Fairy Tail: Final Season

Episode 326

Hop aboard the Mest Express for the lead up to the final episodes of Fairy Tail! Or maybe not – Mest, Juvia remarks, can only transport a couple of people at a time, just one of the obstacles that stand in the way of our heroes' triumph over Acnologia. Others include the fact that they have to somehow get the dragon to stop roasting Magnolia, get him to Hargeon, trap him on a ship, and find the instructions for Mavis' spell Fairy Sphere in order to trap and eliminate the threat once and for all. Oh, and then there's the small matter of this Acnologia being only the physical dragon form – the human bit, the one with the intelligence, has the other dragon slayers trapped in the time rift. This last complicates things in a way that Lucy and Co. have no way of knowing: just because they defeat the body, there's no guarantee that the mind will go along with it, and there's no telling what will happen if the two pieces are separated indefinitely, or what that means for Natsu, Wendy, Cobra, Laxus, Gajeel, Sting, and Rogue.

All both groups really understand about the situation is that it's bad and that it needs to be stopped. For the dragon slayers, that means actively and repeatedly attacking Acnologia, hoping to either wear him down or that they'll accidentally hit on a weakness they can exploit. For the people back in the world, things are a bit more complicated. They're dealing with a giant mindless bundle of scaly rage, and they need to be very certain that any plan they go with doesn't end with them being deep fried. This is where having a good memory, comes in handy: Lucy remembers Mavis' Fairy Sphere spell, one of the guild's three great magics, from the Tenrou Island incident, and she realizes that a shield doesn't have to exclusively be used to keep someone out – it could also be used to trap them in. The plan's a little over-complex, relying on luring Acnologia away from his happy destruction of Magnolia to a large vessel (which she has to hope is easily found in Hargeon), finding the spell in Fairy Tail's library, and having everyone converge at the port with perfect timing. Even with Exceeds and Mest's teleportation, that's not going to be a simple feat, but since no one else has anything remotely resembling a plan, Lucy's is what they'll have to try.

In the midst of all of this, or rather four hundred years before it, we do find out a bit more about Acnologia himself. He appears to be a combination of two beings, the dragon Acnologia, who went to check out dragon slayer magic when it was invented and apparently went mad, and a dragon doctor, who felt largely powerless. Honestly this little bit of anime-exclusive backstory doesn't add much to the episode, which is too bad, because earlier arc of the show have managed to do good things with their additions to Hiro Mashima's original. We can guess that somehow Doctor's wish for more power (which you know is never good in anime unless followed by the words “so I can protect everyone”) was corrupted when he and Acnologia met after the dragon had lost his rational mind, maybe through a misapplication of dragon slayer magic. Hopefully this will be returned to next week, because there's potential in learning what made Acnologia the villain he is – but without utilizing that potential, this is just a distraction from what else is going on.

And what's going on is that Fairy Tail and all of Fiore in general looks well and truly screwed. Lucy's found the spell, by Acnologia has destroyed the ships in Hargeon, and when your master plan boils down to a magical version of Hands Across America while your strongest fighters are trapped in a time rift, well…

Let's just hope that someone's able to pull something off, or Fairy Tail may be heading for an extra crispy ending.

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Fairy Tail: Final Season is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.