English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “Compassion”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Zeref’s fights with Natsu continues with no end in sight after he kills his son Larcade.  Meanwhile, August attempts to destroy the entire continent with an ancient spell. The only thing that stops him is seeing Mavis staring up at him. And if all that wasn’t enough, Erza and Wendy meet up with the arcane dragon, Acnologia himself, and barely escape.

Our Take:

Compassion is kind of a weird episode of Fairy Tail. There’s a lot going on this time around, and the episode feels like it’s bursting at the seams a bit. We spend a little time with August before wrapping up his storyline, then get introduced to the arcane dragon with Erza and Wendy, all the while Zeref and Natsu are still engaged in their fight to end all fights! Let’s just say the residents of Magnolia can all take a well-deserved break after all this has gone down.

Zeref’s story is one of the ones that has proved most interesting to me over the last few weeks, but this episode doesn’t do much with it. Last week saw Larcade interrupt his battle with Natsu, and Zeref didn’t take kindly to it. It’s more of the same this week, except Zeref has a brief monologue where he claims that his curse is what prevents him from forming relationships since he kills everything he cares about. I was on board with this and ready to root for him in a way, until Natsu gave him some weird inspirational speech about how his curse doesn’t really matter and he should just start a family anyway? I mean, a curse is a curse.

August’s plot was probably my favorite of this week’s episode, only because it had a little more drama to it than the others. August just did a rehash of his ‘why did no one ever love me’ bit from the previous week or two, which I thought was repetitive. (We get it already! He’s terrible because he can’t understand love!) But then just as he’s about to destroy the world with the Ars Magia spell, he sees Mavis, the Fairy Tail president and apparently his mother? I didn’t recognize her from her brief appearances in August’s flashbacks, but hey, I’ll accept it. It is freaky that he looks like an old man now while she still looks like a teenager, but that’s anime for you.

The dub this week was solid, with good performances by the main cast. While nobody had many standout moments, I didn’t notice any standout for the wrong reasons, either. “He’s my creation, but not my child. He’s nothing.” Poor Larcade. He seems kinda dull, but even he doesn’t deserve a dad like Zeref. “A father who doesn’t care for his children… is not a father at all!” Natsu is A+ parent material! And he’s so energetic he could easily keep up with a toddler! “Good and evil is not as simple as black and white.” At least August has a mature perspective on right and wrong? “May the seven stars bring judgment! Grand chariot!” I just had to write this down because it’s such silly, magic anime dialogue stuff.

Compassion wrapped up August’s storyline in an enjoyable epic way, even if his connection with Mavis seemed a little rushed. I really don’t like how Zeref and Natsu keep spinning their wheels, though. Just finish the fight already! It looks like the next big baddie is Acnologia, and he seems kinda cool. I hope Wendy can fight him effectively next week. I always love seeing an underdog win!