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Let me say this up front – I love the series and if there was ever a shounen story that is synonymous to pure happiness, it would look something a lot like Fairy Tail. I’ve been following Mashima Hiro’s work intently since early 2000, from his earlier work such as RAVE and Monster Soul to the recent ones like Fairy Tail. His artwork is absolutely gorgeous to look at and I consider the character designs in Fairy Tail to be one of the very best in shounen history. I won’t pretend I’ll be able to match Stereoman’s enthusiasm – she’s one of a kind (I miss her already), and her term of coverage was certainly marked with undisputable excellence. But speaking as a huge fan of the manga, the notion that Fairy Tail would go un-blogged was simply unimaginable and while I am not nearly as good a writer as Stereoman, I assure you I’ll do my very best to meet your expectations!
If I’m to step back and look at the last few chapters, I’m compelled to admit I wasn’t expecting the emergence of seven dragons from the Gate of Eclipse. It was an unexpected surprise, but something that Mashima sensei has hinted at in the earlier chapters. It’s not just the statements asserted by future-Rogue that seemed inconsistent, the entire notion of the Eclipse cannon has been riddled with dubiety from day one. There are two characters that caught my attention in all of these disparate plot threads. First off, there’s Yukino – the former celestial mage of Sabertooth is a perfect fit for Fairy Tail on paper, and the fantastic chemistry that she shares with both Mira-nee and Lucy is utterly beyond doubt. Whether she’ll eventually become an official member of the guild is a question that remains unanswered for now, but if Mashima sensei’s previous work is any indication, he’s probably not opposed to the idea of having two Celestial Spirit mages as part of the main cast – if you recall, Elie and Belnika have similar abilities in RAVE. Then there’s future-Rogue, who remains one of the most intriguing component in the mix. On the surface, he seemed like an antagonist who’s completely rotten to the core, but I’m convinced there’s more to his back story than meets the eyes, and such narratives could explain the radical about-face to his character that we’ve witnessed. We know for sure he killed Sting to acquire the “White Shadow Dragon Mode”, but the lack of any mention of Frosch thus far is critical and I have a certain suspicion the frog-like Exceed could be more central to the overall story than we initially thought.
As the story enters the final leg of the Grand Magic Games arc, it seems like things are finally heating up and the sight of Natsu roaring out to his fellow Dragon Slayers definitely got my adrenaline pumping. The reintroduction of Cobra is an interesting twist that I wasn’t anticipating and it’s no doubt thanks in large part to Jellal’s good foresight – he was the one who reached out to Lahar and Doranbolt in Chapter 325 – that the poison-Dragon Slayer was able to return when his skills are needed the most. Given how overpowered the dragons are, it remains to be seen if the seven dragon slayers – Natsu, Wendy, Gajeel, Laxus, Rogue, Sting and Cobra, could even stand a chance if they take on the mighty creatures individually and frankly, I wouldn’t be so quick to write off the rest of the cast. Fairy Tail is an epic shounen tale through and through and as such, it’s always the importance of teamwork and nakama that is at the heart of its stories. Will they be a match for the dragons? Of course, but I suspect it’s going to take a true combined effort for them to even have a prospect of winning – one where Erza, Gray and everyone else get the opportunity to kick some ass!
tl;dr: @SeishunRC – #FairyTail 325 to 329: Guess who decided to pick up FT! Non-Dragon Slayer magic impotent? Don’t write off the rest of the gang yet! #Manga
Shameless Plug: I’m on twitter now! Follow me @SeishunRC for comments on anime (18 shows this spring) and manga (Magi, Naruto, Silver Spoon, Claymore etc). If you have any feedback or simply wish to have a chat, you can also reach me at Seishun@randomc.net. I promise I won’t bite!
Yes Seishun!!! You never fail to bring the hopes of people up and I’m/Hopefully We are all glad that you will be blogging this!!
Also don’t doubt yourself so much. Everyone has their unique talents and you bring something new to the table just like our beloved friends Stereoman and Moomba who we have lost.
So do you best with the blogging and I look forward to reading this each week 😀
Awww… thanks! I try my best and I hope you like my post 😉
I was scared that Fairy Tail had been dropped it was a nice surprise to see it returned.
