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It looks like the destruction of the Eclipse Gate is, indeed, the ultimate resolution of this story arc – aside from the utter speed at which everything wrapped up, I don’t think there’s any big surprises from this chapter. The conclusion stayed true to the core themes of Fairy Tail – it was blissful, reflective and unequivocally heartwarming, just the way the fans love it! The last few panels were, above all, beautifully portrayed – it appears that future-Lucy was transported back to her own time and the dreadful events that supposedly befell Fairy Tail did not occur! The sight of Lucy embracing Natsu from behind almost brought me to my knees in sheer delight and words can’t describe just how happy I am to see the tears of joy from her face – no one is more deserving of a happy ending than future-Lucy and the poor girl has certainly been through a whole lot!
Everything looked fine and dandy on the surface, but if there’s one thing that I would like to nitpick – it’ll most certainly be the precipitate departure of the Jade Dragon Zirconis, who you might recall, possesses a unique magic that allows him to strip anyone naked! I’m not going to lie – it’s highly regrettable that Lucy’s the only one who has fallen victim to his perverted tricks and now that Zirconis’ gone, my dream of seeing a bevy of beauties stripped to their bare skin is no longer coming to pass. Mashima sensei should have known better than to tempt us with such possibilities, especially when he’s clearly not going to live up to his end of the bargain. It was a vicious move on his part to say the least and I sincerely hope this is not the last time we see the Jade Dragon in action! Aside from Zirconis, another development worthy of note is future-Rogue’s words of caution – the fact that Frosch’s life is in perilous danger and it was the Exceed’s unfortunate demise that made him into the person he is! None of that is remarkably surprising – in fact, it fits into my prediction last week perfectly well. It seems like Future-Rogue’s role in the current narrative is, indeed, that of an admonition – a heads-up given to Natsu and his gang before the imminent showdown with Acnologia! As Mavis Vermillion aptly pointed out, none of the Dragon Slayers was able to defeat the mighty creatures and the latest showdown simply draws attention to the enormous gap in their powers! It’s hardly an exaggeration to say there are many questions that remained unanswered – not least of which is Ultear’s fate that was left hanging in midair! I’m excited to see what comes next and a Great Dance Tournament is definitely an excellent way to kick-start the next story arc – one that, hopefully, makes up for Zirconis’ premature exit!
Random tidbits:
- Awwwwww… – If only I can make a blog post with just one word!
- It looks like we’ll be having three chapters in succession in the next two weeks (126 pages in total) – This is probably not the great news that the anime fans want to hear!
- Gray’s not the one that Juvia’s hugging, that’s quite a surprise – Meredy’s probably a better hugger anyway!
- Now that Mavis has made her appearance, the only key character that’s missing from all this hoo-hah is Minerva!
tl;dr: @SeishunRC – #FairyTail 337: I’m gonna miss you, Zirconis! The sight of Lucy embracing Natsu from behind was beautiful #Manga
sigh finally… anyway i thought the scene where lucy hugs natsu was future lucy meets her future dead nakama in afterlife… ah whatever, the last panels are very cute
natsu lucy shippers are screaming
I refuse to believe that. All I see is a happily-ever-after ending, Lucy deserves that 😛
Future Lucy went back to her own time alive lol
I wonder if this will be like Shirou Emiya and Archer? Will the future change?
Lucy got her Avalon either way.
L G is right, you guys. Future Lucy died and met her deceased comrades in the afterlife. That’s why
-she wakes up in an empty
-there’s an ethereal glow everywhere
-her nakama’s faces are mostly shadowed
Lastly if you notice the shapes of her teammates you’ll find that Levy is not among them. We know that Levy is the only one confirmed to survive in Future Lucy’s timeline. Since she’s not with these guys that means they’re all dead. That’s ‘the next adventure’ Natsu spoke of.
Remember how Future!Levy wrote about everyone dying? And of course you remember Future!Lucy getting killed.
It could mean that Future!Lucy was meeting up with her friends in the afterlife. That or a pre-death vision.
(I’m not entirely serious)
I don’t remember any of that or rather, I chose not to think about it LOL
Come on guys, it’s a happily-ever-after ending, believe in it XD
Either way it’s happily ever after…
except for Ultear…Alright unless Mashima dono wants to introduce more events there are only three major loose ends in this story left; Tartarus, Acnologia and Zeref and I wonder which one’s the final boss.
That’s plenty of material for him to work with – I don’t think Fairy Tail is going to end any time soon, to be honest. Some of the fans have speculated that the Grand Magic Games arc will be the last – clearly, that didn’t happen 😡
GMG was at most a reboot. Fairy Tail is one of the most non Shueisha manga in print right now. I have a feeling it’ll go Dragonball before it ends.
