English Dub Review: Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest “Dyed White”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Natsu, Wendy, and Erza escape the clutches of Diabolos, while Jellal finds out that Touka seems to have conflicting personalities, one being the infamous White Mage who is part of a movement to wipe out overuse of magic.

OUR TAKE

Okay, starting to see some cracks here, best displayed in that I had a very real sense that I had missed something at the start of this episode. I even went back and watched the end of last week’s episode to see if the capture and placement on the ship was shown and…nope, it was not. Closest we get is that Natsu ends up on the enemy ship at the end of the battle, but Wendy, Gray, and Erza are still basically in the middle of their respective fights. At least Lucy gets a brief flashback to explain why she’s on a rowboat, which she was understandably forced to leave on since their fighting wrecked the town they were in and got Mercphobia injured. So what the hell happened here? Was this as jarring to transition from in the manga as it is here? Anyway, then Gray does appear, shrunk by a returning character from a portion of the original series that I have not watched or read, who then goes on to talk about other characters from their villain group who I have no context for and feel nothing about it. Probably gonna have more moments like that as this show goes on, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

But despite what that initial paragraph may imply, there are still things that I am looking forward to seeing more about. Specifically, this developing subplot about Touka and her seeming alter ego as The White Mage, who has an apparently very radical view of how magic has been used. Her control of Mercphobia’s magic is confirmed by the sudden change in weather to a rainy day, echoing the first appearance of Juvia early in the original series. However, as mentioned, she seems to have two conflicting personalities, with one being a regular person with an obsessive crush on Natsu (also like Juvia but hers is on Gray), but the other is very much focused on the ethos of White Magic, which seems to be about wiping the slate clean for magical society. And her possession of the Water God Dragon’s power means she’s still a target for Diabolos, meaning their plot and this plot will inevitably collide at some point. Some point SOON maybe? Probably not but whatever, this is at least enough to get this script to four hundred words! Anyway, more Fairy Tail in the weeks ahead!