Fairy Tail Archive Binging
In other news, I've been binging like mad on Fairy Tail episodes.
Is it me or did the dialogue get randomly really redundant and repetitive this second season? I dunno maybe I've blocked out some of the redundancy of previous arcs but it seems like for this Nirvana arc we keep having characters commenting on the fights and reminding the audience what's going on and stuff. Slightly annoying. Maybe that's a side effect of stretching this arc out so long. (Just realized this Nirvana arc has already been like fifteen episodes. OUCH.)
ON THE PLUS SIDE, the openings are firmly non-spoilery for upcoming arcs so far. So far the openings have just been about the arc we're currently on. That's nice.
I kind of miss the previous season's ending "Next Episode" theme.
Episode overviews!
Episode 51, "Love and Lucky":
I was actually like halfway through this one when I left off the last time, but I went and watched it again.
Still awesome watching Lucy take out a whole dark guild by herself.
Episode 52, "Allied Forces Gather Up!":
I was seriously tempted to pause the screen so I could read the chart of all the dark guilds and how they're all associated with each other. And I wish I could see which guild had that big red x over it. Was it Phantom? I think that was Phantom. I mean, Fairy Tail pretty much obliterated that guild back in Season One and I can't think of any other guilds that they've destroyed.
Juvia is still tremendously precious.
Anyway, four guilds are teaming up in order to take down the Oracion Seis dark guild. Team Natsu are the representatives from Fairy Tail, naturally. They go over to the Blue Pegasus mansion and meet Ichiya, who is kind of skeevy with his flirtations, and his mini-boss squad, consisting of Hibiki, Ren, and Eve. All three of them are adorable and pretty and I like them already. Well, aside from their being a little too forward towards Erza and Lucy and then later Wendy.
Most of the episode is taken up with their womanizing antics. Near the end though we meet Jura, one of the Ten Wizard Saints, from the Lamia Scale guild, and our old friends from the Galuna Island arc Lyon (Gray's friend) and Sherry (Lyon's henchwoman). And then at the very end in stumbles Wendy.
Episode 53, "Oracion Seis Appears!":
Wendy is precious and adorable. But I think she needs a bit of a backbone. She's all spineless and pre-Character Development!Hinata levels of mousy, and she's obviously not a strong fighter. But still, very very cute. Oh and she has a talking cat too. Happy is immediately smitten, natch.
Natsu runs off to go fight people, and the rest of the guilds follow. Except Jura makes the unpleasant discovery that Ichiya is not Ichiya but is instead Gemini the Celestial Spirit, weilded by Angel of Oracion Seis. So the dark guild knows all their plans. Yay.
Blue Pegasus' sky chariot gets shot down and our coalition of fighters gets curbstomped by the members of Oracion Seis. Uh... nice... nice goth make-up there sleeping dude. Erza gets poisoned. All is wrong in the world.
Episode 54, "Maiden of the Sky":
Wendy gets captured because Brain wants to revive someone and Wendy has healing Sky Magic. Happy gets to be captured too. Oracion Seis leaves the alliance where they are. Ichiya and Jura return to them, and Ichiya proves he's actually somewhat useful with his perfumes. Except it's not working for Erza, because she's still poisoned. She asks someone to cut off her arm. Little drastic there Erza. Lyon volunteers and my Gray/Erza shipper heart swells when he's all, "WAIT A MINUTE NO, DON'T DO THAT. SHE NEEDS THAT ARM. THERE'S GOT TO BE ANOTHER WAY BESIDES DISMEMBERMENT." And there is. Carla tells them about Wendy's healing magic, so they determine they're going to go save her.
Meanwhile, Brain reveals that he wants Wendy to revivie Jellal. Oh. Joy. Because I hadn't had enough of him back in the Tower of Heaven arc. Wendy apparently has a childhood connection to him. Intriguing.
Episode 55, "The Girl and the Ghost":
The alliance splits up into teams. Natsu and Gray and Carla, Ren and Eve, Lyon and Sherry, Jura, and Ichiya go off to fight Oracion Seis and find Wendy. They fight other dark guilds affiliated with Oracion Seis along the way. Hibiki and Lucy, meanwhile, stay with Erza.
I didn't quite like how the girls all seemed to be fridged or useless at first, in this arc. Erza got effectively taken out of combat, Wendy got captured and she's a healer, not an offensive fighter. And Lucy was doing the whole standing-around-being worried thing on the sidelines. But we fixed that problem later, so I forgive the early lady mistreatment.
