Fairy Tail S2 - 08 Review

Its over everyone, its finally over. Throughout this episode I had a bad feeling deep in my stomach that this was going to be like the last few episodes with just a few exchanges and monologues with no real development. Fortunately this was not the case as at the end we see the simulations end of all of the separate fights.

 

The fights interchanged throughout the episode however the exchanges were much simpler than the last few episodes as we now fully understand their powers and potential capabilities. The Lucy fight was not very serious at all, while many drew their will power to win the fight from past training and strong bonds. All Lucy had to do was summon a very emotionally unstable Aquarius to the battlefield and wait for the time bomb to go off. In a surprising development Aquarius showed some trust in Lucy by discussing her relationship troubles with Lucy in a rather hilarious manner. This could be dismissed as a moment of comedic relief but regardless, it was a nice change from her usual ‘I hate Lucy’ speech that she often gives.

 

The next battle was Mira’s and honestly, it was frustrating to watch. Mira is one of the strongest in the guild, at least in the top 5 with her destructive power. So watching her look helpless for 5 minutes straight was a little painful to watch. It  simply was not believable. At one point her opponent was simply firing off one elemental based attack after the other and Mira was just standing their making cute noises and internally monologue how she felt about it. Fortunately, as soon as Mira actually TRIED the fight was over with two punches. It was nice to see her in her old Satan Soul form with the new animation. The colours were much more distinct than last series were yet it was still a very good blend of dark and  seriously looking colours.

Wendy’s fight was the shortest and most simplistic of them all. Wendy’s fight was in a way the best out of all of them. She used her various support techniques and modified them to boost her physically capabilities. It was interesting to see her incorporate her wind power around her hands, similar to Natsu with his fire.

The last fight was Natsu’s and it made the least sense of all of them, yet it was also expected of Natsu. I had to laugh when Natsu’s opponent nullified his fire power with his specialised blade and even told him which blade it was… not the most educated soldier. Although this did make me wonder, if there is a material or magic that is capable of nullifying magic in its entirety upon contact, why is nobody making armour out of it? Natsu, not being the most crafty of people decides to then fight him with no magic power. Using his bare hands to defeat an armoured man wielding two axe blades….. right… Natsu however, posses incredible strength and strong skin as show when he physically broke the blade with his hand and then punched him into the next dimension.

 

Thus the fight with the Garou Knights is now over and I could not be happier. When looking at the series overall there have been some very well written, strong and in-depth villains that has amounted to some fantastic fights in the Fairy Tail series. This however, was not one of them. The fighters were simplistic, repetitive and overall rather irritating to listen to constantly monologue about how strong they were. In my experience the fight against the Garou Knights is a small blemish on an otherwise great series, especially considering the amazing standard the manga is current setting.

We also have to consider that the animators were stretching a fight that only went for about 4 chapter in the manga over several episodes. This stretching is due to two reasons.

1. To prepare for episodes were major development takes place were they will often pack 2-3 chapters per episode to sustain the intensity.

2. To make sure they don’t have a repeat of the last series where they caught up to the manga and were subsequently cancelled.

Next week well will likely be seeing an episode mostly focused on the Grand Magic Games and a small section on team Natsu’s escape from the castle. Regardless, there looks to be some good fights and story development so sit tight for now. I give this episode a 5.5/10, it was entertaining enough but it was seriously lacking overall and felt very thin in content.

-PandaSlayer