Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest

Episode 4

Well, I said last week's tonal whiplash towards the end was a true sign of the series being back in full form for better or worse, but this week's episode certainly one-ups it in that regard. It took me on one big rollercoaster of mixed emotions: For over 20 minutes, I went from feeling the most exhausted I'd been with this sequel up to this point to genuinely curious about where it was headed. In that regard, it feels like a pretty good microcosm of what does and doesn't work about the series, as it showcases some of its best strengths and worst excesses all at once.

So, let's start with the bad since it mercifully(?) is concentrated towards the beginning of the episode. Following their fight with the Dragon Eaters, Team Natsu gets split up, as Lucy and Gray are left in the middle of the ocean while Natsu, Wendy, and Erza are captured. Erza gets it particularly bad as she gets paraded around like a dog by Kiria as she's still under the effect of her shame spell, and…yeah, it ain't great. It's certainly nothing new for the series or Mashima's general writing habits, but even being fairly used to it now, I do wish humiliation wasn't one of his default forms of fanservice or that he could be at least a little less horny on main in that regard.

Even having said all that, though, I also found the way that the whole thing was resolved to be a bit strange; as for all that, Erza… snaps the collar while Kiria's asleep and goes to free the others as they gear up for round three with the Dragon Eaters. The explanation is that Erza's magic eye dulled the effects of Kiria's spell and caused it to wear off after a while (somehow not fast enough to save her from being put on a leash for several hours, I digress). While that makes enough sense to handwave things, it feels just a bit anticlimactic in execution. It comes off as the latest in instances of Erza getting herself out of situations she probably shouldn't be able to on her own. Still, it's not like we needed another 10 minutes of her being Kiria's pet, so this is one instance where I'm willing to give the old "Because It's Erza" excuse a pass.

Thankfully, while everything on the ship is a pretty big letdown, the episode compensates elsewhere. While Lucy tries to track down Natsu and the others, she runs into Brandish—who happened to rescue Gray—and brings her up to speed on what happened to the Spriggan 12 following the final battle. With Zeref gone, a few of them have taken charge of the kingdom, while the remaining survivors were imprisoned for their crimes. As it's been a while since I last saw the events of that arc, I'm not confident how well each of their fates works out, but it's nice to have at least a bit of follow-up there. However, while Brandish has left the group herself, she's not quite willing to be friends with Lucy just yet as she reveals the Gold Key for Aquarius is somewhere in the country, and she's looking to get to it first. While I was expecting the Aquarius thing to pop back up at some point, it's nice to see it coming back into play already, and knowing that at least one other person is searching for it does add a little more urgency to Lucy needing to track it down, so hopefully that hunt gets a little more focus in the coming weeks.

The thing that ends up being the biggest saving grace of the episode is, weirdly enough, the Touka plot, which has otherwise dragged up to now. As Jellal tries to confront Touka directly about her identity, he gets stopped by Laxus, who warns him against putting his hands on one of Fairy Tail's members. Jellal decides to back off for the time being, but not before warning Gajeel that the thing that makes white mages like Touka a threat is their belief that magic can be used too excessively and that her cult of white mages, called Rebellious, has drained the magic power of other wizards to the point of leaving them on death's door. Laxus, for his part, still decides to stick up for Touka and tells her that as long as she has the guild's crest, she's considered family, and he and the other members will do whatever it takes to protect her. However, he also tells her that because of that, it's important that she's honest with them and that if there's anything she's hiding, it's best to get that out in the open. It's a bit cheesy for sure, but as repetitive as the whole guildmates are family thing can get with the series, there are certainly times when it works, and seeing Laxus of all characters spout that sentiment does show how much he's grown from the self-absorbed hothead he was the beginning of the series.

Sadly, this sentiment isn't enough to get Touka to open up, but we finally learn her big secret when she confronts Jellal herself. While her attempt to attack him and drain his magic confirms that his fears about her were founded, she hesitated long enough for Gajeel and the others to subdue her. This brought Jellal to the realization that Touka and the White Mage aren't quite one in the same, as they're two distinct personalities living within the same body. If there's one thing Mashima is good at when it comes to storytelling, it's pumping out plot twists compelling enough to keep you interested in where he ends up going with them. As much as the early parts of this episode frustrated me, this was a good enough twist that I'm a lot more interested in learning about Touka than I was before, so I guess it worked. Of course, given Fairy Tail's overall track record with this stuff, the answers are as likely to disappoint as they are to be satisfying, so time will tell which of the two sides this ends up landing on.

The dub has also made its return within the last week, and outside of a couple of replacements (who do sound spot-on enough that I might not have noticed if that wasn't announced ahead of time), it seems like they more or less got the whole band back together. While I last left the dub somewhere around the early parts of the Alavarez arc, everyone more or less sounds on point, and it's nice to hear folks like R. Bruce Elliot as Makarov, Brina Palencia as Juvia, and especially David Wald as Gajeel as their performances sound as delightful as ever, with the latter remaining my personal favorite of the whole ensemble.

Weirdly, though, while the supporting cast seems to have gotten more or less in character pretty quickly, the same can't quite be said for Team Natsu. While Newton Pittman's Gray and Brittney Karbowski's Wendy sound the same as ever, and any changes in Colleen Clinkenbeard's Erza are likely just a side effect of how playing Luffy for all these years has permanently altered her voice, Todd Haberkorn and Cherami Leigh do sound a bit out of step as Natsu and Lucy. The latter doesn't quite have the energy I'm used to when it comes to comedic timing and bouncing off the crazy antics of the other characters, while the former feels like Haberkorn is struggling to maintain the voice a little. Of course, it has been a little while since they last played these characters, and they've had other work. So they might need a bit more time to get completely back into character. Aside from that complaint, though, the dub otherwise sounds as consistent as ever, so if you're a fan of it, you'll almost certainly still have a good time.

Rating:

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