Minerva News

That big guy is me, knocked out by this chapter

This chapter, fairy tail 322…I have no words…literally.

I have been writing my blog (initially at katmic.blogspot.com and recently on anime vice) for a little over three months, so let me elucidate a bit on the process involved in writing the twenty or so posts that I have written, in order to put this particular blog into context.

I will try to publish a new post every one to three days; as far as the subject is concerned, writing takes about 30 minutes and not more than forty on most days if I can help it. And the reason for that restricted time line is that I rarely ever sit down to write down new material from scratch. Usually I will come up with the subject for my blog at least a week before I actually get down to writing it. For instance, the last blog is posted, relating to epic anime moments, I came up with some time in early February.

However other than not actually having a concrete idea of how exactly I would write, I also kept coming across and wrapping up with some great anime which either spurred me on to do a review or brought into existence an entirely new idea that proved more interesting to me than that first idea.

Anyway, other than a few cases when something will inspire me to sit down and write on the fly, by the time I actually get down to writing a post, I will have already written the post in my head over several days to weeks, so all I am doing is copying and pasting. As such, my writing rarely needs to precede beyond 30 minutes.

Beyond the writing, there is the more irritating process of locating images, downloading them, uploading them to the blog and arranging them in a way that will correlate with the message of the post.

Add to that the 15-20 minutes of editing I do-during which I correct any and all errors, errors here including misspellings and incorrect punctuations along with any points that I may wish to explore further, cut back on or delete all together-and my total blog writing time can come up to about one and half hours.

However that estimation is probably an under exaggeration, Taking into consideration my (sort of) employment, I will mostly write during the the lulls of the day where business is scarce or slow; but even then, any five minute bit of writing that I will do will be continuously and irritatingly interrupted repeatedly for long periods of time, the end result of which is that I may, taking into account minutes to hours spent relaxing (watching anime/TV), take an entire day writing a five page blog (sometimes).

So in a way writing my blog can be exhausting, especially taking into account the point I made in an earlier blog, that I don’t like writing in phases. IN that, even if a blog post is 15-20 pages long, I will sit down and write it in one go, rather than writing it a few pages a day.

However in describing the process of writing my blog, I would refer to it as frustrating rather than difficult. Why, you might wonder? Why bother writing a blog that I don’t have to do and on a self assigned schedule I don’t have to keep? Simply put, it is fun.

Other than the writing practice is get, I enjoy sitting down and writing this blog. These words that you are reading, I am most likely having a lot of fan writing them. There are times I take a sit at the table and spend the next hour typing away at my laptop. And as my parents and siblings walk by, minding there own business, wondering why I am sweating so much, even while I seem so keen on the task occupying my time, they have no idea how exhilarating and excited I am feeling at that moment.

There are times when writing a post will produce the same excitement as watching the anime or reading the manga I am writing about. That might be because I spend more time thinking and talking in my head than actually producing words from my mouth, but the fact is I enjoying writing my blog.

Even the task of formulating and developing my articles over a week’s time isn’t as tedious as it sounds. When I am executing the different vigorous and energy consuming tasks that my (sort of) job entails, be it walking some distance to deliver certain items, or collect certain documents from some office somewhere in town, or doing some manual work around the office or at home or etc.,there are few things that will enable me to alleviate the stress involved with this kind of work (even non physical work but none the less patience degrading and excruciating tasks like recording entire volumes of data into the computer); I can listen to my music, which I will vary from hard to soft rock, to classical, to gospel depending on the need. Or I can listen to my networking or programming notes. Or I can put some time into the other writing related projects I am working on (that I might never complete with my laziness).

But in the several times when all those pass times, when even the radio (I spend a lot of time on BBC) fail to entertain me, I turn to my blog. When I am assigning so much brain power to working out the finer points of an argument I want to make, I will notice neither the blazing sun nor the irritating cold of rain.

Same thing goes for those dull, slower days; even when the idea of opening my laptop and writing a few lines of a post feels torturous to my lethargic brain, once I put a paragraph down, the excitement returns and I will not stop till I finish my task.

Now of course you might be wondering what any of this has to do with fairy tail chapter 322.

Well, to put it bluntly, this chapter was crap, in every sense of the word. I sat down for the longest time, thinking about what I could say about chapter 322, be it negative or positive, but I simply could think of anything to say.

