English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “Mavis and Zeref”

Wow, this got dark quickly.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This flashback episode begins with Mavis, the first master of Fairy Tail, explaining her past and how she first became a powerful mage. In order to save their town, she and her friends, including Zeref, mastered the art of magic, and subsequently formed Fairy Tail. As a guild, they grew in prominence and power, with Mavis serving as their leader.

Soon, war broke out in the land, and Fairy Tail found itself on the front lines, being used as a wizard squadron with Mavis being a military strategist. She confides in Yuri, her lieutenant, that she grows weary of all this conflict. Eventually, Mavis helps form a truce between different mage guilds so as to lessen the body count of war.

Mavis comes across Zeref again, one day, who shares a moment with her in a tranquil meadow. Mavis has great sympathy for Zeref, but Zeref, who feels almost nothing, can’t bring himself to meet her emotionally. Zeref even springs it on Mavis that the magic that has kept her young and immortal is the same thing that has cursed Zeref, the Curse of Contradiction, which kills people around you the more you love life. However, Zeref believes Mavis hasn’t truly learned the value of life yet, which is why no one has died around her yet.

Mavis is horrified, and runs off back to Fairy Tail with tears in her eyes. Time passes, and Mavis witnesses Yuri’s wife, Rita, giving birth at the guild hall. As Mavis beholds the child, life begins to leave Rita, and she dies almost immediately. Mavis is horrified, and realizes that what Zeref said was true. Mavis runs off into the wilderness, where death follows in her wake. Years pass, and Mavis, alone and forlorn, meets Zeref once again in the woods.

The two speak once again, and Zeref, who is now Emperor Spriggan, appears to have lost his humanity even more. Mavis watches as he succumbs to the madness of contradiction and breaks down in tears. Mavis, moved by his pain, embraces him, and the two share a deep kiss. In that moment, as Zeref feels love for Mavis, the curse takes effect, and Mavis’s immortal life is ended.

Our Take:

Fairy Tail really is a strange beast of a show, sometimes. It lives on high adventure, doing its best to make each and every episode a real fantasy. Yet, sometimes, it will surprise you with its level of darkness and emotional sincerity. This is one of those times, where the episode is so dark it feels like it belongs in a very different anime. This isn’t a bad thing, by any means; it makes for one of the most involved episodes I’ve seen so far, but it is a bit jarring tonally when compared to the rest of the series.

Zeref has proved himself to be one the most bizarre and unique villains I’ve seen in an anime, especially a shounen. Zeref, who originally just seems like just another evil mage, has such a grim fate that you can’t help but feel empathy for his situation. Knowing that his disdain for life isn’t a conscious desire, but a coping mechanism for one of the most horrifying curses imaginable, makes him way more interesting. This fresh perspective on Zeref brings a new light to the events of the main series, and adds a level of pathos to the conflict of Fairy Tail that isn’t usually present. I wonder how well the series will be able to reconcile this with Natsu’s relentless optimism and stubbornness, but we’ll have to see how it works out.

Mavis has also proven to be a great character to follow, whose story is perhaps even more sad than Zeref’s. There is a strong parallel drawn between her and Zeref that serves to give the series an epic, poetic sort of feeling. This is strong storytelling, because this episode gives the conflict in the present much more tension. Its essential that this feel the ultimate “End all, be all” sort of conflict that will act as a way to end the series well.

This was an excellent episode for Fairy Tail, one that demonstrates that this show can deliver on a dramatic and tragic story when it really needs to. It takes an entire episode to study Mavis’s character and her relationship with Zeref, and the larger story is all the better for it. While other shows would try to cram this kind of backstory as a footnote in another episode, Fairy Tail takes the time to do things right.

Score
8/10