In this volume of Fairy Tail our guild members make a triumphant return to Magnolia after the victory of the Grand Magic games. Just as they think it’s back to business as usual, bizarre events start to unfold in Fiore.
The first episode starts off quite odd, with an older lady sitting at a café, and the waitress asking her if she slept through the craziness of the celebrations and whom she backed to win in the Grand Magic Games – in reply she says, if anyone it would have to be Fairy Tail. It then shows her plodding through the city, bumping into various members from the games. From here my curiosity sparked – who is this woman and how is she going to be involved in the next arc of the series? For the remainder of the episode it gives insights to where the rest of the characters are at after the destruction of the dragons and the Eclipse 2. We have a big emphasis on Jellal and Meredy discussing a new dark guild appearing called Tataros, and that’s the direction that their adventures will lead them to next. Suddenly the old lady from the start of the episode arrives with a letter from Ultear (She helped put a stop to the dragons/eclipse 2 with arc of time spell and has been missing ever since). The letter is quite emotional – it’s basically a farewell to them stating that the spell she cast forfeited her own life and that they have to keep going and live for her and keep learning from their sins. Emotions are high at this point and before they can question the old lady about where the letter came from she disappears. Our favourite Fairy Tail guild members are travelling by horse and cart back to Magnolia and we have Grey pondering about what happened and how he almost died. He looks back at the land and sees the older lady in the distance. He looks into her eyes and at the point realises that the old lady was Ultear and she sacrificed so much for him and people throughout the land.
The series then flows on to the guild returning to Magnolia, with a celebration of them being the victors of the Grand Magic Games. The Mayor of Magnolia rewards them with a new restored guildhall with all the bells and whistles. At this point it is very much back to business as usual, finding jobs from the notice board and getting back into action.
From here we have a few filler episodes, with Natsu, Lucy, Grey and Erza taking on their first job back. An episodes of Sabertooth guild which is revolved around Froch, an episode about Bisca and how she came into the guild and finally it ends with an episode of Lucy and Yukino rewarding the celestial spirits for all their work with helping put a stop to the Eclipse 2 gate. All of these episodes were a lot of fun a good break from the serious story we have just endured.
The series then progresses to the next arc (which for me is a filler arc in itself).
Ever since the gate has been sealed there has been strange anomalies happening around Magnolia, which has kept all the guild members busy. It’s slim pickings for jobs for Natsu and Lucy, however there is one right up Lucy’s alley for Celestial Wizard Research. Natsu and Lucy head off to their destination, which starts to become quite fishy. Suddenly a giant Sea Snail attacks them – a battle commences – but for some reason Lucy can’t use her celestial keys.
It’s not until she summons one of the lower end spirits old Man Crux (a key that actually works) and he relays that something odd is happening in the Celestial world. Before too long all the spirits appear, this whole mission was a trap sent by them. They have changed, they’ve transformed into opposite versions of themselves with no memories of her. They state that they want complete freedom even if it results in their deaths.
After a close shave they return to Magnolia to research how Leo (Loke) will be able to give the spirits complete freedom using a spell called Liberum Verus and discover that once the spell is cast they will only have 12 days to live. Amongst their travels they bump into Princess Hisui and Arcadios, who are aware of what is going on with the Celestial Spirit world and to battle it – Hisui has designed special keys which will close off each celestial gate, therefore saving each celestial spirits life. It’s now up to the guild to enter a series of unusual battles to seal them away until the mystery of what’s gone wrong in the Celestial Spirit World can be sorted out.
These battles are the typical one on one fight, they range from a hilarious dance off between Gray and Cancer, an epic battle card game between Cana and Scorpio, game show battle of wits between Levvi and Capricorn. While the battles continue throughout the rest of the collection more mysteries get entangled – is there more to Leo (Lockes) plan?
This collection for me was very entertaining and fun. It contained lot of filler episodes, but I guess you can’t ask for much – just after you’ve finished an epic arc like the Grand Magic Games. The Celestial Arc that it leads to doesn’t have a serious nature, or for me any progression into over arching story line or development – so I’m hoping it’s only a small one and they can get back on track soon. I look forward to the next collection from the masters at Madman.
A review copy was provided by Madman Entertainment to the author for the purpose of this review.