I forgot a word. One of the most successful non Shueisha manga in print right now.
Not to mention the 4 deities that were mentioned during Jura’s fight with Laxus.
Ya that ending, could be she returned to her own time met up with everyone again or that when she dispersed current lucy got a bit of her memories before she went and saw that they were all united after she died.
In either case another SUUUUPPERRR…(ah wrong show) ending.
even though this arc ended quickly I am pleased by all the plot lines started with the characters, theres a TON here. It makes it exciting to see what comes next.
I got teary eyed when I got to the scene with Future|Lucy…everyone is dead in her time, her included, but at least they are all together, and the way it was tied it up with our Lucy hugging Natsu was well done!
Mashima is really good at stirring my emotions, he is one of the few mankagas who even while using some scenarios that people might call cliché, manage to actually make me cry (for real!) and emotionally touched by his story and characters, and I’m not the type to cry for nothing! (I’ve been watching anime continuously pretty much since I was a baby and reading manga for 16 years now, so I’ve pretty much seen it all *or almost :P*)
I’ll be looking forward all the chapters and color pages during July! A Fairy Tail Festival indeed!
Wasn’t the death of most fairytail members in the future ( As future!Levy wrote ) because that damn gate? So, without that gate in the first place, nobody died which would mean that they would have that happily-ever-after ending that seishun wanted to see 😛
Though, Mashima would be wise if he left the time-travel plot points alone since there is one big flaw with those time-lines. The flaw? The reason the gates where made originally was to defeat the dragons (or travel back in time to kill zeref, either way, it boils down to the same), since by removing the reason of how future!rogue and future!lucy made it to the past would essentially remove the reason for eclipse 2, maybe even the reason for how eclipse 1 came to excist. Now, here comes the tricky part with the whole time-travel part. The reason those two came to the past was because of how those gates made their own time an apocalypse, which they wanted to prevent by using the gates to change time, in essence starting a loop.
TL;DR: by destroying the gates, they destroyed the reason why the gates should be destroyed, reversing the destruction so that the reason for the destruction would return, which would turn into an infinite loop.
Ain’t time travel fun?
As long as one doesn’t screw up with it, time travel is indeed fun 😛
Happily ever after, just the way I like it 😉
I see where your coming from, but i think that the infinite looP only happens if you consider time as only one time line and whenever someone goes back into time they are in essence still only affecting that one time line.
However if you consider time as multiple timelines that branch of each other e.g (back to the future) then it can make sense…. kinda
for example:
TIME LINE 0 – in this time they use the gate to go back into time to kill zeref (eclipse 1 plan) but 100,000 dragons come through and kill everyone. Lucy goes back into time to prevent this from happening which leads to time line 1 braching off from time line 0 from the date she goes back
TIME LINE 1 – future lucy now in the past prevents the gate form opening or closes them so no dragons come through however in a years time probably due to the super black dragon (cant remember name) frosch dies and rouge turns evil and he goes back into time to a date before lucy goes back into time and this creates a new branch again, time line 2
TIME LINE 2 – there is a future rouge from timeline 1 who tells the princess about eclipse plan 2, however there is also a future lucy from time line 0. this would be the timeline that we the readers are actually viewing. and would explain why the future rouge and lucy dont know each other as they are form two different times.
Hope that is even remotley clear, sorry if it is confusing it would be easier to explain if i could draw it instead
However one thing that kinda messes up my theory is that teachnically if what was shown in this chapter was future lucy going back waking up in her time line and everyone is alive. then yeah your right it is a repeat as that would mean in a years time frosch will die again repeating timeline 1. where rouge goes evil.
if you consider it that technically she goes to a different time line e.g a time line 3 where everything is okay, but that makes no sense as there would be two lucy in that one time line.
So I consider that she was actually waking up in the afterlife dead with her friends however that is just my view on it and i know people will have different views
Interesting theory, there is only 1 problem with that that is obvious from the start. To get to time-line 2, they would need the gates which where destroyed, making it impossible to access that time-line, thereby erasing their presence and everything they did there since there was no way to come to that time-line, which would also mean that the gates would still be there, hence the time-loop.
In my theory and how i defined TIME LINE 2 which is what we readers are viewing and reading now. Even though the gates got destroyed it doesnt necessarily mean that time has reset. (Yes its true that Rouge and the dragons went back to their time line as if the gates were never made). However it seems time line 2 is still continuing forward and has not reset meaning in the future if frosch was to die in time line 2 this time, then rouge will have no way to go back in time as the gates have been destroyed and the time line will just have to continue forward in any event. so in time line 2 there is no loop if you view it that way.