YAAAAY!!! thanks Seishun!!!! I’m super excited that you will be covering this, but are you going to be okay? lol you are already blogging so much. I love that you are but I also feel bad… don’t let your social life suffer! 🙂
No worries, manga post doesn’t take nearly as much time as anime’s and Fairy Tail is pretty easy to blog 😉
*ahem* in that case…. *cough* magi *cough*… hahaha j/k j/k
oh darn it looks like babu beat me to it, that’s what I get for responding without bothering to read the rest of the comments and babu’s was right below mine total fail sheesh 🙂
Wait until the OVA SO MUCH PLOT…
Yaaay Seishun is my new hero :3
I’m glad FT and One piece are back ! i’m looking forward to read your FT posts!
are you picking up Magi too ? :3 lol j/k you are already blogging so much :3
Thanks Babu 😉
Nah… as much as I love Magi, I’m already at my full capacity. You could follow me on twitter though, I tweet about Magi pretty often 😉
D:
D:
D:
You guys don’t have to be total dicks to Seishun ALL the time! D:
I just wanted to go along, I thought it was just a game. To me this “D:” is a gaping face “I can not believe.”
Sorry if you misunderstood, it was not my intention
D:
@Zani: Yes we do.
Arigatou Gozaimashita Seishun-kun!
No problem *Kiraboshi! ☆～（ゝ。∂）*
Nice post! And also seeing the FT girls in front made it much better 😀 Looking forward to future dragonic posts.
Thanks, I’m no Stereo but I try my best 😉
There’s obviously going to be a lot more fanboying now that I’ve taken over the helm, Erza <3
I think i can´t thank you enough! Thank you for bringing back FT to RC.
No problem, gotta keep the FT LOVE going 😉
*reads the title of the post* …. I’m sorry???
Yes, Fairy Tail evokes, above anything, happiness. Even the manga, without the bright colors and music from the anime, evokes the same feelings. There’s a reason one of the major characters is named Happy!
I would also love to see Yukino join Fairy Tail. It wouldn’t hurt them to have two Celestia mages. …heck, they have three dragon-slayers!! I doubt they’d care. And they were so welcome to her and quick to aid her in her time of need.
Umm… what’s wrong with the title of my post? 😡
I’m all for Yukino joining Fairy Tail, she can take part in the Miss Fairy Tail Contest :3
Nothing wrong with the title. I was just excited by it.
I think the title is great and I know that Yukino is destined to be with Fairy Tail She would make an excellent team member, and something tells me that Cobra would want to join Fairy Tail because His best friend Cubelious(Kinana) is a Fairy Tail member. I can’t particularly picture him as a Fairy Tail member but for the sake of Kinana let’s see how it all turns out.
I don’t see the point in that, Erza’s just going to win it :p
Nice to see Fairy Tail covered again. Good job, Seishun.
Anyway, with the return of Cobra as a reformed ex-villain, I guess this means the Infinity Clock anime filler arc is considered canon.
At the same time, this means that Jellal has revealed his existence to the magic council, who may come after him again.
Meh… Jellal is impossible to pin down. He’s way too powerful, not to mention he has Ultear and Meredy on his side!
I don’t follow the anime unfortunately, so you probably won’t see me referencing it too often.
Alright! Thanks a bunch for taking over the coverage Sei-san ^_^
No problem 😉
I LOVE YOU SEISHUUUUN XD …Slap! … sorry, I think I lost my composure lol XD.
Thank you very much comrade to return the post of “Fairy Tail”, already in itself you work hard. I look forward to more of your post.
I’m quite surprised you took all the chapters to update the post. It must have been a lot of work with what you already have, thank you very much indeed C:
LOL You give me too much credit. To be honest, I was too lazy to write a post for every single chapter, so I ended up writing just one to represent all five of them XD
While I miss Stereoman a lot, there’s no way to describe how awesome it was to see you picking this up! Thanks a lot!
Well, what to say! While I was a little disappointed with the way Grand Magic Games ended – it was as if Mashima went “Screw this, I’ll just rush through what could’ve been the most awesome fights ever, I want the dragons finally appear!”, the last few chapters have been quite interesting. Seeing Natsu actually having a hard time in 1 vs 1 fight when he’s emotionally powered up in order to protect Lucy was unexpected, he even had to be saved by Ultear! However, he is now back to wreak some havoc, which isn’t all that surprising xD
That aside, where are you, Mavis? Minerva? Jellal? Meredy? Ultear? o.o
I miss Stereo too T__T
I was pretty surprised to see Natsu beaten up so badly too. He’s probably gonna pay them back in a glorious fashion in the next few chapters so I’m looking forward to that.
