English Dub Review: Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest “Strength to Live”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Gray, Juvia, and Jellal defeat the rest of Aldoron’s God Seeds, leaving only the brain left for Natsu to deal with.

OUR TAKE

We’ve only got one more episode left of this arc after this, so this week is mainly just about getting rid of the God Seeds that popped up last episode and giving Gray and Jellal more fights. And yeah, both these God Seeds and the one last week that Wendy beat all have names and personalities but…I don’t care. They matter so little that it’s really not worth further analyzing the tree people who did nothing but kill time. And it’s not like these fights did anything for the characters involved either, so what was the point? Gray and Juvia’s romantic relationship isn’t forced to develop or change as a result of this, nor are Jellal’s feelings of guilt and regret about how he treated Erza years ago. And we’re not learning anything about Aldoron that we wouldn’t get from him just telling Natsu about how he set up these cities, unlike the battles against the White Mage which at least helped us get to her a bit. Plus, that whole poor excuse for a moral conundrum regarding whether sealing or killing Aldoron would affect the people living in the cities is moot because all of the people are just part of him! So, they could just kill him and be done with it, which should be easy since he doesn’t even have a hot guy design like Mercphobia or Ignia.

So, next episode is really just about putting this arc out of its misery, along with convenient side character Brandish coming in to make Gajeel giant for some reason. Speaking of Gajeel, it seems his regular voice actor David Wald has suddenly retired from the role after reports about Crunchyroll messing with the mail of actors were leaked. Crunchyroll and its mishandling of talent is a topic for another day, but I can’t disagree with Wald’s choice to cut ties because of that. This isn’t even the first time we’ve heard of actors walking away from some of their most popular roles because of Crunchyroll’s management, so who knows when the next falling out will happen involving them. For now, we don’t know how many episodes Wald recorded before leaving or who his replacement will be, but Gajeel’s few lines this episode did sound a bit off, so they may have already found someone. Whoever it is, we’ll find out soon, though I don’t envy anyone having to take over under these circumstances. Anyway, come back next time for the long overdue ending to this mediocre story arc!