Anyway, speaking of Wendy, she decides she is going to revivie Jellal (though it's not like she has much choice). Jellal immediately blasts aside both friend and foe, Brain and Natsu, and just starts wandering out.
Natsu decides to focus on the important tast of getting Wendy to Erza, instead of being hot-blooded and taking revenge out on Jellal. Smart boy.
Racer tries to stop him but Gray shows up and pulls a You Shall Not Pass with a giant ice wall, telling Natsu to hurry and go to Erza. Oh Gray. Your concern for Erza's well-being just makes my shipper heart warm.
Episode 56, "Dead Grand Prix":
Hibiki uses his Archive Magic to communicate with Natsu and tell him where they are and download Erza's location into Natsu's brain. Cool.
The rest of the episode is then mostly taken up by Gray and friends' fight against Racer. Gray, Lyon, and Sherry all fight against Racer, doing their best to bring him down but no use. Then Lyon figures out the weakness in Racer's power and get's Gray to long distance ice arrow snipe the bejeezers out of him. WOOT. But then Racer reveals a lacrima bomb strapped to his chest and Gray's out of magic. So Lyon takes Racer over the cliff with him and NOOOOOOO LYON DON'T DIE I LIKE YOU!
Sherry's traumatized, naturally.
Episode 57, "Darkness":
Natsu brings Wendy to Erza, who is promptly healed. Meanwhile Jellal has found where the Nirvana magic is and unleashed the first seal on it, followed by Cobra of Oracion Seis. Erza hears that Jellal is alive and disappears to go confront him. Natsu follows. Hibiki then dishes the exposition on what Nirvana does. It basically swaps the moral alignment of anyone caught in-between good and evil. Thus Sherry, who is in shock and grief over losing Lyon and looking for someone to blame for it, turns evil and attacks Gray (hel-lo delicious little scene with shirtless Gray tied up in vines!), and Hot Eye of Oracion Seis, who it turns out has been desperately trying to find his long-lost brother and gotten obsessed with money because he thinks that's what's going to help find him, turns good and starts gushing about the power of love, much to Jura's perplexion.
Midnight of Oracion Seis, by the way, is finally awake and creepy and hurting my Ren and Eve. Bad creepy goth boy!
Episode 58, "Spirit Battle":
Lucy, Carla, Hibiki, Wendy, and Happy follow Natsu after Erza who is going to confront Jellal. (Whew!) Natsu runs across Gray and I, noticing that he is okay and fully clothed, at once deduce that Gray is actually Gemini and spend a lot of time shouting at the characters that that's who it is.
The allies finally wise up to the deception. Carla takes Wendy away to safety. And it's the boys' turn to be useless and fridged now. Natsu is on a raft, thus useless because of his motion sickness, and Hibiki gets taken out by Angel in like the first minute. Oh and Happy got frozen. So it's up to Lucy to save the day and fight against Angel, who is also a Celestial wizard. It looks bad for quite some time. Gemini's ability to copy Lucy's skills leads to some hilarity with Saggitarius. Aquarius and Scorpio are apparently dating, so Aquarius abandons Lucy to go be with Scorpio (currently held in contract with Angel). Angel mocks Lucy constantly throughout.
THEN LUCY SUMMONS LEO. YAAAAAAAY LOKE/LEO OH MY GOSH I HAVE MISSED YOU PLEASE TAKE YOUR GORGEOUS FACE AND KISS LUCY WITH IT. (Yeah, somehow Loke/Lucy has become my preferred Lucy ship. I'm still partial to Natsu/Lucy but they haven't had any really good moments lately and the shipper in me needs a constant diet of fluff and cute moments. Plus I just... the whole Master/Subordianate dynamics with Loke/Lucy, with him being one of her Celestial Spirits is just UNF, yes please.)
But then Angel summons Aries. Crap. Why does she have Aries? Because she was the one who killed Karen. Hibiki hears this from the bank he's slumped on and almost gives in to Nirvana's influence because Karen was his lover. He manages to hold it together. Leo and Aries determine that in spite of their relationship as spirits, they both have a duty to fight for thier masters and put their feelings aside to battle, which makes Lucy's heart wrench. Angel summons another spirit to shoot the both of them. Gemini starts laying the smackdown on Lucy.
