His head looks like a penis. Intentional?
What They Say:
“Celestial Spirit Beast”
Natsu and his fellow Fairy Tail members come face to face with the eclipsed Celestial Spirit King… except the king is now more like a giant fiend without a face! Or more like he’s got a giant vacuum cleaner tube for a face, which he uses to suck up his own planet, the captive Celestial Spirits, and if they’re not careful, the Fairy Tail Wizards!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
There are several things wrong with this episode. I’ll go into manga spoilers later in the review, but for now I’ll just talk about what’s wrong from the anime side of it.
This episode was a mess. First, defeating Ophiuchus was set up to be a climactic moment from the last few episodes. I looked away from the screen for a few precious seconds to look at my phone and I missed it. All of a sudden, Lucy, Yukino, and Hisui were in tatters. I rewound and found out what actually happened. It wasn’t much. The way the story was going, it should have ended the episode. The way the writing’s going, it would have probably been a worse episode had they done that.
They almost immediately harken back to the seven year time gap after the S-class exam on Tenrou Island. There’s almost no reason to do that. The urgency of the matter is Horologium coming from the Celestial Spirit world, not that they could be there for a long time while years passed on the other side. A mere three months passed when they partied there for a night. Do they really expect it to take longer than a night to get done what they need to get done? It’s cheap storytelling that won’t work again if they use the same technique, which they almost certainly won’t. It worked with Tenrou because them coming back was the moment. It was bringing Fairy Tail back to prominence, it was fighting back against Twilight Ogre, it was not whatever they might have in mind for the coming episodes.
The very folks they were fighting with, and fighting for in the Grand Magic Games, seem to join the battle in the Celestial Spirit world only for the sake of being red shirts—the sacrificial pawns, for those who don’t get the reference. Folks like Mira, Elfman, Cana, and Levy are quickly turned into constellations. Not only is this one of the most ridiculous overpowered thing I’ve ever seen in anime, it questions why even bring them. Take out the power and only bring your main characters.
The Celestial Spirit King made his first appearance in episode 32, back when Loke was Loke and no one knew he was a Celestial Spirit. He absolved Loke of his past transgressions, if they even were transgressions, and allowed him back into the Celestial Spirit world. His appearance is known. And they change him into a Princess Mononoke-esque monster with a dick for a head. This isn’t really an incarnation of evil, it’s just a joke. From the moment he was revealed, I couldn’t take the episodes seriously anymore.
MANGA SPOILERS BELOW
The Celestial Spirit King is also going to be a huge part of the next manga arc. Like the biggest. One of those emotional moments that Hiro Mashima is so good at and this filler is absolutely failing at. Why, after all of this, would Lucy trust the Celestial Spirit King? Why would it be absolutely worth the sacrifice she made? Wouldn’t she rather fight of her own accord, and that of her Celestial Spirits? An argument can be made for Lucy having absolutely no other option, but her spirits have worked for her thus far, why would this situation be any different?
In Summary:
How far has Fairy Tail filler fallen? If only it was Natsu learning how to drive. I would totally watch that filler episode. Or even the made up card game Cana and Scorpio were playing. When it’s filler, it’s not going to matter. I want the most ridiculous thing you can come up with then!! Bring me to crazy town, anime! None of this serious filler crap.
Grade: F
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: PS3, LG 47LB5800 47” 1080p LED TV, LG NB3530A Sound Bar
