English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “Sting, the White Shadow Dragon”

Magical powers, hard-hitting fights, and mommy issues.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The episode begins as Sting is attempting to fight off Larcade. Natsu remains in a semi-unconscious state, mumbling about defeating Zeref while he is close to death himself. Sting uses the powers of his comrades to aid him, and together they take down Larcade. Somewhere far away, after an intense battle, Irene reveals a big secret to Erza about her past. Apparently, they are mother and daughter!

Our Take:

I’ve heard about Fairy Tale over the years but never gotten a chance to check it out before now. To be honest, it doesn’t sound like the kind of show that I usually look for when it comes to my own personal anime entertainment needs. But if I’ve learned anything over my years of anime viewership, it’s that a show can always surprise you. I know people who have claimed they hate slice of life anime, but then Barakamon goes on to become one of their favorites. Basically, anime is such a weird, special medium that you never know what show or characters you’ll latch onto.

Fairy Tale is one of the more stereotypical ‘shounen’ series, however. That’s what I assumed from my limited foreknowledge, and this episode’s viewing hasn’t changed that at all. Coming into a brand new show (to me) is typically challenging enough, but a show with over 300 episodes of history that have come before? It sounded daunting. But I’m not sure about that anymore. From Sting, the White Shadow Dragon, it would seem like Fairy Tale is such a standard-issue shounen series that I might not have to worry about things in the past affecting events in the present.

The main portion of this week’s episode is taken up with Sting’s continued fight against Larcade. Without really knowing the context of the battle, or having any history with these characters, I thought it was… fine? The battle itself wasn’t particularly enthralling in any way, but I thought it did an okay job of balancing out physical combat with the more magical and strategic elements of combat. The latter bit is taken up with Erza’s fight against Irene, who turns out to be her mother. This revelation is one that I’m sure would have more weight if I had spent time with Erza in the past. As it was, I thought Irene was already out as her mother when the fight began, just because they looked similar and this is an anime, so of course, parent and child are in a fight to the death.

The English dub is a pretty decent affair so far. Everyone sounds okay, even if nobody absolutely killed it or stood out to me. Larcade sure is a dramatic fellow: “My aim is to purify Natsu’s tarnished soul with my own hands.” Characters who are idiots can be fun, and Natsu’s ignorance regarding the whole dragon scale scarf thing was pretty funny:  “You trying to tell me he didn’t?” Finally, Irene might be Erza’s mother, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to stand firm against her: “You attacked Fairy Tale, and that makes you my enemy.”

Sting, the White Shadow Dragon is an average episode based on what my expectations were. None of the characters are particularly memorable yet, and there is certainly not a lot going on plotwise. But the battles are plentiful and pulp-y fun to watch. As I’ve heard that the show might be winding down, let’s hope it leaves a good impression on me by going out on a nice note.