English Dub Review: Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest “Blade, Armor, Ash”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The gang learn that Mercphobia the Water God Dragon had his powers sealed by someone known as the White Mage, who is rumored to be as powerful as Zeref. Upon learning this, Diabolos attack again and deem Mercphobia useless. Meanwhile, Touka, the girl obssessed with Natsu who just joined Fairy Tail, is revealed to be the White Mage.

OUR TAKE

Okay okay, there we go, now things are starting to pick up. This is starting to feel more like what I remember liking about the part of the show I’ve seen. Maybe it was easier to get into the lore and character stuff then because I was starting at the beginning, whereas this is meant to be a sequel I don’t have all of the context for. But now we’re getting into the fighting, shonen anime’s bread and butter, and I’m feeling things get more like what I’m used to. Fairy Tail fights are pretty much about everybody shooting their specialty magic back and forth, which usually makes every fight feel a little different, or at least different enough. It also helps that the main characters all fight a bit different from each other, though that does run the risk of feeling samey after seeing them all fight enough times. Luckily for me, this is the first time I’ve seen them all fight in LITERAL YEARS, so it still feels pretty fresh for me right now. Heck, even a bit nostalgic if I’m being honest (and trying to pad out this paragraph!). I’m sure that’ll wear off sooner rather than later but for now I’m enjoying it.

Also, now the seemingly disparate plots are starting to come together, as the one who took the power of Mercphobia (weird ass name) is in fact the weird girl that Gajeel has been tracking with Juvia. I didn’t bring that up before because it didn’t really seem that important or worth mentioning…and it actually WASN’T up until this point, so good on me for not wasting that time or word count up until now when it became relevant! But now it IS relevant, and we get to revisit the tried and tested Fairy Tale trope of having a new character be unhealthily obsessed with an existing one! So, Touka is this famed White Mage who has taken Mercphobia’s power somehow, which then makes her a target for Diabolos, which will lead Natsu and the rest back to Fiore, and then I guess we’ll find out what the hell Touka’s real deal is and if she can face off against these weirdos who are trying to kill her. But even then, it looks like we’ve still got way more of this arc to go, as it seems it will extend to at least the tenth episode of this new show, (or at least that’s what the fan wiki tells me and those are of course never wrong) so we’ll see how that progresses next week! Or else!