AND THEN LUCY TEARFULLY BEGS ANGEL TO RELEASE ARIES FROM HER CONTRACT AND DEMONSTRATES HER GREAT CARING HEART WHEN IT COMES TO CELESTIAL SPIRITS, WHICH MAKES GEMINI PAUSE AND TEAR UP AND HE AND THE OTHER SPIRIT BOTH TURN ON ANGEL AND REFUSE TO FINISH THE JOB BECAUSE OF THE POWER OF LUCY'S LOVE.
Oh Lucy darling you are The Heart and I love you.
Angel tries to kill Lucy herself. But Hibiki steps in and uploads a super-powerful magic spell into Lucy's brain. AND LUCY CALLS DOWN LIKE DIVINE JUDGEMENT ON ANGEL AND COMPLETELY THRASHES HER.
Woot!
Episode 59, "Recollections of Jellal":
Natsu and Lucy fall down a waterfall and at the bottom meet up with Evil!Sherry and Gray, who is trying to defeat her. Oh and then Lyon reveals that he's alive. YAY LYON I AM GLAD YOU ARE NOT DEAD! Sherry snaps out of her Nirvana-influenced evil then.
Meanwhile Carla and Wendy have a nice little pretty sunset talk about Wendy's connection to Jellal. We have flashbacks to mini Wendy just after her dragon guardian has vanished, meeting mini Jellal. And oh my gosh this is too adorable and precious. They look like little blue-haired siblings. Aww.
I'd say it was nice of the show to give me some actual pre-evil Nice!Jellal stuff so that I could care more about him and see that he was a decent person before Ultear took him over (not counting the, like, six minutes of screentime of mini slave Jellal in the Tower of Heaven arc) buuuuuuut from the staves in mini Jellal's backpack I'm kind of suspecting that that's actually a mini Mystogan. And spoilers from reading wikipedia summaries confirm it. So this adorable humanizing moment cannot actually be attributed to Jellal. Darn.
Speaking of though, we cut back to him near the gushing Nirvana and Erza finds him and chews him out epically and it's revealed he in fact has amnesia. Erza lays out her grievances with him. She uh, sounds pretty thoroughly pissed. Jellal seems horrified by who he was before and says that he's going to destroy Nirvana and himself along with it.
Episode 60, "March to Destruction":
Erza manages to talk Jellal out of killing himself, telling him he has sins to atone for and stuff.
Okay. Now's as good a time as any. I can sort of see the appeal of Jellal/Erza now. I'm finally understanding the actual substance to the ship. I actually marginally like Jellal a bit now. Buuuuuuuuuut I ain't on board. I don't really anticipate climbing on board at this point, unless they have some really big epic cute moment that changes my mind.
It's mostly Jellal's fault, I think. He's just... eh. Like, literally, that's the sum of my whole feelings towards him. "Eh." I knew what to feel about cute little heroic mini Jellal, all ten minutes of him. I knew what to feel to feel about creepy possessed evil Jellal. I cannot summon any emotional response to this new amnesiatic quiet guy Jellal. I got nothing. You'd think the whole "I was a terrible person in the past and now I must atone for my wrongdoings." would give him more spice or oomph or something.
Anyway, setting aside my lack of feelings for Jellal for now, his attempt at destroying Nirvana doesn't work because Brain dissolves the destruction circle. These villains are ridiculously overpowered, almost to the point of Villain Suedom. Seriously. Nirvana is fully activated and it turns out to be a giant city on legs. Our allies converge upon it. Natsu's motion sickness renders him useless so Happy winds up flying him on ahead.
Episode 61, "Super Aerial Battle! Natsu vs. Cobra":
I maintain what I said about Oracion Seis being full of Villain Sues. Cobra is ridiculously hard for Natsu to take down and pretty much any time Natsu seems to get an edge, Cobra pulls out something else. I do like how this cuts down Natsu's tendency to be OP-ed, and how it makes it much more of a struggle for Natsu to win. Even if it does wind up being kind of a Dragon Ex Machina.
Meanwhile Jura, Hot Eye, Lucy, and Gray meet up and face Midnight.
Episode 62, "Jura the Tenth Saint":
Holy cats Jura is awesome forever and I love him.
Nirvana is heading for Wendy's guild Caitshelter, so Jura demands of Brain what's going on. Brain refuses to say and there is an epic fight interspersed with some rather annoying sideline commentary from Gray and Lucy who mostly just stand around remarking on what's going on. Blech. I don't like that anime device.
Midnight, meanwhile, defeats Hot Eye.