Simply put, reading chapter 322 left me drained as far as all things fairy tail are concerned. It wasn’t merely bad, it was a total and utter disappointment, to the point where talking about it seems tedious and energy consuming.

If I wasn’t a fairy tail fan, if fairy tail wasn’t one of the first three mangas I have ever read, after Evangelion and Veritas, if I hadn’t been an ardent fan of fairy tail for the last three or so years, I would have stopped reading fairy tail right here and right now.

Honestly speaking, i actually considered making this my last fairy tail chapter. But I won’t do that, thought it was that bad. Rather than waste a whole load of time reviewing the material, I will leave it at simply explaining what happened.

Erza beat Minerva, with a random as they come attack from a random as they come weapon, after a ridiculously brief and nonsensical explanation about what the hell the Armor of Nakagami was.

And when I say Erza beat Minerva, I mean it was that brief. One or two panels of Minerva’s fall, after who knows how many chapters of Minerva stomping the craziness out of Erza. Add that to the explanation over the ridiculous amounts of magic required to fuel the armor, magic that Erza simply couldn’t possess after such a grueling battle and this battle isn’t worth mentioning.

I know this is fairy tail, but the whole ‘power of nakama’ thing doesn’t even cut it here. I know this is fiction, but even a fictional universe has fictional logic and fictional rules, that Hiro just broke.

Elsewhere Gray and Juvia beat Lyon and Chelia. That one was so silly, not merely because it only took one half of a page to do, but because I don’t even know what the hell they did.

Sting finally makes his move, then he doesn’t. Lector is alive and well and…fairy won the Daimatou Enbu and I couldn’t be more disappointed.

Natsu made some mention of how things had began to move, along with Arcadios and some other people I don’t really care for; basically it was time for eclipse and…I don’t really care, because thinking about this chapter only infuriates me further.

This is what I don’t get. Hiro gave us 35 pages for chapter 322, basically 10-15 more pages than he normally would; and I don’t really see what happened that couldn’t have happened in 15-20 pages.

And what was with that color page; of all the panels that Hiro could have colored, he chose the Juvia and Gray crap…

I can only conclude as such: Hiro was really really excited to get to what came after the tournament that he neglected the current story; he was tired of doing the Daimatout Enbu; he is secretly a lousy mangaka and an even lousier story teller or he simply hates fairy tail and wants it done with.

I made the decision to write these posts on fairy tail with the aim of converting fairy tail haters into fairy tail fans, by showing them the attractions that fairy tail has to offer.

However I wouldn’t encourage or recommend any non fairy tail fan to read this 35 page waste of space. I had so much hope for this arc and it is all Hiro’s fault. He set things up so well; fact is the last couple of chapters have been on fire, but he simply couldn’t deliver on the hopes he had created for us fans.

Rather than maul over the events of this chapter, I will choose to wait for next week’s chapter. I will hope against all hope that Hiro makes up for this. But the truth is it will take something absolutely explosive, absolutely bombastic, to make up for the mess that was chapter 322. And with all I have seen, I am pretty sure a feat like that is beyond Hiro’s abilities.

As a fan of one piece, naruto and bleach, I have noticed each of these three giants make some disastrous mistakes over the years, Bleach worst of all, and naruto mostly in the last year, during the initial events of the fourth great shinobi war (when you choose to replace fists and jutsus with soothing words, any plot will undeniably lose its fire), but nothing like the way fairy tail will builds itself up, only to knock its own self back down.

Suddenly it makes so much sense why fairy tail isn’t one of and might never become a member of the big three.

AS one reviewer I watch pointed out, there is one good thing about this chapter; we are finally done with the tournament, and now we can move on to the next chapter of fairy tail’s story; again that is me hoping that there is more to Hiro’s story than I am giving him credit for. Then again maybe it wasn’t a good idea to write this review immediately after reading it; maybe if I had given it a day, and then given the chapter a fresh look, my perspective might have changed.

Either way, I give it a 0/5 (okay 0.5/5)

Like I said, I won’t bother talking about this chapter much further, rather the two links I have posted below will better explain it all, I don’t have the strength.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8Bj6nndd48c&list=UUkkcUZJ-vrt3HomsacbTNLg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB_UJ1_ZQMw

Whoa, what a chapter. It is hard to say more than that, because this chapter was…I can’t find another word for not really good and not really bad, without making it sound average, because this chapter, 321, was anything but average.

