#ch187

This page is very cool. The lineart is thicker than the previous pages, and we rarely get a page of just two detailed closeups like this. Really sells the ‘tone change’ really dramatically. Plus, since the page margin gap is on the left, we go from Erza sighing, “that’s enough”. And we flip the back around to this scene.

Erza’s hair and Natsu’s fire even follows the movement of the page turn, as if we’re literally and physically turning the entire situation around.

Manga is a medium meant to be read as a compiled book, indeed. 

I was looking back at some other chapters to answer a new ask, and one of my ereader apps opened on ch149. Specifically on the page with these panels:

At the end of this chapter, Othello sends a white dove with a message to -- presumably -- the reaper HQ.

SO! Now I'm thinking that Ronald was sent to investigate Athena Sanatorium specifically because of this new mission to "destroy the Silver Fox and his minions".

Not only does he warn Baldo, albeit cryptically, of an upcoming attempt on his life and suggest he could survive it (ch172), but he has since interrupted Lau's attempt to kill Baldo, too (ch186). With Layla's undeniable attempt to kill Baldo (ch187), I'm half expecting ch188 to give us Ada saving Baldo with her expertise... and Ronald actively taking Baldo's (and Lau's) side in destroying the blood collection operation there. Perhaps Ronald was watching Ada only to determine whether she needed to die, as part of the mission to "destroy... minions". We could even get a full fight between Ronald and Layla within the next couple chapters.

One thing I like about the Shounen genre is that despite its nature to appeal to the young boy demographic, it differs from the tokusatsu genre in that they are explicitly not trying to be heroes. 

With some exceptions, shounen protagonists don’t care for being morally right in their actions or being seen as ‘the right side’ in the situation, they don’t particularly care for the greater justice of any sort-- they do what they do to save their friends, and that is where their motivations start and end. They don’t take it as far as ‘make cruel decisions for the sake of good’, or manipulating the naive to take advantage of them (like the Seinen genre tends to do, political/psychological as they often are), they are simply doing their best to keep each other together and safe in straightforward ways, just being true and honest to themselves and their desires. 

I guess you can see this most in One Piece and Bleach as well as Fairy Tail.