Episode 63, "It's Your Words":
Nirvana is still moving, despite the defeat of Brain, so it looks like Midnight is the one to defeat. Erza and Jellal are attempting that one. Jellal is still blah. Again, you'd think I could summon up more feeling for him than a vague, "Eh, he's okay." I think his main problem is that in spite of all the drama surrounding and attached to his character, he himself is... rather bland. At least this new amnesiatic version of him. He's basically Gray (in looks at least), minus a personality and more emo. Evil!Jellal was more interesting and he creeped the crap out of me.
Whatever. Natsu, Gray, Jura, and Lucy discover that Brain's staff is sentient and a member of Oracion Seis which is endlessly hilarious, while Jellal fails at doing battle with Midnight and Erza actually does battle with Midnight. Meanwhile Wendy and Carla are somewhere, and Wendy wants to find Jellal to see if he remembers her and remembers how to take down Nirvana. Wendy's connection to Jellal (even though it's really Mystogan) intrigues me. It is, like, the most interesting thing about Jellal right now. I just... Wendy doesn't believe he would be such a horrible person as she's heard because he was so kind to her and saved her life and she just wants to see him again. This is giving me funny feelings.
...
...Oh crap. No. No no no no no no I can not be starting to ship Jellal/Wendy. Nope. No way.
Episode 64, "Zero":
Midnight looks like he's as much a Villain Sue as his companions but fortunately Erza manages to quickly deduce the weaknesses in his powers. Midnight then hulks out and oh hello my nightmares for tonight, how are you doing?
THIS SCENE IS ENTIRELY TOO CREEPY. Fortunately it is just an illusion that Erza dispells, and then she defeats Midnight.
Meanwhile, Team Natsu is hilariously beating up and being beaten up with the staff, who is apparently named Klodoa. Lulz. But with the defeat of Midnight, the six prayers that operated as a seal on Brain's alter-personality Zero have broken, so Zero is now loose. Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Jura walk into a trap prepped by Brain pretending to be Hot Eye. Jura manages to save them from most of the blast, but gets badly hurt as a result, and then Zero shows up to further kick them down. All four are down for the count.
Wendy and Carla finally meet back up with Erza and Jellal and Wendy calls his name all cutely and he's like, "And you are?" naturally, which crushes her briefly. Erza tells Wendy that Jellal's memories are all messed up and stuff and she gives this adorable sad little look at him that just makes my heart wrench.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-
X'HAL DAMMIT SHOW. STOP. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME WANT TO SHIP JELLAL/WENDY? I'M IN ENOUGH TROUBLE AS IT IS BECAUSE I DON'T SHIP THE SUPER-POPULAR JELLAL/ERZA. YOU WANT ME TO ADD MORE NON-CANON SHIPS TO THE BUNCH?! STOP. STOP MAKING ME HAVE CONFUSING AND BIZARRE SUDDEN SHIP FEELS.
This reunion is interrupted however, as Nirvana has reached Caitshelter and is getting ready to fire.
Episode 65, "From Pegasus to the Fairies":
Just as the big cannon fires, BLUE PEGASUS AND LAMIA SCALE SHOW UP IN THE FLYING MECHANICAL PEGASUS AND BLAST A LEG IN BIG DAMN HEROES FASHION. Ren and Sherry are holding the thing together. Lyon is projecting a temporary wing for it. Eve is piloting and firing the shots. And Hibiki contacts Erza et all to tell them he found how to defeat Nirvana. The six lacrimas in the legs have to be destroyed simultaneously. Hibiki downloads the timing into everyone's heads. Zero overhears and hacks the telepathic link, saying he'll be at one of the lacrimas.
As the members of Blue Pegasus and Lamia Scale start running out of magic one by one, causing the ship to crash, Lyon, Sherry, and Erza make use of Hibiki's mind link to yell at Gray, Lucy, and Natsu (respectively) to get up, because they need more people to destroy the lacrimas. Oh yeah, Ichiya is there too. He's been tied up to a pole for a while, useless. But now he gets to be important to the plot again and destroy one of the lacrimas.
The allies split up to go destroy the lacrimas, Natsu heading to where Zero is. Jellal is supposed to take Lacrima #6 but regains some memory upon hearing Natsu's name and shows up at Lacrima #1. Um... dude? You're supposed to destroy all six at once. Why are you slacking on your duties? And whose side are you on right now?
And that's as far as I've gotten. This arc is longer than any of the arcs we've previously had. I'm like, exhausted.
BUT BACK INTO THE FRAY I GO.