THE PLOT:>

It seems a fairy tail chapter can be better explained from the perspectives of the characters involved, so:

1. Natsu- Still kicking Garou knights ass, but seriously; why even bother wasting a panel on this crap.

2. Grey and Juvia- So these two water based mages are getting their asses kicked, but for some reason they think that lyon and Chelia’s team work is somewhat off. Clearly they are in denial because even with Lyon unwilling to bring Juvia down, they are losing, badly. Gray and Juvia are however preparing to make some sort of play.

3. Erza and Minerva- Now this is the battle to watch, and all I can say is WOW, WOW…second origin, Armor of Nakagami…Why Hiro? Why are you going to mess this up again? You have everything you need to make this the number one fight of the tournament.

4. Laxus and Jura- the former potential number one fight of the Daimatou Enbu; so this was a real tassel. We saw both Jura and Laxus literally go all out in a sick brawl, throwing earth and lightning magic, and completely wrecking the battle ground in their attempts to prove that they were ‘men’.

With so much punch on face contact, I was worried for a moment that Laxus would go down; but instead he rose to the challenge, did a Natsu (in speech and technique) and took down Jura with an all new secret dragon slayer technique, roaring thunder. All I can say is, EPIC, seriously EPIC.

One shot, that is all it took to bring Jura down, though saying it like that makes the K.O seem easier than it was. Laxus pulled some serious moves in this battle, and I didn’t even know that he could move that fast with his lightning. Even Makarov was blown away by the level of strength and power that his son displayed.

By the end of this chapter, the obvious has happened; fairy tail is in the lead, with saber tooth and Lamia scale trailing. And with that many players left to play, there is no way they are losing the game to saber tooth, especially not when the only card saber tooth has to play is Sting.

Next week is a double chapter, 36 pages, with a color page (strange how that isn’t all that exciting). Hiro is closing the Daimatou enbu, so something has to happen next week, something that changes the face of fairy tail completely, even more than Acnologia and the seven year time skip event.

I would be mad not to keep on reading.

REVIEW:>

This chapter was infuriating on the whole, in that I can’t really make my mind up about it. On the whole, it was very predictable, Erza finally gaining an advantage over Minerva and Jura finally falling to Laxus’ power; for all intent and purpose, Hiro didn’t try to surprise us with the verdicts. Hell, I already know that Grey and Juvia are going to beat the hell out of Lyon and Chelia.

Fairy tail will win this thing, and there will be no dispute as to what the number one guild in Fiore is. So if I am so decidedly irritated by the predictability of the chapter, where exactly is the problem with making up my mind?

Well it is simple, I am not actually irritated with the predictability, more like mildly annoyed. Because this chapter was awesome. Yes I knew Laxus would beat Jura, but even when it played out so directly, it was fun and entertaining to watch. The battle, though displayed over only 6-8 pages, managed to portray a sense of difficulty and intensity.

We could see that both of these giants among mages were throwing there all into this battle, so contrary to what I thought initially, this battle didn’t feel rushed; though maybe another chapter would have helped. We saw Laxus do more than rely on the same old tricks and moves we saw him display against Natsu, Gajeel and Hades.

This was a laxus on fire, releasing earth shattering lightning against an opponent who wouldn’t go down. So strangely enough, while a part of me was disappointed by how the fight ended, especially so quickly, another part of me really enjoyed that showdown.

Same thing goes for the Erza Minerva fight. I couldn’t believe just how brutally battered Erza looked, and for a moment I didn’t think she had the power to keep on fighting. I am gaining more and more respect for Minerva with each passing chapter. Truly, she is a monster.

But while we all knew Erza would triumph, I personally didn’t see the second origin thing coming. I assumed, like Ultear said, that Erza had already mastered her second origin, which is why she was so strong. But I guess she was wrong, Erza is simply beastly, and now she is going to show Minerva hell.

And even if we know it is coming, Hiro is managing to execute it awesomely, with crazy new armor and hopefully a new power to go with it. And besides, there is no way this fight is going to turn out like the Jura Laxus battle. Even if Hiro fails to surprise us, we all want to see Minerva get her eyes clawed out, so as far as that battle is concerned, I expect to be satisfied either way.

