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arkus-rhapsode · 7 years

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Fairy Tail Chapter 540 Review

Boy is this a chapter I have mixed feelings about…

Our cover page is the sun village arc! Huh, kinda odd how no one ever talks about it.

We open in the Ravines of Time. Where Natsu is able to figure out this is Acnologia. Y’know Wendy did the same thing I’m wondering if it’s the smell power dragon slayers have that tips them off.

Acnologia shows off how he has all the dragon slayers in pillars. He goes on to explain that eating the ravines have given him time-space magic, which will give him the power to destroy the world. Y’know given how strong Acnologia is I don’t think he needed more help destroying the world.

Okay I’m going to ask you to keep this term he uses of “I shall exterminate you all” in mind for later. As well as this image of Igneel being killed by Acnologia. Trust me there’s a reason.

Outside the Ravines, Acnologia flies away to Magnolia (of course where else would he go). But what appears from the sky?

Yep, it is true. If you are a good guy no matter how unimportant, you’re going to live. This is still stupid but honestly I’m not as mad at this because these two are both pointless and I wouldn’t care about their status either way.

Yeah Anna, you fucked up.

So Anna explains that Acnologia due to having so much power has lost direct control of his physical body to compensate his soul is still in the ravines controlling the body, and he needs the dragon slayers to help circulate the body.

Alright first off, I will give the chapter this, this is a really cool idea. Now one could say this is giant contrivance that just exists so we have a way to defeat Acnologia easier highlighted by the fact he’s in human form. I will agree that this mainly happened just so we could make it easier to defeat him, but I will defend the human form because it’s his soul and no matter what Acnologia is human on the in side.

Second, why he didn’t kill you? If he need Dragon Slayers to properly control his body why didn’t he just kill you instead of spending time pushing you out?

Third, remember I asked you to remember the phrase “I shall exterminate…”, well this basically means he’s no exterminating them he’s just imprisoning them. So really his motivation of destroy dragons is pointless because he’s not going to kill them and actually needs them.

After hearing this Erza decides to embark to Magnolia. (Yeah sure ignore the fact your body is still damaged.

I had said that I enjoyed half of this chapter and that half was everything about the dragon slayers. This other half is just awful and pointless, and you’ll soon see.

Oh look it’s Mest. Guess everyone was wrong he doesn’t have a loli detector, he has a plot convenience detector.

So Mest Teleports Erza to Magnolia…

Slogan of the series…

And here is why I hate this half of the chapter. That it and by extension what’s happening with Erza, is a waste of potential. For the last couple months since the end of the Irene fight, Erza has been a glorified extra. She has sat on her ass and contributed nothing of value or anything character related (outside of that very small conversation about trust that went nowhere). You could white all of Erza’s scenes since getting on christina and insert any background fairy tail character, like Max, warren, Nab, etc, and you would get all of her scenes to the same effect. But now we are presented with a moment that could be a big characterization moment solely for Erza.

Now we have Erza seeing Makarov alive again, after see herself watched his sacrifice and used it as tool to help stop Natsu and Gray from fighting. But not only that, we have had her go through an experience where she met her biological parent and throughout it said that Makarov was her real parent. That want mentality helped Erza through fighting against Irene, that rage and loss she felt helped motivate her and now you have her seeing that he is alive once again. She can have this opportunity to reflect on how actually relived she is and how she’s able to be with her parent again. This should be a big moment for her, not something that can be solved in this few of panels! It’s so impersonal that once again we could easily replace Erza with any other FT member and we’d get the same effect from this wasted scene.

This isn’t me hating this chapter solely on Erza, this is me hating all the potential that her scenes could have and how compelling they could be this chapter. This isn’t the only scene either, that teleportation is another missed opportunity. We know Mest can’t directly teleport in kilometers, his magic only moves in small increments. Through this, while teleporting Erza could see all the destruction caused by Acnologia’s eternal flare and see how people, just normal people, were effected. She could be rattled by this and then seeing Makarov again puts her at peace or she could reflect on this, motivating her to want to stop Acnologia more. There is so much you could do to not humanize the situation their in, and it’s not taken advantage of.

So back on track…

Oh god, I simultaneously love and hate this scene. It is so great to see all of these characters together. It is so awesome. But what ruins this for me is a lot of these characters have done nothing for so long, by a base definition there’s no reason to start caring about them right now, and the other thing that hurts this is that again, wasted potential. All these characters and exploring character aspects of them, isn’t taken advantage of. How about Millianna being surprised that the OS were from the tower, or Kagura is happy to see Erza again, or Richard being happy that Sorano found her sister and he feels like finding Wally again. There’s tons of things you can do with this setup. By the way, Midnight and Minerva talked together, a ship has just been born!

And here’s what also gets me about this other half of the chapter. In the the grand scheme it’s pointless, because it seems to be setting up that they’ll handle the physical Acnologia. The one that is unstoppable and whatever fight they do put up is pointless because the Acnologia that’s controlling the body is going to fight the DS and if they kill the soul (Which they likely will) then body will stop working. Maybe they won’t fight it but it just seems like it’s set up to eat away more page space.

Back in the ravines Natsu breaks out of being encased.

Okay little odd here, Natsu used his damaged arm to break out. It’s implying that Wendy semi healed it to move (I’m going to assume she broke out while they were distracted). Why did Natsu need to use the broken arm to break out? He clear has another arm could’ve done it.

And again another missed opportunity. The are all breaking out because they hear the voice of the people that are waiting them, while cheesy I’d be fine with that, but again it could be more. Remember that image of the dead Igneel? We could maybe have had Natsu trapped in the pillar and then because this place is nebulous with time, we could flashes of Natsu’s timeline like that memory that motivate him to get his second wind. IN fact, you could do that for all the dragon slayers. Remember from my last review I had a problem with bringing focus on characters who’ve done nothing and are suddenly trust into relevance with out proper setup. Well through the way I desribed of having them see their time lines and becoming motivated it not only helps the audience be reminded of why should care about these characters but also helps the theme of this being an ending arc.

Okay not gonna lie, that’s a pretty awesome two page spread.

And we end on Acnologia’s face, and next chapter they will most likely fight. I’ll give credit to this, since they’ve escaped from the pillars Acnologia most likely has less control of his physical body thus prolonging time for the people outside of it, meaning the constant spouting of”we have to believe in them” actually matters.

Post Chapter follow up: As I said my feelings are mixed. I want to really like the stuff that was done well and I do. The problem is it’s also bogged down by these moments that could be so much more.

I’ll start with the positives, while this body split does exist more for making it easy to kill Acnologia it is still a very good idea. It’s definitely more interesting then the usual status of fights.

Also this is minor, but I love the atmosphere generated by the ravines of time. It really feels like this almost hopeless situation and the images of the dragon slayers in the pillars is so strong.

I also gotta give credit to the pacing of the chapter, it was much stronger than it usually is. I’m also very excited for the DS vs Acnologia.

The bad stuff, is pretty evident. It infuriates me how little goes into these moments that could add so much to the story and characters.Another thing in the bad side of things is just how pointless the stuff focusing on the other characters outside the ravines are.

Also, another fake out death. Just because I’m not mad at it, it’s still bad writing.

Overall I want to say this could’ve been better if it cut out the scenes with the non dragon slayers and focused a bit more on them character and motivation wise. But since the Erza stuff is included we have to add this to the final grade.

Final Verdict: 4/10

What it does well it does well

Interesting setup

wasted potential

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