May have another enty later, detailing the end of the arc.
Is it me or did the dialogue get randomly really redundant and repetitive this second season? I dunno maybe I've blocked out some of the redundancy of previous arcs but it seems like for this Nirvana arc we keep having characters commenting on the fights and reminding the audience what's going on and stuff. Slightly annoying. Maybe that's a side effect of stretching this arc out so long. (Just realized this Nirvana arc has already been like fifteen episodes. OUCH.)
ON THE PLUS SIDE, the openings are firmly non-spoilery for upcoming arcs so far. So far the openings have just been about the arc we're currently on. That's nice.
I kind of miss the previous season's ending "Next Episode" theme.
Episode overviews!
Episode 51, "Love and Lucky":
I was actually like halfway through this one when I left off the last time, but I went and watched it again.
Still awesome watching Lucy take out a whole dark guild by herself.
Episode 52, "Allied Forces Gather Up!":
I was seriously tempted to pause the screen so I could read the chart of all the dark guilds and how they're all associated with each other. And I wish I could see which guild had that big red x over it. Was it Phantom? I think that was Phantom. I mean, Fairy Tail pretty much obliterated that guild back in Season One and I can't think of any other guilds that they've destroyed.
Juvia is still tremendously precious.
Anyway, four guilds are teaming up in order to take down the Oracion Seis dark guild. Team Natsu are the representatives from Fairy Tail, naturally. They go over to the Blue Pegasus mansion and meet Ichiya, who is kind of skeevy with his flirtations, and his mini-boss squad, consisting of Hibiki, Ren, and Eve. All three of them are adorable and pretty and I like them already. Well, aside from their being a little too forward towards Erza and Lucy and then later Wendy.
Most of the episode is taken up with their womanizing antics. Near the end though we meet Jura, one of the Ten Wizard Saints, from the Lamia Scale guild, and our old friends from the Galuna Island arc Lyon (Gray's friend) and Sherry (Lyon's henchwoman). And then at the very end in stumbles Wendy.
Episode 53, "Oracion Seis Appears!":
Wendy is precious and adorable. But I think she needs a bit of a backbone. She's all spineless and pre-Character Development!Hinata levels of mousy, and she's obviously not a strong fighter. But still, very very cute. Oh and she has a talking cat too. Happy is immediately smitten, natch.
Natsu runs off to go fight people, and the rest of the guilds follow. Except Jura makes the unpleasant discovery that Ichiya is not Ichiya but is instead Gemini the Celestial Spirit, weilded by Angel of Oracion Seis. So the dark guild knows all their plans. Yay.
Blue Pegasus' sky chariot gets shot down and our coalition of fighters gets curbstomped by the members of Oracion Seis. Uh... nice... nice goth make-up there sleeping dude. Erza gets poisoned. All is wrong in the world.
Episode 54, "Maiden of the Sky":
Wendy gets captured because Brain wants to revive someone and Wendy has healing Sky Magic. Happy gets to be captured too. Oracion Seis leaves the alliance where they are. Ichiya and Jura return to them, and Ichiya proves he's actually somewhat useful with his perfumes. Except it's not working for Erza, because she's still poisoned. She asks someone to cut off her arm. Little drastic there Erza. Lyon volunteers and my Gray/Erza shipper heart swells when he's all, "WAIT A MINUTE NO, DON'T DO THAT. SHE NEEDS THAT ARM. THERE'S GOT TO BE ANOTHER WAY BESIDES DISMEMBERMENT." And there is. Carla tells them about Wendy's healing magic, so they determine they're going to go save her.
Meanwhile, Brain reveals that he wants Wendy to revivie Jellal. Oh. Joy. Because I hadn't had enough of him back in the Tower of Heaven arc. Wendy apparently has a childhood connection to him. Intriguing.
Episode 55, "The Girl and the Ghost":
The alliance splits up into teams. Natsu and Gray and Carla, Ren and Eve, Lyon and Sherry, Jura, and Ichiya go off to fight Oracion Seis and find Wendy. They fight other dark guilds affiliated with Oracion Seis along the way. Hibiki and Lucy, meanwhile, stay with Erza.
I didn't quite like how the girls all seemed to be fridged or useless at first, in this arc. Erza got effectively taken out of combat, Wendy got captured and she's a healer, not an offensive fighter. And Lucy was doing the whole standing-around-being worried thing on the sidelines. But we fixed that problem later, so I forgive the early lady mistreatment.
