Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest

Episode 23

After vanishing for a few weeks it seems like the opening shorts are back, and this time we've got one about Gray and Juvia's current relationship. Sadly though, I can't say it really lands as it mostly consists of Juvia doing her usual thing of acting lovey-dovey towards Gray while he tries to get her to tone it down. While it is kinda cute to see her tease him about his previous love confession and show some genuine concern about his safety as he keeps diving into new battles, that's quickly negated by her strange fantasies about providing for him, even if he became a total deadbeat. I'll at least give this credit for ending on the punchline of Gray getting teleported to Elentear in the middle of his heartfelt declaration to return to her, but the whole thing just kind of further cemented in my mind that these two don't feel balanced enough to work as a functional couple.

Thankfully the actual episode is a little stronger, but for the most part, only two things really happen. The first is following up on Natsu's encounter with Suzaku, and since neither immediately realizes who the other is, they end up hitting it off, and Suzaku finds Natsu and the others to be a delightful bunch of weirdos. But once both parties reveal they're after Selene, Suzaku manages to put two and two together and manages to take out Natsu and Erza with relative ease. Before he can deal with the others though, he gets interrupted by Selene who takes an interest in Suzaku's sword techniques, and the two end up duking it out. It makes for a neat fight and also gives us an idea of what Selene is truly capable of as we see that her full power stretches far enough to affect the tides in other dimensions. Still as cool as that is conceptually, high power levels can carry only so much on their own, and the fight isn't flashy enough to negate the fact that Selene still isn't that interesting of an antagonist. If anything it just makes me more interested in Suzaku for the fact that he can keep up with her. and while it's up in the air if he'll only be around for this arc or serve as more of a long-term, I'm a lot more curious about his goals, which is more than I can say for Selene.

The other big moment of the episode, though, happens when Selene's minions pursue Natsu and the others after they escape. With Natsu and Erza still out of commission, and Wendy on healing duty, it's up to Gray and Lucy to hold the line, and Lucy finds herself in a rematch with Mimi, the buff lady. Even with this being a rematch, I've gotten used enough to Lucy jobbing that I was still expecting something to lead to her snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but to my pleasant surprise, our girl finally pulled out a solid win.

Now I am being critical, I have to take some issue with the reasoning here. While their previous fight had Mimi deriding Lucy for being weak, reuniting with Aquarius has apparently taught Lucy that it's okay to be weak because she can rely on her friends for support, and using her spirits for support helps her to pull out a victory. It's a nice sentiment on paper, but much like when Wendy gave a similar speech in the last arc, about compensating for her weaknesses by relying on her friends, this doesn't really feel like a lesson that Lucy needed to learn (especially coming from a character who only ever wins fights when she teams up with other characters, and usually loses when on her own). Even if we were to roll with that particular moral though, it doesn't quite come through in practice as we haven't really seen Lucy doing anything between the last fight and this one that would help reinforce that. Even in this rematch, she doesn't really fight any differently from how she normally does, and using her spirits as backup is nothing new for her, so if this was supposed to be the message, I can't exactly say it landed.

Still, as much as I might take issue with the methods, I won't argue with the result. It was a pretty cool showing, as the fight was pretty well animated compared to Fairy Tail's usual standards. Between some flashy theatrics and the fight getting some insert music, I can't say the staff didn't go all out with the presentation here. With all that going for it, it's hard to nitpick too much about this fight, and it makes for a nice highlight to what has otherwise been a pretty weak story arc. Speaking of this arc, though, I'm a little concerned about what we're in for with the season finale, as this arc doesn't seem to be anywhere near done. At the moment, it seems like we're in for a rushed conclusion, and that doesn't sound ideal. While I can't say all my enthusiasm has gone anyway, this arc hasn't exactly left me excited for the rest of this sequel, so I hope that whatever we get next week helps to change that. For now, it was nice to get at least one cool thing out of this arc, and while Lucy getting thrown a bone isn't quite enough to balance out its problems, this is one case where I'm more than happy to take what I can get.

Rating:

Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.