In essence you could think of it as in TIME LINE 2 as the outcome of all this was that the gates were never actually made/broken so what ever happens in the future no one has any ability to go back in time to change it.
also in my theory whatever happens in one time line would not effect what happens in another timeline so each time line goes forward regardless of what happens in another. for example just because the gates were destroyed in TIME LINE 2 this would not have any bearing of what happened already in TIME LINE 0 and 1 as those are separate time lines. so in time line 0/1 what has happened cant technically be changed and they are stuck with their messed up worlds. so rouge was essentially not changing the future of timeline 0/1 but was just making and jumping to a new timeline (timeline 2) where he could achieve his goals.
it was said in a sci-fi show (cant remember which one) that think of different time lines as different dimensions all happening at the same time but all seperate from each other and though you can jump between them, what happens physically in one time line/dimension does not affect any other timeline/dimensions (I want to say doctor who but i think thats terribly wrong)
Still waiting for Ultear, seriously needs a proper ending one way or another.
Yeah. At least find Ultear and give her a proper burial. The ocean seems appropriate.
Mashima has lost it. This was horrendous.
The reason I hate time travel plots so much is that the more you think about the time travel and what does and doesn’t change because of it, the more it hurts your head. So don’t
Although, from the looks of it, we have yet another character “death” (I’m not going into that future-Lucy vs. the future-Lucy from this chap.) reversed. Next we will probably see Ultear waking up covered in bandages.
So does this mean that their future is okay now?
I feel that the end was a bit rushed. Think about it, within the space of two chapters we had the revelation that destroying the gate would save the world, followed instantly by it being broken, the dragons disappearing and everyone having a happy ending. It wasn’t that it was bad, but I wish it could have been spread out a bit more. The most disappointing thing was the dragons, I know that the point was that none of the slayers could defeat them, but the fights/efforts to do so weren’t even shown (they were off panel). With things like Wendy saying she had the magic to beat Zirconis I was expecting more.
Much like the conclusion to the tournament I just feel the pacing takes away from the ending. That said though this really was a brilliant arc and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for our favorite guild next!
P.S. Congrats on the first Fairy Tail arc posted Seishun!
Thanks Celecia01. I didn’t do much for the Grand Magic Games arc to be honest – it was mostly Stereoman. I’ll have my “Seishun” stamp all over the next one, hope you’ll find something to like in it too 😉
The way I see it, it wasn’t all about getting pissed off about his dead Exceed. It was mainly about the promise Rogue made to Frosch about being “The man who looks about for his friends” and that “it” will never disappear cause Rogue’s by “its” side at all times. Due to what happen in the future resulting in Frosch’s death Rogue felt that he broke that promise and made him think that he can’t protect anyone close to him. Which led Rogue into believing that his only purpose is evil and finally give in to the shadows. Causing Rogue to become consumed with hatred and brought him to killing Sting for even greater power. Then he decided to travel back-in-time to convince the princess to open the gates to use the dragons to try to kill Acnologia as probably believed who caused that hellish future to occur(like they say commit evil in order to destroy the greater evil). F! Rogue showed that the only thing that mattered to him are results and he didn’t care if current Frosch died cause he believed “it’s” death was inevitable.
I refer Frosch as “it” due to the fact that I’m still not convinced that Frosch’s a boy. Just like Crona from Soul Eater when one knew his/her true gender though people think Crona’s a dude.
Sorry if most people find this whole comment completely dumb.
I think that Mashima-sensei has nothing to do at all. I mean, release 3 chapters in one week is something that I never saw any mangaka in a normal situation do. D:
Anyway, good chapter.
I heard that Mashima sensei draws really fast, and that he has a whole stockpile of chapters. So I think that’s why they are able to do this 3-chapters in a week thing.
And so ends the Trunks saga!
Mashima has released three chapters at once two years ago during the S-Class trial, but this takes the cake. Six chapters in two weeks is slightly insane. He really loves Fairy Tail and his assistants would probably be dying doing backgrounds and stuff.
Anyways I’m happy with how things wrapped up.
Can’t wait for the 6 chapters in the next 2 weeks.
BTW, if you remember the last scene from the anime (as in the ED song), it’s the same scene without Lucy in it but everyone is standing together waiting for her.
thanks for blogging this Seishun!
No problem mianghuei, always at your service 😉
Needs more Levy.
What happened to Cobra?
He’s fine. I think the question we should be asking ourselves is “What will happen to Cobra?” I’m taking a wild guess here, but I assume the council will have to come up with some sort of compromise with him for helping. A job within the council (where they can keep an eye on him) perhaps.
As I suspected…no mention of Ultear again, I wonder if she essentially erased her “existence” after doing that but then what about her body unless that disappeared over time.
I have a felling that this is not over yet.
Great Ending.
Dunno, but if someone knows someone that know someone that know etc.. the Cast Crew
They should listen to that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=Abx9zg777Io