Wagers, challenges and a horrible portent waiting for one member of Fairy Tail?
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Hiro Mashima
Translation/Adaptation: William Flanagan
What They Say
Hoping to break Fairy Tail’s humiliating losing streak at the Grand Magic Games, Elfman prepares to face Bacchus, an old enemy of Erza’s. Away from the tournament, a still-recuperating Wendy is kidnapped out from under even Natsu’s sensitive nose, and Carla experiences a terrible vision: a white knight, the palace of the King of Fiore in ruins, and Lucy singing as the capital burns!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After the miserable results from day one many would probably expect that most guilds would be licking their wounds and trying to figure out some sort of strategy so as not to repeat the previous results or possibly even be trying to come up with some way to sneak out of town that won’t leave them unable to ever show their faces as a guild anywhere again. Of course Fairy Tail isn’t most guilds and while there is a good deal of bad feelings over the day’s events those clouds don’t linger long as Natsu refuses to allow himself to be brought down by the day’s results and he promises to tackle the next day’s events and Gajeel decides to join him.
Perhaps there are portents in the making though as Cana accept- and loses- a drinking challenge from Cerberus’ Bacchus which has him claiming a rather embarrassing prize (though he may regret that in the morning). Things don’t look any better the next day either for Fairy Tail as Carla has had a vision in which she saw the Mercurius Palace in ruins and even worse she sees Lucy in the center of the rubble. This vision has Porlyusica concerned even as Carla attempts to dismiss the vision as just a dream as she wants to deny its possibility though Porlyusica warns Carla that if the witness has no confidence in what they saw then there is no way to convince others in an attempt to head off this dark future.
While this is going on the competition gets back under way in the arena and it looks like all of Natsu and Gajeel’s bravado will face off against a terrible reality when the game turns into a type of video game platformer where the participant have to leap from one large platform to another as the chain of giant wooden bases are dragged through the city. Of course this makes the war chariots a type of transportation and Natsu doesn’t deal well with them…then again he might not be the only one as it turns out that being unable to travel isn’t limited to just Natsu as it seems it is the only weakness of Dragon Slayers- and so this race becomes a farce on the back end for who can avoid last place.
Will that farce turn out to be an opportunity though for Natsu to turn around the opinion of Fairy Tail with the audience and have them go from laughing stock to loved underdog? Of course when things start escalating and the combatants start making their own private wagers it may turn out that that extra incentive provides impetuous for certain characters to rise to everything they are capable of to save those they love while others may decide that perhaps providing some fanservice may be a preferred battle ground and certain to rouse the audience in order to beat a familiar rival when outmatched in pure strength.
But as the games move forward the plans of those working in the background become revealed and it turns out that the end point of these games involves opening a gate to change the world…and who is more capable of opening mystical gates than a Celestial Wizard? As the shadowy players start to tighten their grip is the end point going to lead to Carla’s prophecy come true and bring destruction to Fiore’s capital?
Sometimes the most amazing thing that can happen is when an author ties together many of their running jokes and the work that they been slowly establishing for a couple chapters which then suddenly can feel like they let the dam burst all at once when the author lets these ideas coalesce and the reader is swept away in a spectacular wave of entertainment, and Hiro Mashima manages to create just such a powerful wall in the collection of chapters here. While some of the early moments probably won’t come as much of a surprise to fans of the work- such as Fairy Tail’s refusal to let their poor performance weight them down and Juvia’s flights of fancy- some of the pieces that start getting build around them since the start of the arc are the most amazing bits as a new antagonist is reveled in a completely unexpected way- along with his levels of perversion- which cause a character who has been almost a joke to have to (as they would say in their own words probably) man up and do what no one thinks is possible to protect his loved ones dignity.
It isn’t just that moment either as Hiro Mashima does a pretty amazing job of mixing in some of the sappiest of shonen lines and tropes in such a way that they manage to rise beyond being just staple statements to become something that can truly capture the moment without come across as too hokey and forced which is a rare gift in the world of shonen stories. The heart of such types of tales is often having characters strive even when they know they will fail which gives them a type of heroism that is a tool that can be cleverly used by an author to move the audience when used with a deft touch as seen here in places rather than as a blunt impact tool (like say a hammer) as is very often the case in the genre.
All of that takes placed mixed in with the ridiculous as well as there are moments where Fairy Tail gets to see just how special their guild is as some terrible things happen to some of the members of the other competing guilds when an individual fails to be able to live up to the standards the guild’s master expects. On two occasions Mashima takes the time to show just how unforgiving a couple of them are and one of them is used powerfully to engage sympathy despite the previous book’s results with the character versus one of Fairy Tail’s as well working as a chance to have Fairy Tail get roiled up with righteous indignation.
Not to be outdone of course is the moment where the reader’s are clued into what the Game organizers goals are as they have plans that look like might make Carla’s vision come true and it leaves heavy implications of what fate this plan carries for a certain member of Fairy Tail which adds a more looming and personal threat to the games than simply the vague warnings that have been delivered or even the guild’s need of money. It isn’t just that member who seems to have a target on their back either as Erza learns that not everyone can be as forgiving as her and someone she cares deeply for has been marked by others- even another friend she cares deeply for- for death as there are some things that just can’t be forgiven by some people and this knowledge adds a more than a little weight to her heart.
The combined total of these elements would be enough to cover at least a volumes worth of chapters if not more but Mashima isn’t done yet as he lets his enjoyment of drawing scantily clad bodies run wild when Mirajane’s number comes up in the rotation and rather than having her fight her female opponent in a pure test of strength like the other battles of the day the two go for more of a battle of beauty and fanservice, which also isn’t too out of the norm for shonen stories. In almost any other book this amount of pandering would probably throw things completely off course- and in truth it nearly did so for me here- but Mashima’s tendency to often be equal opportunity when it comes to his cast being naked (even if most of the male instances are mostly concentrated in one character) buys him a bit of leeway though it did get a bit close to the “too much” line. Of course when the pay off for this is as spectacular as is seen in the extra pages that are at the end of the last story chapter in the book the forgivability level goes up for me as the rewarding scenes almost make up for the discomfort of seeing such a twist in terms of this battle mostly of showing off flesh and fetishes.
With everything combined together the thirty third volume of Fairy Tail brings an entire arc’s worth of material into just eight chapters that feels like an impossible magic trick where, like clowns coming out from a car, just when you think this has to be the end of what can fit in yet another element comes out from somewhere it doesn’t seem could possibly fit and yet it increases the wonder of the whole presentation. Highly Recommended
In Summary
Charging forward despite their abysmal first day’s showing, the two teams from Fairy Tail participating in the Grand Magic Games are determined to make sure that the current sting of defeat is salved by the joys of victory and so each member will give their all in the coming days- even if not necessarily wisely- and in some cases “giving their all” might mean risking baring their all. But as the games go on even Fairy Tail’s last place start can’t stop their indomitable will which extends past just the games themselves and continues on whenever they see something they think may be unjust, even when it is the treatment of members of another guild. But in the shadows of the game a secret plan looks like it is blooming that may endanger one member of Fairy Tail as well as the entire capital as the Grand Magic Games start to take on a far more sinister feel. Highly Recommended
Content Grade: A+
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: December 3rd, 2013
MSRP: $10.99
