teaching natsu a lesson that there was something to be learnt from fear, and that Gildatz was truly the strongest in the guild

Natsu and another mage, Gray have a great rivalry, most likely because they control fire and ice, opposing elements.

Natsu has always been especially close to Lissana, mirajane’s sister, and the two spent most of their child hood days running around, having grand adventures. Lissana seemingly died at one point and Natsu was never the same.

Natsu seems to have taken a special liking to Lucy and on more than one occasion, shown himself to have a lot of faith in her none existent abilities as a mage. This has an effect of pushing Lucy to do more than she is usually capable of, and place her self in danger against foes and challenges she has no business taking on, just to meet natsu’s expectations as her nakama.

Which kind of reminds me of Hinata and what she does to prove Naruto’s faith in her a reality.

Natsu is a key element in all fairy tail arcs, as it is usually his adventures and the jobs he takes with Lucy that lead to the problems they face. On more than one occasion, natsu will undertake missions he is not allowed to take a a result of his rank (such as the time he and happy executed a plan to steal a job request from the S-class floor) which will usually prompt the likes of Erza to follow them in concern. Usually Natsu will prefer to take on the fatal challenges facing him and his team in these instances than face Erza’s wrath.

On the occasion that Lucy, Natsu, Erza and Gray have teamed up for a mission, Makarov has said them to be the strongest team of mages in Fiore, with news of the team up sending shockwaves of fear among the members of the council of magic at the level of destruction and damage this team will most definitely unleash when it makes a move.

The council has made attempts to impede the actions of this team, and their reputation has been justified in terms of the victories they have amassed through out the series.

Because of Natsu’s zeal for battle, he doesn’t know how to hold back, and will unleash untold damage to win a fight, something that cause Makarov endless nightmares because it is his and the guild’s money that pays for damages when it can be proven that a mage of fairy tail was responsible (usually natsu runs away before the soldiers show up).

Natsu’s scarf is made of dragon scales and has defensive abilities.

As a dragon slayer, Natsu can control fire. He can eat it to acquire strength and he has developed a myriad of fire techniques each of which is more destructive than the other. Natsu can enter dragon force mode, but only by feeding on etherion and the flames of rebuke. Dragon force is the pinnacle of dragon slayer magic and will boost the slayer’s magic by two or three times, whilst also manifesting and making visible their magical aura

Natsu also has access to Lightning flame mode, where he fuses both lightning manipulation and fire manipulation, an ability he gained when he ate Laxus’ lightening on two occasions.

Natsu has also displayed God flame abilities, but only when he ate the a god slayer’s flames. He could fused yellow dragon flames in one hand and black god flames in another into the Dragon God’s brilliant flame, a devastating attack.

Natsu can control fire with all parts of his body; he can also use streams of fire as extra arms, as displayed with Elligor, when he, thrown off the bridge, pulled himself back up with a flaming claw.

As with all dragon slayers, Natsu’s strongest attack is his dragon roar, though with the lightning flame mode, he might have upgraded. AS with all dragon slayers, Natsu has motion sickness, and is in possession of an exceed, an talking cat as his companion

MY REVIEW:>

I wouldn’t say that I hate Natsu. He is generally fan to watch for a quirky series like fairy tail. But I would be lying if I said I was a fan of his. The problem with natsu is that he is too much of a cliché to be interesting, even when you consider his life story.

Natsu is every bit as cliché a shonen hero as they come. He is basically Luffy, Goku, and Naruto with a hint of ichgo. He has a gluttonous appetite and will weaken if not fed. He will smile through everything, and he somehow manages to find the bright spots in every dark day.

He is fiercely loyal, and more than willing to give his life for his friends, the friends here being every stranger that he might have met no more than an hour ago but whom he is suddenly swearing loyalty to and ready to defend at all costs.

Then there are his battle skills. He is somehow able to learn very complex moves and techniques that he will have only seen once, used by his enemy, before using them only minutes later. There is no opponent whose weakness he can’t decipher, because basically he learns as he fights.

So no matter how strong the enemy is, with time, Natsu will rise to there level and even surpass them. And let’s not forget the arbitrary and rather random power ups, usually for one time use that happen to occur to Natsu at just the right time.

What pisses me off the most is how the system will cheat for Natsu at the right time. Like Luffy he will always, and I mean always, be the one to fight the main villain. At the end of the day, while everyone else deals with the minions, no matter which mage of whatever power is around, it is natsu that delivers the final blow.

Just look at hades, arguably the strongest villain to date, outside of Zeref and Archnologia. Granted, without the other team taking out his heart, fairy tail would have never ever defeated hades, but for Laxus to come into the scene, be the first mage in the battle to actually damage hades, and one strike later, he is on the floor offering Natsu his magic to continue the fight.

Wow, that really infuriated me. We could all see that Laxus was far from beaten; he was fresh and energized unlike the worn out fairies, and there is no way that one hit could have weakened him to the point that he couldn’t fight; and yet we see him, a panel later, offering Natsu his magic as if he couldn’t continue. Why? The system cheated in Natsu’s favor, that’s why.

I am still pissed off about the Natsu, gajeel, Laxus fight. Personally I would have been fine if Gajeel and Natsu took Laxus down. But no, it had to be Natsu single handedly beating Laxus, with no tangible reason as to why Laxus was taking the hits as hard as he did.

One of the worst examples of this is the Zero Natsu fight during the Oracion Seis arc. personally I enjoyed that battle; it was the first time I had seen Natsu fight so hard against an opponent. Even with Jellal’s assistance, he still stood no chance.

But that doesn’t stop me from complaining that Jellal could have fought Zero and, with all the magic he knows, stood a great chance of winning. But no, he chose to give his magic to Natsu while he took a direct hit from Zero. it is so infuriating that I can’t even think about it anymore.

And of course Natsu will get up no matter how much of a beating he gets, or even if he falls unconscious, he will fight; not even a bullet to his mouth can stop him.

The fact is Natsu is a one dimensional character, and unlike typical shonen heroes like Luffy and Naruto, he hasn’t found a way to beat it (we all know ichigo is as flat a character as they come).

We had some fan with Natsu’s origin story, but that lost flavor quickly when Hiro chose to ignore it. The first time we saw Natsu, he was searching for Igneel. That was also the last time. Sure it comes up from time to time, but really, Hiro chose to ignore an other wise intriguing plot to explore.

If I look at Natsu, I can kind of see the appeal fairy tail has for so many fans; it is a familiar concept and so they can more easily endear themselves to it.

RATING:> ON a scale of A-E, Natsu gets a D. His antics and games can be fun, but at the end of the day, Lucy is actually the protagonist and deserves to be because she has more dimensions to her than Natsu. In fact she is a more atypical protagonist than natsu.