Template:TMITM/December 2015

 

So like I said above, I am revamping TMITM. It was a boring article to read before despite my best attempts at adding humor and it was even more boring to write. Rather than recapping what happened in the manga, I am going to write this more as an editorial and analysis of the manga. I will be going over the chapter and discussing key events and analyzing their significance. This will hopefully make things a little more interesting to read as instead of of having to comment on a recap, you can comment on an opinion and analysis. So here goes.



Right off the bat, the first thing I noticed with this chapter is it looks like Zeref has lost an arm. Mashima didnt provide a single clear shot of his left arm so we can't be 100% certain, but it does seem that way. This really speaks for two things. 1, its possible that at full power, Igneel could have killed Zeref if just the remnants of his power were enough to damage Zeref this much. We already know Igneel lost a significant amount of his power to Acnologia extracting his soul. During his fight with Acnologia, Igneel also used quite a bit of his power, so its likely what Natsu has is just the scraps remaining at the bottom of the barrel. The one thing I am not sure on is when Natsu got this power. If it was before Igneel left his body, this could actually be a significant portion of his power, but if it was after, when Igneel was dying, then its as I said, just the scraps, which really puts it into perspective how powerful Igneel was. He most likely could have destroyed Zeref's entire body at full power and that begs the question though of if Zeref would be alive even if his body were destroyed? Would he continue to exist in just a small skin cell or something? Thats something I am kind of curious about.

Anyway, my second point here is that Natsu used just about all of the power he got from Igneel in that one attack. While very impressive, all it managed to do was to take out an arm. You can see how weathered Natsu is after that attack. It is because of that that I don't get why people are so mad at Happy for taking Natsu away at the end of the chapter. Natsu blew everything. He had no chance of killing Zeref after that attack. Lets say Natsu used 70% of his power in that attack and all it did was take out an arm. If he used the remaining 30% do you really think it would have made a difference? If you are trying to destroy something and you drop a nuke on it and it does next to nothing, tossing in a hand grenade after that aint going to finish the job. If Natsu stuck around, all he was going to do was get himself killed. Happy did the right thing by pulling him out of battle. He saved one of Fairy Tail's strongest from committing suicide and allows him to fight another day. Natsu couldn't win then and there, but he could possibly win another day with a new strategy.

Now lets get to the big reveal of the chapter: The Dragon Slayers are from the past. I....don't like it. This has been a theory forever and while I liked it years ago, I don't think it works as well now. Everything was kind of neatly wrapped up, the reason Natsu and Gajeel couldn't leave Freed's runes was because of the dragons inside them. We had ages for all the dragon slayers except Gajeel and Natsu and when we found out that Natsu is END and is Zeref's brother, my mind kind of slowly started thinking Gajeel would be related to Acnologia. He was the other great mystery of the series whom we didn't have any idea about. We didn't have his age, his past, anything. To find out now that he is just an ordinary orphan chosen by Metallicana is disappointing in my mind. I would have really loved to see something done there.

One thing that needs to be cleared up is Anna. I don't know where people are getting this idea that she is super important to the story and saying she may have invented celestial spirit magic or whatever other crazy theory people are coming up with, but I think its pretty clear that Anna is not important, like, at all. All she did was open the Eclipse Gate to allow the dragons and dragon slayers to pass through. She then passed on word through her clan of the date to open it and it made its way down the line to Layla. Thats it. That is Anna's entire role in the series. The reason why Zeref thanked her was not because he loved her or because she was some super duper important character in the history of FT. Zeref thanked her because he believed he was about to die and that was thanks to Anna opening the gate to let Natsu pass through, which allowed Natsu to become strong enough to kill him. That is it. People are reading wayyy too much into this.

So with that all revealed now, Natsu is flown off by Happy and taking this entire thing in, it has me thinking that Acnologia will be the final villain of FT. I had thought Anksheram seemed a more likely candidate, but with everything that we now know, that the dragon slayers only exist now because they wanted to defeat Acnologia, that he was so powerful that they needed to travel 400 years into the future to have the necessary power, it all seems like Acologia is even more of a monster than we may have thought.

All in all, this was a simply fantastic chapter. So much was finally revealed and so many new implications. Amazing.

This chapter... there was so much to it that it took me forever to compile my notes and things I wanted to say on it. So we start out with Zeref and like I said with the last chapter, Natsu was not going to beat him and that is what Zeref is acknowledging here. He says there is no longer anyone capable of stopping him, meaning Natsu wasn't going to succeed and with that, all his doubts are gone and he is accepting his role as the villain. Zeref had still been split here it seems. One of the things the last chapter did so well that I loved was casting this good guy image on Zeref. He was trusted by Igneel, he gave up his little brother to save the world. Yet in 400 years he has come to be the greatest villain the world has ever known and so now we have this split in Zeref of will he be a good guy or villain in the end and here he is suggesting he is accepting the role of the villain, which I thought was pretty cool for having said so little.

So now we come to Natsu and I am really torn on him. He has to make the decision of will he tell the guild everything he learned or will he keep it to himself. Its a classic accepting your fate trope but I am not really sure how it will play out because it seems so stupid to hide it when this is game changing stuff, but at the same time, it isnt like Natsu to talk about stuff like this. So what do you guys think? Will he act in the best interest of the guild and let them know everything or will he keep it all to himself? All I can say is I hope we don't get a Final Fantasy X ending for those that understand the reference.

Not much to say about this next part because it is what it is, just a setup for things to come but it does look like we will be getting Kagura vs Dimaria since Kagura seems to be the leader of the Fiore forces and Dimaria is clearly leading that part of the Alvarez forces. That battle is going to be amazing and I cannot wait. Elsewhere we have set up for Bloodman who is clearly Bloodman because people are coughing up blood (suck it Wrath).

Alright, on to the big stuff. I loved the way the next part of this chapter was done. The chapter is titled Assassin so we are all guessing who the assassin may be. Along comes Jacob and we learn he is a master of assassination magic. So obviously this leads everyone to believe he is the assassin and therefore he must be important. My mind is now racing trying to figure out why Jacob must be important. He is traveling with two of the most important story wise members of the spriggans. He is an assassin. Maybe he is there to assassinate one of them? or maybe his role is going to be to take out Zeref? I was searching for something to justify his importance and then Mashima hits us with Marin, who, fed up with the way Brandish treats him, tries to assassinate her. I loved it. It was perfect. The signs were there, we knew he wasnt happy, we knew he was around, but Jacob drew all the attention away so that Marin could come in with this big shock. Obviously Brandish won't die as she is already very important to the story, but just the way the scene was done had me so excited.

Fantastic all around chapter.