English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “Blind to Love”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Anna’s plan to trap Acnologia in the time rift is going wonderfully until he breaks right through it and then Zeref starts to close it. Desperate to come up with a new plan to deal with the dragon, she decides to try and reopen the rift.

Meanwhile, Zeref and Natsu are in heated battle until Mavis shows up and tries to get through to Zeref. Unfortunately, he can’t be reasoned with and strips her of her magic to ascend to a god-like state of being and begin the Neo Eclipse.

Our Take:

Blind to Love felt a lot longer to me than the last few week’s episodes have. That may sound like a bad thing, but it really isn’t. Despite feeling longer, I was pretty engaged all the way through. This episode carries on in the spirit of last week’s and keeps things pretty focused on the two main struggles, Acnologia and Zeref. Anna’s plan to contain the all-powerful dragon goes belly up, and Natsu and Mavis can’t defeat Zeref, either. Things are looking grim for the Fairy Tail guild (and the entire world) by the end of things.

I’m a bit disappointed in Anna after the events of today’s episode, I have to say. I get that time rifts and god-dragons aren’t exactly hard sciences, but still, she seemed so sure her plan would work! And then Acnologia just goes straight through the rift without any ill consequences?  She stayed in the shadows for all this time ‘to investigate’, but apparently even all these years hasn’t been long enough. I guess it should’ve been clear when Anna described the time rift as being: “Not a power… more like a concept.” Concepts can’t contain Acnologia, Anna. Still, at least she’s offering better ideas than seducing him with boobs. Jenny’s offer for ‘the girls’ to help out is so mind-bogglingly weird that I had to pause and make sure I’d heard her right. Is… is Acnologia horny? Back to Anna’s plans, though. After her initial plan backfired, her new plan is to repeat the old plan, I guess? She claims opening the rift back up is their only hope, but I’m honestly pretty dubious. It didn’t work the first time, and that was when Acnologia was caught by surprise. He’ll be expecting it now!

Zeref’s struggle with Mavis and Natsu is a little more interesting to me, mostly because of the dynamic between Zeref and Mavis. Despite how evil Zeref seems now, they once cared for each other a great deal, and it shows. His fear of not dying is really unique, too, because I think it’s usually the other way around. Instead of a villain chasing after everlasting life, Zeref is trying to find a way to die. Flipping that on its head instantly makes him a bit more complicated than a standard villain. I’m not entirely clear on what Zeref stealing Mavis’ fairy heart means for the future, but I’m sad that he ended up caring more about himself than her.

The dub this time around is pretty nice, with some great performances by Mavis and Zeref. I was a little freaked out by Captain Ichiya, though. What is with him? He looks like he dropped in from another show entirely, and his frequent use of ‘man’ in the English dub is overplayed. I’m curious what this means in the original Japanese. His crew is almost equally as weird, like when one of them flirts by saying: “Well, it’s not like you’d be tasty or anything.” Zeref speaks honestly about Natsu: “Although you may not truly be a dragon, you’re still far from being human.” For real, Natsu’s true nature is mysterious. Whatever he is, he’s annoyingly extra. “I’ll ensure humankind has a future.” Zeref’s plan to save everything by destroying everything has flaws… maybe he needs Anna to lend her mind to it.

Overall, this episode was a real wild ride. Jenny tried to seduce a dragon with her boobs, Zeref gets a super hot magical makeover, and Natsu screams a lot. I was entertained! Next week, I’m hoping for more answers from Anna about why the time rift didn’t work like she thought it would, and maybe Acnologia will finally catch up to the ship for good? Or at least blow fire at them or something?