Anyway, speaking of Wendy, she decides she is going to revivie Jellal (though it's not like she has much choice). Jellal immediately blasts aside both friend and foe, Brain and Natsu, and just starts wandering out.
Natsu decides to focus on the important tast of getting Wendy to Erza, instead of being hot-blooded and taking revenge out on Jellal. Smart boy.
Racer tries to stop him but Gray shows up and pulls a You Shall Not Pass with a giant ice wall, telling Natsu to hurry and go to Erza. Oh Gray. Your concern for Erza's well-being just makes my shipper heart warm.
Episode 56, "Dead Grand Prix":
Hibiki uses his Archive Magic to communicate with Natsu and tell him where they are and download Erza's location into Natsu's brain. Cool.
The rest of the episode is then mostly taken up by Gray and friends' fight against Racer. Gray, Lyon, and Sherry all fight against Racer, doing their best to bring him down but no use. Then Lyon figures out the weakness in Racer's power and get's Gray to long distance ice arrow snipe the bejeezers out of him. WOOT. But then Racer reveals a lacrima bomb strapped to his chest and Gray's out of magic. So Lyon takes Racer over the cliff with him and NOOOOOOO LYON DON'T DIE I LIKE YOU!
Sherry's traumatized, naturally.
Episode 57, "Darkness":
Natsu brings Wendy to Erza, who is promptly healed. Meanwhile Jellal has found where the Nirvana magic is and unleashed the first seal on it, followed by Cobra of Oracion Seis. Erza hears that Jellal is alive and disappears to go confront him. Natsu follows. Hibiki then dishes the exposition on what Nirvana does. It basically swaps the moral alignment of anyone caught in-between good and evil. Thus Sherry, who is in shock and grief over losing Lyon and looking for someone to blame for it, turns evil and attacks Gray (hel-lo delicious little scene with shirtless Gray tied up in vines!), and Hot Eye of Oracion Seis, who it turns out has been desperately trying to find his long-lost brother and gotten obsessed with money because he thinks that's what's going to help find him, turns good and starts gushing about the power of love, much to Jura's perplexion.
Midnight of Oracion Seis, by the way, is finally awake and creepy and hurting my Ren and Eve. Bad creepy goth boy!
Episode 58, "Spirit Battle":
Lucy, Carla, Hibiki, Wendy, and Happy follow Natsu after Erza who is going to confront Jellal. (Whew!) Natsu runs across Gray and I, noticing that he is okay and fully clothed, at once deduce that Gray is actually Gemini and spend a lot of time shouting at the characters that that's who it is.
The allies finally wise up to the deception. Carla takes Wendy away to safety. And it's the boys' turn to be useless and fridged now. Natsu is on a raft, thus useless because of his motion sickness, and Hibiki gets taken out by Angel in like the first minute. Oh and Happy got frozen. So it's up to Lucy to save the day and fight against Angel, who is also a Celestial wizard. It looks bad for quite some time. Gemini's ability to copy Lucy's skills leads to some hilarity with Saggitarius. Aquarius and Scorpio are apparently dating, so Aquarius abandons Lucy to go be with Scorpio (currently held in contract with Angel). Angel mocks Lucy constantly throughout.
THEN LUCY SUMMONS LEO. YAAAAAAAY LOKE/LEO OH MY GOSH I HAVE MISSED YOU PLEASE TAKE YOUR GORGEOUS FACE AND KISS LUCY WITH IT. (Yeah, somehow Loke/Lucy has become my preferred Lucy ship. I'm still partial to Natsu/Lucy but they haven't had any really good moments lately and the shipper in me needs a constant diet of fluff and cute moments. Plus I just... the whole Master/Subordianate dynamics with Loke/Lucy, with him being one of her Celestial Spirits is just UNF, yes please.)
But then Angel summons Aries. Crap. Why does she have Aries? Because she was the one who killed Karen. Hibiki hears this from the bank he's slumped on and almost gives in to Nirvana's influence because Karen was his lover. He manages to hold it together. Leo and Aries determine that in spite of their relationship as spirits, they both have a duty to fight for thier masters and put their feelings aside to battle, which makes Lucy's heart wrench. Angel summons another spirit to shoot the both of them. Gemini starts laying the smackdown on Lucy.