There better be more to Natsu’s fight than the Garou knights. Clearly Hiro is simply trying to keep him busy. I am quite anxious to see what Juvia and Gray will do. I don’t think Gray has ever acquired a power up before, so this should be interesting. Clearly Lyon and Chelia are the superior team; though it is interesting to see that Lyon won’t harm Juvia, but has now qualms with seeing her hurt. Juvia on the other hand would go crazy against anyone trying to harm gray.

I really can’t complain about fairy tail, or maybe I am beginning to understand it a little better. With fairy tail, the aim is for you wrap up the chapter and sigh in satisfaction that you were entertained.

And that is what fairy tail is, a pith less fluffy manga, designed to get your adrenaline pumping through cheap thrills like new attacks and armor. Unfortunately for me (or maybe fortunately), I like it.

I can’t wait to see the climax of the games.

MY HIGHLIGHT:>

I thought it would be Laxus’ roaring thunder moment, or Erza’s armor of Nakagami moment. But it is actually a tie between Erza going second origin (just that scene was epic), and Laxus going in for the kill, only for Jura to counter with a barrage of earth columns exploding from below. That was amazingly done, with the trail line, showing the path Laxus dah followed in his speedy retreat before immediately curving round and following with another attack.

I have to point out one silly thing Hiro said in the chapter: ‘A man’s dignity in his fists. Laxus’ soul is on fire’ Every time I tried to think about this line, I couldn’t help but laugh, because it sounds so nonsensical.

Laxus saying that Natsu line (‘I am fired up’) was too corny, too corny. He is literally too cool for that, especially as a future master of Fairy tail.

Either Erza or Jura take this chapter.

MY RATING:> 5/5 (or 2/5) I can’t decide.

On a side note, in case you haven’t heard, fairy tail the anime has been bleached; in other words it has been cancelled as of march 30th. If you loved this anime, then this is bad news for you; if you hated it, then I guess I just gave you some good news.

Auspiciously however, shortly after this news broke, Hiro Mashima, Fairy tail’s Mangaka tweeted that he had some really good news but which he couldn’t reveal on the studio’s orders.

Here’s to hoping that they are firing the entire fairy tail animation team, and bringing in people that can provide fatezero level quality, if the good news here is that fairy tail will return, that is.

DAY BREAK ARC.

THE PLOT:>

This arc picks off where the Macau arc left off, and it is equally as short, but that is to expected in this early stage.

So Lucy walks into her room to find that Natsu and Happy had broken in and were currently going through her stuff. Finding her keys, and after the temper tantrum, Lucy explains to the pair that a celestial mage forms bonds with celestial spirits before utilizing them. She displays this with her new key (that she bought from the shop the day she met Natsu), from which she summons the tiny white (useless ) spirit and forms a contract with it.

Natsu and happy are less than impressed, but Natsu, seemingly capable of understanding the white spirit’s intelligible speech, reveals the creature’s wish, that the two join forces and become a fairy tail team.

Lucy is all for it (being weak, having a mage like Natsu by her side increases her chances of success in tasks); she regrets it minutes later when it is revealed that natsu and happy already took a job before coming over. The target has a thing for beautiful blonde maids and Natsu needed Lucy to worm her way past the target’s defenses by preying upon his lusts. Lucy is less than happy to have fallen for Natsu’s trap.

The team meets kaby, the client, who not only reveals the simplicity of the mission, to retrieve a very precious book from a bad man, but that he had increased the reward money, ten fold.

Lucy is ecstatic and quickly dons her maid’s dress before the team heads to the target, Everlue.

At the gate, Everlue comes running at the sound of Lucy’s voice, but then slams the gates shut at the sight of Lucy, rejecting her for her ugliness. Lucy is livid, while Natsu determines that the stealth plan had failed and that now they would resort to brute force.

They enter through the window where encounter Everlue,and his guard, a giant overweight brutish maid with super strength and the ability to burrow through the earth.

After a short melee, Natsu acquires the book, daybreak and he prepares to burn it, when Lucy Knocks him over and takes it. She recognizes the author, Zekua Melon, a famous writer. As a fan she was surprised that she had never heard of the book before. Natsu is determined to burn the book as this was the order that Kaby gave them, to acquire the book and then burn it, and then they would get paid.

