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Frosch is so cute!
Summary:
Princess Hisui says she won’t believe future Lucy until she sees the result of the tournament. Natsu is also finding it hard to believe that ten thousand dragons will attack Fiore. Wendy is wondering if this is somehow connected with the graveyard they found a few days ago. Natsu prepares himself for a battle. Lucy wonders if anyone will believe her but Natsu questions why anyone would doubt her.
Charle’s vision is now making sense but she wonders what happens with everyone. Lucy says she somehow managed to open Eclipse despite not knowing how to activate it. Lucy arrived on 4th July but probably couldn’t come earlier because a part of Eclipse was broken. It seems like Arcadios is listening to this conversation. Lucy tells everyone to meet Jellal. She told him everything and he is planning a strategy. Lucy apologises for visiting the past without a strategy.
We’re taken to a flashback involving Arcadios and Hisui. According to Lucy, there is another way to use Eclipse. Apparently, the magic that has been stored in the gate after all the tournaments, is about as powerful as Etherion. Using that magic against the dragons is the plan known as “Eclipse 2”. Arcadios is looking at the future Lucy. He wonders why she is lying to her friends because she didn’t arrive on 4th July, and she did have a strategy (Eclipse 2). Natsu puts his forehead against Lucy’s and assures her that he’ll change the future.
The Crime Sorcière is seen discussing everything future Lucy has said. They think there is something strange about this. Jellal thinks that future Lucy is either lying or she is fake.
Back at the arena, Rogue seems to be quite worn out while Gajeel appears to be unharmed. Rogue tells Gajeel that he is starting to see why the latter joined FAIRY TAIL. Rogue was surprised when Gajeel joined his current guild. Rogue looked up to Phantom Lord and wanted to join that guild but it was destroyed. It baffled him why Gajeel would join the guild that destroyed the one he used to be in. But now he can understand it. It’s all about friends. Sabertooth doesn’t have anything like that, it’s like an army. Rogue wonders what he fights for. He knows that his guild can’t win, except Sting and Minerva. Gajeel tells Rogue to get up and that he doesn’t understand a thing. He points out that the frog is Rogue’s friend. Rogue tells Gajeel that it’s not a frog, Frosch is a cat, or an Exceed.
Rogue is ready to give up when he hears a voice that tells him to kill the enemy in front of him. Rogue tries to figure out where the voice is coming from and it turns out that it’s his own shadow. The shadow offers Rogue his powers to kill Gajeel.
Things got quite complicated in today’s chapter. I don’t doubt that this is Lucy from the future. Knowing that Lucy was missing in the future narrated by Levy, it only makes sense for her to be here. But it is true that her behaviour is very peculiar. I’m really happy to see that Natsu didn’t bother questioning anything. Seeing how much he trusts his dear friend made me smile and appreciate him so much more than I already do. But at the same time, he is being very naïve, a bit too much perhaps. Hopefully, Jellal might be able to sort things out. I don’t think that the future Lucy is an imposter, but there are definitely lies in her story, as Arcadios also noticed. It’s hard for me to trust Arcadios, but I won’t write anything about that because it’s not really relevant for this chapter.
Let’s not forget that Jellal felt Zeref’s presence around the future Lucy. I doubt that’s because of her travelling through the gate. Lucy is most likely keeping some important information from her friends, but she is probably real. I do wonder why she lied about her arrival though. Or about Eclipse 2. Is she lying to hide the fact that the gate holds the power to wipe out the country? Knowing her guild, they’ll most likely try to stop it, so is she keeping secrets so they won’t get in the way? It’s quite confusing and it’s hard to make sense of the plans with the information we have. Hopefully we’ll find out more soon. I know one thing for sure, and that’s the fact that this time travelling thing is truly intriguing and I’m really enjoying this arc even though it is all over the place at the moment.
Perhaps it would be easier to make sense of these plot twists if Mashima would give us one thing at the time. Seeing how the story jumps back and forth between characters without giving us proper details about anything can be quite frustrating. I must say that I’m enjoying this arc a lot more in the anime because it’s more viewer-friendly there. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the manga, but I’m finding some pacing issues every now and then that aren’t visible in the anime at all.
I hope we get to see Gajeel and Rogue’s fight properly next week, without any jumps. I expected Rogue to be a friendly person, so it didn’t come as a surprise when he gave up. But I am really interested in his powers. I don’t think we’ve seen magic having its own persona in FAIRY TAIL before. I don’t expect Rogue to win though. And I assume Frosch will play a bigger role in that battle. I’m a little bit disappointed that we didn’t see much of her cuteness even though the chapter was named after her. Still, I’m glad that she managed to indirectly stop the fight. Next week’s chapter will be exciting! I really look forward to see Gajeel in action. He hasn’t been given a chance to fight properly yet. I really hope that he wins.
Moete kitazou!
Yeah, this was a bit overwhelming. Future Lucy is more convenient as a villain, since she has to be taken out of the equation eventually, but it seems a bit inconsistent with the emotional development she’s been given so far.