AND THEN LUCY TEARFULLY BEGS ANGEL TO RELEASE ARIES FROM HER CONTRACT AND DEMONSTRATES HER GREAT CARING HEART WHEN IT COMES TO CELESTIAL SPIRITS, WHICH MAKES GEMINI PAUSE AND TEAR UP AND HE AND THE OTHER SPIRIT BOTH TURN ON ANGEL AND REFUSE TO FINISH THE JOB BECAUSE OF THE POWER OF LUCY'S LOVE.
Oh Lucy darling you are The Heart and I love you.
Angel tries to kill Lucy herself. But Hibiki steps in and uploads a super-powerful magic spell into Lucy's brain. AND LUCY CALLS DOWN LIKE DIVINE JUDGEMENT ON ANGEL AND COMPLETELY THRASHES HER.
Woot!
Episode 59, "Recollections of Jellal":
Natsu and Lucy fall down a waterfall and at the bottom meet up with Evil!Sherry and Gray, who is trying to defeat her. Oh and then Lyon reveals that he's alive. YAY LYON I AM GLAD YOU ARE NOT DEAD! Sherry snaps out of her Nirvana-influenced evil then.
Meanwhile Carla and Wendy have a nice little pretty sunset talk about Wendy's connection to Jellal. We have flashbacks to mini Wendy just after her dragon guardian has vanished, meeting mini Jellal. And oh my gosh this is too adorable and precious. They look like little blue-haired siblings. Aww.
I'd say it was nice of the show to give me some actual pre-evil Nice!Jellal stuff so that I could care more about him and see that he was a decent person before Ultear took him over (not counting the, like, six minutes of screentime of mini slave Jellal in the Tower of Heaven arc) buuuuuuut from the staves in mini Jellal's backpack I'm kind of suspecting that that's actually a mini Mystogan. And spoilers from reading wikipedia summaries confirm it. So this adorable humanizing moment cannot actually be attributed to Jellal. Darn.
Speaking of though, we cut back to him near the gushing Nirvana and Erza finds him and chews him out epically and it's revealed he in fact has amnesia. Erza lays out her grievances with him. She uh, sounds pretty thoroughly pissed. Jellal seems horrified by who he was before and says that he's going to destroy Nirvana and himself along with it.
Episode 60, "March to Destruction":
Erza manages to talk Jellal out of killing himself, telling him he has sins to atone for and stuff.
Okay. Now's as good a time as any. I can sort of see the appeal of Jellal/Erza now. I'm finally understanding the actual substance to the ship. I actually marginally like Jellal a bit now. Buuuuuuuuuut I ain't on board. I don't really anticipate climbing on board at this point, unless they have some really big epic cute moment that changes my mind.
It's mostly Jellal's fault, I think. He's just... eh. Like, literally, that's the sum of my whole feelings towards him. "Eh." I knew what to feel about cute little heroic mini Jellal, all ten minutes of him. I knew what to feel to feel about creepy possessed evil Jellal. I cannot summon any emotional response to this new amnesiatic quiet guy Jellal. I got nothing. You'd think the whole "I was a terrible person in the past and now I must atone for my wrongdoings." would give him more spice or oomph or something.
Anyway, setting aside my lack of feelings for Jellal for now, his attempt at destroying Nirvana doesn't work because Brain dissolves the destruction circle. These villains are ridiculously overpowered, almost to the point of Villain Suedom. Seriously. Nirvana is fully activated and it turns out to be a giant city on legs. Our allies converge upon it. Natsu's motion sickness renders him useless so Happy winds up flying him on ahead.
Episode 61, "Super Aerial Battle! Natsu vs. Cobra":
I maintain what I said about Oracion Seis being full of Villain Sues. Cobra is ridiculously hard for Natsu to take down and pretty much any time Natsu seems to get an edge, Cobra pulls out something else. I do like how this cuts down Natsu's tendency to be OP-ed, and how it makes it much more of a struggle for Natsu to win. Even if it does wind up being kind of a Dragon Ex Machina.
Meanwhile Jura, Hot Eye, Lucy, and Gray meet up and face Midnight.
Episode 62, "Jura the Tenth Saint":
Holy cats Jura is awesome forever and I love him.
Nirvana is heading for Wendy's guild Caitshelter, so Jura demands of Brain what's going on. Brain refuses to say and there is an epic fight interspersed with some rather annoying sideline commentary from Gray and Lucy who mostly just stand around remarking on what's going on. Blech. I don't like that anime device.
Midnight, meanwhile, defeats Hot Eye.