Hmmm… Good question, I wonder where is Mavis? Minerva has been MIA in the last few chapters – maybe she has something to do with future-Rogue turning out the way he did. Who knows?
Thank you Seishun, I love you as a brother from another mother and GOD bless for keeping the Fairy Tail blog on, I really missed my Fairies and what a surprise the manga has been, with it’s new development of the enter the dragons scenes and now it’s going to be seven Dragon Slayers vs seven Dragons, I can’t wait for the pending battles.
Pretty good spot to commence coverage right? 😉
Can’t wait to see how everyone takes down the dragons!
I feel I just have to say thank you for picking this up Seishun. I am a large FT fan and was sad when Steroman left. Having read some of your other posts I know you will do the series justice by reviewing it. Best of luck!
And also, what an exciting point in the series to start from too!
Thanks, I give it my best shot. You should tweet Stereo and tell her you miss her :3
I know right, I got to pick it up just as things are heating up 😉
Glad to see someone blogging this series again.
This may be hard to believe, but I actually knew Cobra would be returning, or at least I thought he may make an appearance when the seven dragons made their enterance. I was like “Seven Dragons?! But wait, aren’t there seven Dragonslayers in the series? Then that means Cobra might return, but then again that sounds a little farfetched, plus he and Lazus are the only Dragonslayers to not have their magic taught to them by a Dragon, so it’s very unlikely…” And now here he is, Cobra in the flesh. Can’t wait to see how this will work since he appeared in the anime filler-arc “Key of the Starry Sky” arc.
I knew all along that HM(the author) would bring Cobra to participate in the fight especially when seven dragons passed through the gate, I estimated the four Dragon Slayers from Fairy Tail and three from Sabertooth and that made six Dragon Slayers until I figured why not add one more Dragon Slayer and that one was Cobra and not future Rogue so I knew all along that HM would go to that direction.
Heh, good job. I admit I didn’t see it coming 😉
It remains to be seen if the artificial dragon slayers can do as much damage as the first generation. There must be a drawback right?
I am more curious if future Rogue will meet the present Rogue. It would be like Type moon’s Shirou Emiya and Archer.
I’m pretty sure they will, and I suspect that’s gonna happen when future-Rogue starts doling out his back story and true motives. Who knows, maybe current-Rogue might even side with future-Rogue 😡
Ah Seishun. Thanks so much for bringing FT back to RC. Yay Cobra. I was so excited when Natsu rallied everyone and now each Dragon is going to go down to a DS and support from a guild. Even if others might not have DS powers, don’t look down on any of their S class mages.
No problem Shadiic. I’m glad the readers have been so receptive 😉
Damn straight, I don’t think we should write off the rest of the gang yet. They might still play a important role in the effort to bring down the dragons. FT is not complete without Erza kicking some ass 😉
Yay! Thanks Seishun for bring this post back! 🙂
The most epic scene of this chapter:
http://www.mangahere.com/manga/fairy_tail/v35/c329/21.html
No problem! Cobra does look pretty badass in that panel 😉
I thought that FT won’t be covered again. But I’m wrong :’)
Aren’t you glad I’m here 😛
I knew there were Seven Dragon Slayers, but never thought Cobra would be released. That was a good twist Mashima.
I totally lost count of the number of dragon slayers before this chapter 😛
Thanks for the post Seishun! But don’t push yourself into exhaustion.
No worries, manga post doesn’t take nearly as much time :3
Thanks for picking this up too!
No problem. I hope you like it 😉
to think i would see this garbage again on randomc
Seishun why D:
Because Fairy Tail is awesome? 😛
SEISHUN SAIKOU
Thanks :3
Seishun for President! 😀
The latest chapter was so awesome I was actually bummed RC wasn’t blogging it anymore. So this was a great surprise. Awesomeness!
It is a pretty good spot to start coverage. Let’s hope it gets even more awesome next week 😉
Wow Seishun, you are a superstar. Three shows, One Piece, and Fairy Tail? You’re very busy this season.
you said “three show”
what is another one? (after OP and FT)
BlueStars is probably referring to the three anime that I cover – Kakumeiki Valvrave, Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince and Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride 😉
Thanks. It’s worth it, and only because I love you guys. Keep the comments coming 😉