English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “Natsu vs. Zeref”

The battle is won, but the war’s not over.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The first night of the battle against Alvarez is over and Fairy Tail is victorious. With the rising sun comes a new host of opportunities, and the members of Fairy Tail discuss reaching out to the other guilds for reinforcements, now that they know the power they’re facing. Meanwhile, down in the Fairy Tail Dungeon, Lucy interrogates a captured Brandish about her connection to her mother. Brandish, however, isn’t interested in cooperating.

Alvarez now attacks from the east, sending troops through Bosco, taking out guilds one by one. Mermaid Heel and Lamia Scale are preparing to mount a defense, and Fairy Tail decides to go to their aid. Because there are two Alvarez armies incoming from both the east and west, Mavis orders Fairy Tail to split its forces. However, Natsu, being the rebellious sort that he is, flies off with Happy on his own to fight Zeref, who’s leading the western army. Gray is concerned and wants to help Natsu, but Erza says they should have faith in him and let him take on Zeref while they follow Mavis’s orders.

To the west, Natsu begins dive-bombing the Alvarez soldiers, decimating their forces with his fire magic. When counterattacked, Natsu retaliates with an overwhelmingly powerful Fire King Roar. This brings Zeref to the front lines, where the Black Mage decides to fight Natsu head on. Natsu rushes Zeref and delivers a devastating series of fiery blows to him. Zeref is able to retaliate, but Natsu presses his attack and releases magic more powerful than any he’s previously used in the fight. With his final punch, he charges toward Zeref, who closes his eyes and acknowledges his defeat, thanking Natsu for finally killing him and revealing that Natsu is his little brother.

Our Take:

As Fairy Tail chugs along, powerful moments in this season are becoming fewer and fewer. What was once an emotional and interesting start to the season has fallen off greatly into a valley of so-so action sequences, awkwardness, and boredom. Yet, while so much of the show feels like its not even trying, this latest episode gives us a solid ten minutes of good action and good storytelling with the battle of Natsu vs. Zeref. Though I find it strange the showrunners have pulled out this “Big Bad” so quickly and then seemingly closed the book on him without hesitation, I like the cliffhanger ending that finishes the episode off and the well-executed confrontation between the two most powerful mages in Fairy Tail.

Lets start with the stuff that doesn’t work. The first half of this episode doesn’t have a lot going for it. The dialogue and voice acting in Fairy Tail is not strong, and you’ll find that a lot of this episode is just Mavis talking with everyone in the guild hall without much point other than to try and stir the pot a little bit. This plot thread with Brandish and Lucy seems like it will pay off in the episodes to come, but right now I think everything about that has been said without Brandish revealing what she knows. I wish the show would give us a little more to tease us with in that regard, but there isn’t much to that mystery other than, “Brandish knows something we don’t know.”

However, once Natsu flies into battle and starts unleashing his full power, the show takes a turn for the interesting. The battle between Zeref and Natsu is raw and somewhat unpolished, but it still holds emotion, especially at its end. The absence of music during the final moments between Zeref is especially impactful. Although, there is something really strange to their fight which leads me to believe the episode is probably pulling a fast one on the audience. I haven’t looked ahead, but with plenty of the Spriggan 12 left to defeat, I find it very unlikely that Zeref’s story just ends here getting punched in the face by Natsu.

I think fans of Fairy Tail will be really pleased by this episode. It has a lot to offer in terms of action and good moments with Natsu, it just falls short in other ways. For a shounen that’s been troubled in its latest season, its good to see an episode that brings things back in the right direction a little.