But Lucy, on perusing through it, believes that it might hold a secret, one that would force kaby to want to destroy it, and Everlue to fight for it so passionately.

Everlue summons the Vanish brothers, supposedly powerful warriors with anti fire mage capabilities. Lucy begs Natsu to hold them off while she tries to decode the book. She does this using her Gale force reading glasses, which I assume allow her to read and decipher the book’s contents are superhuman speeds.

Unfortunately for her, Everlue corners her but not before Lucy decodes the message in its pages. Everlue admits the reason that he fights for the book; apparently he paid a great deal of money to Zekua Melon to write the book and make it about him. In other words, it was his property, not Kaby’s and they were actually stealing not reclaiming it.

But Lucy tells him that there was a message hidden within daybreak, one that even Everlue didn’t know about. Now Everlue is determined to reclaim the book. However the vanish brothers, who initially troubled natsu, have been beaten. So Everlue summons his giant of a maid, Virgo, with Natsu in tow(hanging onto her leg). Virgo is Everlue’s spirit as it turns out. He is a celestial mage.

Unfortunately for him, Natsu, having gotten over his shock at the sight of the ‘gorrila maid’ takes her down with a dragon slayer move. Lucy summons cancer and they take down Everlue.

The team returns to Kaby, victorious. But to there shock and Natsu’s chagrin, Kaby attempts to burn the book. He tells the story of his father returning home after three years, but rather than rejoicing in his return, Zekua melon took a an axe and cut his own arm off.

Apparently Everlue located him during his darker days and offered him money to write a hideous story about him, that flew in the face of some kind of ethical code that he lived by as a writer.

Kaby lost faith in the integrity and pride of his father, and days later, Zekua Melon committed suicide in shame.

Kaby wanted to take the book back to destroy it and erase his father’s shame. But Lucy reveals the code, within which is located a message from Zekua to his son, relieving him of any fault in the old man’s suicide. Kaby breaks down.

Natsu and happy forfeit their reward as they didn’t destroy the book. Lucy is livid, but takes consolation in her prize Virgo, her new celestial spirit who, as per Lucy’s request transforms into a slimmer body.

REVIEW:>

This chapter provided a few highs and lows. First I am thinking of the vanish brothers, who, despite their introduction, proved to be a little to. silly for my taste, specifically the bit about how their anti mage weapon was basically a large frying pan.

BUt on the other hand, it introduced to me the quirky side of fairy tail, and set a precedence for what the series of fairy tail would be like. Clearly the story doesn’t take itself seriously, especially seeing that Natsu himself was caught off guard by the stupidity behind some of Everlue’s defenses. But then again this is a show that’s most comparable with one piece.

Virgo, as far as I am concerned was the highlight of the arc. As Everlue’s spirit, the object of his desire and lust and his primary weapon, the large women provided a lot of laughs, with regards to her interactions with the stunned fairy tail mage and the means with which she kept trying to destroy them. So quirky and silly, that is the message this arc was meant to set out.

In Kaby’s plight and eventual redemption, we saw a little bit of the heart of fairy tail, that gooey part that deals with nakama and love and the connections we have with the people we meet.

Hiro also adds a hint of darkness, in dealing with Kaby’s history and the pride that led his father to eventually commit suicide. Seldom do you find children targeted shows that would make a mention of a topic like suicide and the effect it has on those left behind. A much more serious show would have given Kaby’s life more exposition, specifically the path that his life had taken as a result of his father’s tragic decision.

But this is the kind of task that separates one piece from fairy tail, which quickly and briefly resolves that plot; with Kaby resolving his dark feelings through the final words of his father.

VERDICT:>

I wasn’t sure what I thought of this arc the first time I read it, but when I look back on it now, it wasn’t so bad. It had a perfect balance of action (Natsu VS the vanish brothers was actually awesome despite the silliness), comedy (everything from Natsu treating Lucy as an object to entice Everlue, Lucy’s so called ugliness , Virgo and the vanish brothers), and tragedy (Kaby’s life has been consumed by the decisions of his father, so much so that he embraces poverty in his attempts to right past wrongs).

My rating for this arc the first time I read it was a 2.5/5. It is currently a little different. I recommend this arc for any first time fairy tail fan, even without checking out the first arc.

MVP of the arc- Virgo (funny lady0, Everlue (crazy, pervert, determined)

MY RATING: 3.5/5.