Episode 63, "It's Your Words":
Nirvana is still moving, despite the defeat of Brain, so it looks like Midnight is the one to defeat. Erza and Jellal are attempting that one. Jellal is still blah. Again, you'd think I could summon up more feeling for him than a vague, "Eh, he's okay." I think his main problem is that in spite of all the drama surrounding and attached to his character, he himself is... rather bland. At least this new amnesiatic version of him. He's basically Gray (in looks at least), minus a personality and more emo. Evil!Jellal was more interesting and he creeped the crap out of me.
Whatever. Natsu, Gray, Jura, and Lucy discover that Brain's staff is sentient and a member of Oracion Seis which is endlessly hilarious, while Jellal fails at doing battle with Midnight and Erza actually does battle with Midnight. Meanwhile Wendy and Carla are somewhere, and Wendy wants to find Jellal to see if he remembers her and remembers how to take down Nirvana. Wendy's connection to Jellal (even though it's really Mystogan) intrigues me. It is, like, the most interesting thing about Jellal right now. I just... Wendy doesn't believe he would be such a horrible person as she's heard because he was so kind to her and saved her life and she just wants to see him again. This is giving me funny feelings.
...
...Oh crap. No. No no no no no no I can not be starting to ship Jellal/Wendy. Nope. No way.
Episode 64, "Zero":
Midnight looks like he's as much a Villain Sue as his companions but fortunately Erza manages to quickly deduce the weaknesses in his powers. Midnight then hulks out and oh hello my nightmares for tonight, how are you doing?
THIS SCENE IS ENTIRELY TOO CREEPY. Fortunately it is just an illusion that Erza dispells, and then she defeats Midnight.
Meanwhile, Team Natsu is hilariously beating up and being beaten up with the staff, who is apparently named Klodoa. Lulz. But with the defeat of Midnight, the six prayers that operated as a seal on Brain's alter-personality Zero have broken, so Zero is now loose. Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Jura walk into a trap prepped by Brain pretending to be Hot Eye. Jura manages to save them from most of the blast, but gets badly hurt as a result, and then Zero shows up to further kick them down. All four are down for the count.
Wendy and Carla finally meet back up with Erza and Jellal and Wendy calls his name all cutely and he's like, "And you are?" naturally, which crushes her briefly. Erza tells Wendy that Jellal's memories are all messed up and stuff and she gives this adorable sad little look at him that just makes my heart wrench.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-
X'HAL DAMMIT SHOW. STOP. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME WANT TO SHIP JELLAL/WENDY? I'M IN ENOUGH TROUBLE AS IT IS BECAUSE I DON'T SHIP THE SUPER-POPULAR JELLAL/ERZA. YOU WANT ME TO ADD MORE NON-CANON SHIPS TO THE BUNCH?! STOP. STOP MAKING ME HAVE CONFUSING AND BIZARRE SUDDEN SHIP FEELS.
This reunion is interrupted however, as Nirvana has reached Caitshelter and is getting ready to fire.
Episode 65, "From Pegasus to the Fairies":
Just as the big cannon fires, BLUE PEGASUS AND LAMIA SCALE SHOW UP IN THE FLYING MECHANICAL PEGASUS AND BLAST A LEG IN BIG DAMN HEROES FASHION. Ren and Sherry are holding the thing together. Lyon is projecting a temporary wing for it. Eve is piloting and firing the shots. And Hibiki contacts Erza et all to tell them he found how to defeat Nirvana. The six lacrimas in the legs have to be destroyed simultaneously. Hibiki downloads the timing into everyone's heads. Zero overhears and hacks the telepathic link, saying he'll be at one of the lacrimas.
As the members of Blue Pegasus and Lamia Scale start running out of magic one by one, causing the ship to crash, Lyon, Sherry, and Erza make use of Hibiki's mind link to yell at Gray, Lucy, and Natsu (respectively) to get up, because they need more people to destroy the lacrimas. Oh yeah, Ichiya is there too. He's been tied up to a pole for a while, useless. But now he gets to be important to the plot again and destroy one of the lacrimas.
The allies split up to go destroy the lacrimas, Natsu heading to where Zero is. Jellal is supposed to take Lacrima #6 but regains some memory upon hearing Natsu's name and shows up at Lacrima #1. Um... dude? You're supposed to destroy all six at once. Why are you slacking on your duties? And whose side are you on right now?
And that's as far as I've gotten. This arc is longer than any of the arcs we've previously had. I'm like, exhausted.
BUT BACK INTO THE FRAY I GO.
May have another enty later, detailing the end of the arc.