English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “In a Silent Time”

Time is not on their side.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The episode picks up where last week left off. Laxus is fighting the true form of Wall, the android member of the Spriggan 12 who is kicking Laxus’s ass all over the place. Laxus is suffering from an ailment of bane particles that is slowly leeching away at his body, but he’s able to turn the tables by tricking Wall into using his enchantment nullification ability on Laxus. By nullifying the enchantments on Laxus, he nullifies his bane particles as well, allowing Laxus to go full force against Wall. Utilizing the power of red lightning, he kills Wall in one vital blow.

Fairy Tail, meanwhile, is slowly starting to feel like they’re able to take on this battle, since there are only 8 members of the Spriggan 12 left to fight. However, Makarov reminds his guildmates that there are forces to the east coming that they don’t have defenses for. All the while, Happy struggles over Natsu, who doesn’t seem to be getting any better, though Happy believe they’ll find a way somehow.

Elsewhere, new combatants enter the fray to help Fairy Tail with their defense. Jellal jumps in to help Erza fight against the Neinhart Four, a group of Alvarez knights who fight as a team. More importantly, though, the fight continues against Dimaria, the arrogant young woman who’s been fighting Wendy and Carla. At long last, she reveals her magic, which gives her the ability to stop time. She does just that and is about to kill Wendy, when all of the sudden Ultear appears, who also claims dominion over the temporal realm. Ultear allows Wendy and Carla to move freely within the time-stopped space and fight against Dimaria.

Dimaria is not at all happy about this and ascends to her second form, her “God” form, which makes her exponentially stronger. During the fight, Carla takes a hit for Wendy, which leaves her dead on the ground. However, Ultear tells Wendy that it’s still possible to save her if they can beat Dimaria in this moment. But to do that, they’ll need to unlock a new power, the power of their future selves.

Our Take:

I honestly don’t even know what Fairy Tail is doing anymore. All that hype around the fight with Laxus vs. Wall and the show decides to end it with one blow? It was a cool idea to have Wall neutralize Laxus’s bane particles, but how can a victory feel earned when the fight that warrants it is so damn short? That’s the problem with this episode and this entire arc: too much crammed into too little of a time. There are three different fights that we see this episode, none of which have a lot going for them except for more cameo appearances which expand the cast to astronomical levels. Too much, too fast, and the audience can’t keep up with and attach themselves to any particular conflict.

Not to mention, there’s just a complete lack of sense and structure to the storytelling that undercuts everything going on. I would have loved to see the members of Fairy Tail fighting a united front, side-by-side against a grand army, but that’s not what we’re getting. Everyone is running off on their own or with a couple people to geographically random locations, ruining the sense of scale this battle might have had. What’s worse is that these fights don’t offer anything in the way of emotional connection because the opponents they’re fighting are little more than angry dragons spitting around fire without a care in the world. There’s no pathos, there’s no drama, and there isn’t anything to develop in the main cast anymore because the show is almost finished. While we’re picking at the many failings of this episode to instill any kind of tension, there’s something really pathetic about Dimaria not using her powers to just instantly win the fight against Wendy and Carla. If she hadn’t wasted a bunch of time making fun of them, the fight would be over in a literal instant, before Ultear could show up. That sort of thing drives me crazy, because it’s just a lazy way to make a villain lose a fight.

This arc of Fairy Tail is a tiresome experience. The show isn’t so much telling a story as it is flailing about trying to do 12 things at once. Not one of these things is it doing well, and the longer this conflict goes on, the more diluted the story feels. Without focus, without detail and complexity, this “war” is little more than a drunken brawl of loud, angry mages.