I too found the future Lucy’s behaviour rather strange – it’s so different to what I’d normally expect. Following on from what you said about hiding things from her guild so that they wouldn’t try to stop Eclipse 2, perhaps in her timeline they did just that and it led to terrible things. That’s the only reason I can imagine for her to act in such a way.
Here’s to hoping for an amazing Gajeel fight! I can’t imagine he won’t win though, even with Rogue presumably getting a powerup.
Thanks for another awesome post! <3
Oh, I didn’t think of that at all! That makes sense. Maybe that’s why Lucy said that the gate was broken? o:
Aww, thanks for the kind words! You’re the best! ♥
stereo-sensei, how do you do a “<3"? is that something only authors can do?
sorry if my questions are off topic. Orz
Sorry for the late reply!
Alt + 3 gives you ♥
And I colour them using the font HTML tag.
My theory on what future Lucy is hiding is the activation cost for the Eclipse. The more powerful the magic, the greater the risks. To use something that can wipe out 10,000 dragons would likely endanger the life of the Celestial Mage casting it. Future Lucy may have experienced this cost already. When she activated the damaged Eclipse to travel back a few days, which is only a small fraction of the potential power, she paid the price with her arm. So if the full power of the Eclipse were to be used, she would almost definitely die.
As a member of Fairy Tail, future Lucy knows that the guild will do everything to stop her from sacrificing herself. So she has decided to keep the secret of the Eclipse cost to herself.
Nice theory. It supports all the characters personalities. And it also plays well with Charlie’s visions.
Stereoman thinks so too
hmmm well shadow is usually associated with evil so I guess it’s not shocking to see that Rogue’s magic has a mind of its own and an evil one at that. I will stop trying to think what will happen though because every time I do something else happens. Guess however it would be interesting if we found out that Fairy Tail actually SHOULDN’T win the tournament.
In that case Gajeel should form an iron cross, a big iron cross to exorcise the evil spirit in Rogue.
Okay, that made me laugh. Now I want to see that actually happen.
I’ve always wondered how strong Rogue was and considering how Natsu easily defeated him and Sting together I was thinking maybe sometime He( Rogue ) would show us what He’s got I never imagined him to be this dr jekyll and hyde character. I hope he doesn’t laugh like the green goblin when He transforms into his evil alter ego. I hope we get to see some backstory about Rogue like we have seen with Sting and some real Gajeel action. He ( Gajeel ) deserves his moment.
Eclipse is a time travelling device; even if they go with the Eclipse 2 plan, there’s no reason why it couldn’t wreck time anyway.
What if the graveyard below the city are the 10000 dragons fried by the activation, just also sent back to the past after being killed?
I totally agree with with Stereoman that while I am enjoying the manga the anime feels “smother” but then it helps that they can pad places to ensure they don’t outpace the manga. I actually think this will get even more evident in the later stages of the arc where the jumping around is more extreme.
Shadow… Rogue?
Persona 4 much?
It’s symbolic!
First off, great post Steroman, I always do look forward to that time in the week when the Fairy Tail posts come up here. Keep it up!
I really liked this’s weeks chapter, mainly because I’ve been looking forward to the Gajeel/ Rogue fight since the four way dragon slayer battle with Natsu and Sting too. I think it only makes sense that Rogue has some inner darkness waiting to get out, as he uses dark magic after all. Eagerly awaiting the battle of dragon slayers next week. I can’t say I wouldn’t rather see Erza’s fight instead, but hey, battles between dragon slayers/ god slayers do tend to be amazing.
Not sure what to say about the future Lucy storyline just yet, though it is good. I do want to see how Zeref is connected into all of this and find out just what Jellal and co will do about the dragons, but for now there is enough to contend with in the tournament. Until the fights are wrapped up, my attention will remain there.
Thank you so much for the kind words! ;o;
Even Rogue’s shadow is Jellal now.
Jellal was freed from the Shadow of Zeref shortly after the fall of Phantom Lord which Rogue stated was when he kinda felt weird about Gajeels actions. It’s possible that Rogues shadow is actually the Shadow of Zeref as its acting the saw way it did with young Jellal all the way back in the Tower of Heaven arc with its corrupting influence and promises of power.
But since Ultear was the one who brainwashed Jellal. So either someone has the same brainwashing technique like Ultear, or there is a new antagonist that we don’t know yet.
je trouve que ces episodde est geniale mais sa aurais etait mieux il le resumer etait detaille
minerva est trop mechante je suis sur que FAIRY TAILL va gagner
Anybody think The Shadow Could Be Orba From Raven Tail remember He Escaped In His Shadow Cat Like Form. And On A Different Note I Believe Fairy Tail Wont Win The Tournament But They Will Still Go Down As The Best Guild Or A Peoples Favorite Of The Sort. Anyone Think Laxus Will Beat Jura Or will The Fight Be Interupted.
Anybody think The Shadow Could Be Orba From Raven Tail remember He Escaped In His Shadow Cat Like Form. And On A Different Note I Believe Fairy Tail Wont Win The Tournament But They Will Still Go Down As The Best Guild Or A Peoples Favorite Of The Sort. Anyone Think Laxus Will Beat Jura Or will The Fight Be Interupted. Let Me know what you think