English Dub Review: Fairy Tail “The Purification Plan”

Man, Avatar is way more lame than I thought they were.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Well, the cat is out of the bag, and Gray’s undercover operation has been exposed thanks to Natsu’s meddling. It’s all good though, Natsu, Gray, and Lucy make a quick escape on horseback while Erza and Gray explain the situation. Gray had kept Juvia in the dark in order to protect her while he was working undercover with Erza to try and figure out what Avatar is up to. As they’ve found out, Avatar is trying to wipe out an entire city as a sacrifice to their dark lord, Zeref, with the hopes of summoning him in the process. There are many branches of Avatar, and this was the day that all the branches would be gathered in one place, and this was the moment they could wipe out all the branches in one fell swoop.

Natsu and Lucy have presented quite the complication into this fight, but they’re eager to stop Avatar with their old friends. Meanwhile, Jerome and Briar, two of the leaders of Avatar, are assembled to begin their “Purification Plan” to sacrifice an entire city of innocent people. The forces of Avatar charge in, but Natsu and pals are there to stop the hapless goons of the dark cult. Gray, Lucy, and Natsu stand side-by-side fending off Avatar, while Erza charges the rear to route their forces.

Erza plows through Avatar’s forces with ease, until Jerome arrives to stand against her. Jerome, with his corrupted sword, initially likes it can stop Erza, but she quickly subdues Jerome with her powerful sword armor. The same happens with Gray and Briar, who Gray matches in strength quite easily. Lucy, meanwhile, ends up fighting against Mary, who uses her…”Virus” magic to give Lucy and Taurus horrible stomach pains. It’s a weird flex, but Wendy arrives at the last moment to use her sky magic to render Lucy immune to Mary’s virus magic.

While Lucy is fighting, Gray takes on Briar, and Juvia arrives to assist Gray in her fight. The two of them dispatch Briar with ease, and Juvia embraces Gray in her arms, happy to see her beloved again. With the combined forces of Fairy Tail at the helm, Avatar stands no chance. Yet, their leader, Arlock, still believes that the day will turn in their favor.

Our Take:

So, its no secret that I’ve been pretty satisfied with how well things have gone in Fairy Tail in this season. While it hasn’t been perfect, I felt the last few episodes were strong showings in terms of character and plot progression. Things felt important; things felt dire, and the tension of each episode bonded me to the show’s characters who have been absent for quite some time. But, here we are, facing a rather…unfortunate showing for the shounen series. This is not a great episode. It’s shallow, its uncomfortable at times, it doesn’t preserve tension in any meaningful capacity, and it feels full of “Deus ex machina” moments that are supposed to make you cheer for the characters but just leave you scratching your head a little bit. It’s not offensively bad, in the way that other anime can irritate and annoy you, but it feels weak from start to finish and isn’t terribly entertaining to watch.

This episode is basically one big fight, and while that may sound appealing, it doesn’t amount to much here. The animation is limited enough that watching Natsu, Gray, and Lucy kick everyone’s ass isn’t much of a spectacle. In fact, the animation quality felt rather diminished from prior episodes of the show. There’s such a strong emphasis on having Natsu and friends just absolutely dominate their opponents that there isn’t a lot of tension about who is going to win the fight. These enemies basically exist to just make Natsu and the other members of Fairy Tail look good, but they make for a really boring episode. Furthermore, the plot doesn’t progress…at all, really. The entirety of this episode can be summed up in two words: “They fight”, and since you, as the viewer know that these miniboss characters aren’t going to be around for very long, what happens between our heroes and the members of Avatar isn’t very important.

There isn’t anything in the episode that attracted me to what was going on, there was nothing that stood out to me as being interesting or important. If Natsu and the others dispatch with Avatar so easily, who I thought was going to be a threatening an important villain, then why would I, as the viewer, feel immersed and invested in what’s going on. I like our characters, and I’m happy to see them back together, but this was such a poor showing overall that I can’t just abide by the content of this episode. This feels like a sour note in a show that had really excited to see what was gonna happen next. With any luck, they’ll be able to recover, but it doesn’t change the fact that this week’s episode felt like a waste of time.