#ft 535

Gray is putting aside his dead father’s last wish to destroy END because Natsu is his best friend and he could never, never lose him for this reason.

Yet fans think Gray x Lucy is still a thing because of these interactions that are absolutely romantic for them.

I understand if you like the ship but this is denying canon. Mashima is highlighting how much both of them want to save Natsu because they care about him.

They love Natsu, not each other.

We are close to the very end and it’s pretty clear that Gray loves Juvia and Lucy loves Natsu. So why all the twisting?

I don’t think Fairy Tail is so hard to understand, honestly...

Our cover page is of the Fantasia arc and it’s great. It’s simple but captures what the arc focused on, I was actually afraid that it do what the 4th anime opening did and just focus on Freed’s runes.

The chapter opens where we left off, with Lucy coated in darkness. It appears that she’s feeling extreme heat that’s related to Natsu’s fire. Now I do like this as it appears Lucy has become one with the organic link magic and now is connected to END. My only question is this is a book of Zeref, shouldn’t he be linked to this as well.

Happy. That’s stupid. There is no demon inside Natsu, Natsu is the demon. In fact here’s my main problem now is they keep talking about “saving Natsu” which I assumed meant they’re going to find a way to keep Natsu from dying when he kills Zeref. After all, Zeref dies, all demons die with him. But now it sounds like they are trying to remove the demon from his being, which doesn’t make sense as Natsu isn’t human to begin with.

Gray uses some forward thinking and cools Lucy’s body.

Cutting to Natsu vs Zeref the white. Umm Zeref just walk forward 3 inches. Like seriously you’re so close to Neo Eclipse, walk through it!

Zeref… HOW STUPID ARE YOU!? seriously, you just forgot the book that is the life force of your “beloved little brother” and you didn’t remember till now. Also so lets point out that again, JUST WALK THROUGH THE DOOR! None of this will matter!

As for Lucy falling into darkness, how do you know this? We’ve never seen anyone write in these books, in fact I bet you’ve never seen anyone write in these books. Where is this corruption thing coming from? This whole page is stupid.

You know Natsu you’re kinda being a dick right now. Like okay I can understand you thanking Lucy because you two are now linked. But you don’t actually seem to know that and are just going off of the events you experienced. I understand thanking Lucy and Happy as they saved your life. I understand Gray after that whole “Aren’t we friends?” thing. But you don’t thank Erza. I guess the panel is suppose to imply a thank you, but come on, you’re verbalizing Makarov and he did jack shit for you in this arc. Actually where’s Brandish? She was the one who saved your hide back when we thought you had cancer? Where’s her thank you? Porylusica the one who told Lucy how to save you, what about her thank you?

So the greatest power is friendship. I’ll try and contain my shock and awe.

We cut to Jellal trying to push in Acnologia.

Gee, It’s almost like fighting the guy who eats magic with a technique that coats your body in magic might be a bad idea.

Hey Erza! Why don’t you put on your heavenly body armor and help him. What? The movie came out I’m surprised Mashima is keeping himself from drawing it.

I do and I don’t like this scene. On the one hand it is incredibly debatable if what Jellal does in this series benefits Erza like he wants it to. But this moment actually feels right in doing “I must protect Erza” because the situation actually makes sense. The problem here is, not enough build up. With Jellal’s very high absence and the questionability of if what he does for Erza is actually good for her as he intends, this feels flat. What should feel like a big moment is kinda weakened. 

They Christina crashes and Jellal is now being crushed by Acnologia. Wow, it’s almost like this was stupid plan. Though knowing Fairy Tail, he’ll be okay.

Cutting back to Natsu vs Zeref. Where I am curious why your even bothering as we saw White Zeref is pretty much unbeatable and could probably just walk through the punches not caring. Hell we saw his extreme speed he used on Natsu.

But Zeref pushes back Natsu yelling at him about how Natsu is denying the world yadda yadda yadda but then Natsu seems to summon all his magic and turn it to flames. cool.

The Fight concludes with a clash of fire magic. (Hey look Zeref got Dark Regulus)

Umm Zeref won. We saw that demolition fist failed the first time, if it just turns out Natsu countered the attack he’s still screwed because he put everything behind that. Zeref also is immortal and can regenerate. This scene is cool but when you actually think about it, it’s really dumb.

Post Chapter follow up: This chapter was a breath fresh air. I’m not joking this has been one of the better fairy tail chapters in a while. That being said it’s not that great.

Positives first, I really like that Natsu is actually blaming himself,its something different and makes it feel like this arc actually has had an effect on him. I really wish he had more introspection on FT but I’ll take this.

Another on the plus side is Acnologia not falling to this dumbass plan of “push him in”. That is always a plus. Jellal’s scene would probably have been okay if it had more time to it.

I’ll even say it’s cool seeing Zeref use a fire magic. We’ve seen he can use flame magic but it’s always nice to have new spells.

Also the number one thing I give this chapter is it progressed the plot. For the last month and a half it has felt like the chapters have been meandering around with only moving the plot forward an eighth of an inch each week. It’s really nice to see some damn progress.

Now on to the negatives. There is also a fair amount stupid in this chapter. Zeref is just an idiot. I know shounen logic but come one, you are barely a foot away from what you want. I also kinda hate that Zeref just now realized his prized book is gone.

Another thing in the stupid category is the idea of making Natsu human. It doesn’t make sense given the fact he’s etherious by biology. I mean the fact this book exists pretty much shows he’ll never be human.

Also the ending. It is really cool but when you think about it and apply the logic of what happened two chapters ago, there is no way Natsu can win. But we’ll see.

Final Verdict: 6/10

Good progress

Decent pacing