English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “Mettle”

Erza is definitely heavy mettle.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Neinhart has created historias for everyone to fight, reincarnations of their old foes formed from their own memories. Everyone is aghast that they must face their old demons once again, especially Erza, who is getting her ass handed to her trying to fight Neinhart. However, Erza is somehow able to use her powers to make the historias she’s fighting disappear, almost by force of will.

Jellal then uses his magic to open up a hole in the sky to reveal a star-filled night. These stars serve as a sort of inspiration for the mages around the city, who are able to renew their strength and defeat their historias one by one. Jellal takes up arms against Neinhart and pushes forward to defeat him, which he does with his powerful magic, knocking him off of the ship and into the ocean.

Back at the headquarters, Brandish steps forth to tell the other mages about Irene Belserion, one of the strongest members of the Spriggan 12. After a couple of moments with Lyon comforting Sherria about losing her magic, we then go to see Irene, who is making her advance in the Sacred Mountains. She advances on Gajeel and his squadron, using her magic to turn the snow into a field of flowers, much to everyone’s surprise.

Our Take:

It takes a certain kind of ballsy for a show to bring back all of its dead characters, or at least a certain kind of stupid. “Naruto” did this way back in the day when it killed off its entire cast only to bring them back to life a few chapters later, and again when it decided that the “Great Ninja War” was going to be a battle against all of the cast’s dead friends and enemies. I can assure you, it was ridiculous back then, and it’s ridiculous now, even in Fairy Tail. The term “Jumping the shark” comes to mind here, when a show goes so far to try and jazz things up that it does something ridiculous just for the sake of being unexpected. It would be one thing if fighting the dead was something built up to in this show, but it just comes off as a bit much here.

There is some emotional charge to having all of these characters strike down their old enemies once more, but it’s sorely lacking compared to the narrative strength of having one or two characters face their past demons. By splitting up this battle among at least seven different characters, the struggle of fighting someone from your past just becomes a bit cheap. How much better it would be if it was just Erza fighting someone important to her, being forced to grow by revisiting an old grudge or rivalry left unfinished. What’d be even more interesting is using the historia power to make someone fight their long lost friends, but those possibilities are quickly squandered here.

As for the fights themselves, they’re over in an instant. Lacking any real substance, the fights just take the easy road of having each character beat their opponent with one single defining blow. It’s not much to watch, but what can you do when you have seven characters fighting simultaneously. Not to mention, Neinhart gets defeated so easily one has to wonder why he’s even part of the Spriggan 12. Actually, one has to wonder why the Spriggan 12 was even considered a threat at all because the mages of Fairy Tail have been able to defeat the Spriggan 12 with relative ease. If these guys were really the unstoppable powerhouses we were led to believe, then certainly they would have been able to take out one or two of the main cast. Just another bit of wasted potential in a series full of wasted potential already.