akainu0

Well, I guess if nothing else, Gruvia's making progress. So this chapter does what I think we were all expecting, and gets involved in Gray's fight with Hakune, with the former using his Demon Slayer Magic to mitigate the effects of the latter's "freezing" ability. This leads Hakune to change tactics, as she instead creates an intricate illusion where all of Gray's loved ones are with him; this includes his dad, Ur, Ultear, Juvia of course, and even Griege (his and Juvia's son). Gray, however, breaks free of the illusion, and declares that it's not his happiness that he seeks, it's Juvia's, where the chapter ends. So, obviously, the centerpiece of this chapter is the development for Gray and Juvia's relationship. This confirms that in Gray's perfect world, he's not only with Juvia, but he has a family with her. On top of that, as I saw someone on Twitter point out, Griege apparently made such an impression on him, that Gray already sees him as his child. I've seen a few people

There honestly wasn't much to this chapter. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't exactly how I hoped it would go. The chapter is entirely about Lucy's fight with Mimi, with the former actually managing to get in some good blows, though the latter is able to whether most of them. In the end, using Aquarius to hold her enemy's attention, Lucy manages to cast Urano Metria, landing a devastating blow on Mimi. Lucy is left exhausted, even as Mimi stands up. Fortunately, though, she is still beat, and the victory goes to our favorite blonde. I really liked this chapter, because it showed how strong Lucy really as. As I've made clear, I thought this arc had been pretty mean to Lucy so far. She first gets her self-confidence crushed in her first fight with Mimi, getting captured in the process, before being turned into a yokai, stripping her of humanity, and her own identity. Lucy getting a chance to show off, be strong, and get back her own were all things she richly deserved. We

Most likely, the next chapter will see Mimi being defeated at Lucy's hands. I'm hoping we'll see another Star Dress combo from Lucy (we've only seen Leo x Virgo and Aquarius x Scorpio so far); maybe her brief time as a yokai will come back into play, but I'm doubtful about that. We might also see Gray's fight with Hakune briefly, and maybe Selene defeated Suzaku. I'm sure some people will say Lucy beat Mimi with the power of friendship, but as I said in the last chapter, we haven't seen the fight end yet. And at any rate, I'm willing to buy that Lucy's fighting better because she's doing this for more than just herself. Going further in the story, I'm not sure how the Selene fight will go. Like all Shounen villains, she'll show up to take on our heroes after her servants are beat, and my guess is all of Team Natsu will take her own. Granted, as was indicated in this chapter, Selene is the only one of the five who is will be fighting them at full power. I know they're going to

The chapter opens with Selene's power apparently influencing Earthland (with a cameo from Mercuphobia), as we see her quickly overpowering Suzaku, though it soon shifts back to Fairy Tail. Lucy and Gray go to take on Mimi and Hakune while Wendy continues to heal Natsu and Erza. Lucy and Mimi exchange blows, with our favorite blonde even scoring a few good hits in, and the chapter ends with their battle still picking up. A fairly straightforward chapter as things go. I will say that I'm glad that Suzaku is losing against Selene, since I was worried in the last chapter that his arrival would detract from Selene's presence, but she still seems to be a capable villain (I still don't like her though). I like seeing Lucy getting back at Mimi, and having a chance to showcase what she can do, which I always like seeing from her (Lucy's remains one of my favorite characters). Though I don't appreciate how she still calls herself "weak" at the end there. While I'll go more into this in

Well, one down, two Goddesses to go, huh? As we move further through the arc, and we've defeated one of the supporting villains, I think that means we're probably around, or near the halfway mark for the Selene arc. Judging by said dragon's reaction to the fight, I'm willing to guess she's going to be displeased, and will probably order Hakune and/or Mimi down there. To that end, Gray and Lucy will respectively stay behind to fight them, and those will be the next two big fights. Wendy might stay behind as well to help, but she may also go to find Natsu with the Exceeds. This could set up for the Dragon Slayers to fight Selene herself. Speaking of which, now that Natsu's met Suzaku, I'm actually not entirely sure where this is going to go. Now Natsu certainly won't recognize Suzaku as being from Diabolos for obvious reasons, but I'd be willing to guess that Suzaku may recognize Natsu as being from Fairy Tail (I'd guess the others in his guild would've told him). If that's the

So this chapter opens with Erza fighting against Youko, with the apparent upper hand. To try and get it back, Youko transforms herself into a four-armed yokai, and manages to push back against Erza. Of course, this being Erza, she has a plan to counter that, and assumes her own, multi-armed armor to fight back, and ultimately defeats Youko. With that, the yokai all disappear, winning the fight for our team. During all this, Natsu went chasing what I'm assuming was meant to be a Tanuki, who had his scarf. When said creature disappears, Natsu retrieves his scarf, but bumps into Suzaku, where the chapter ends. There really wasn't that much to this chapter, as most of it was dedicated to finishing the conflict with Youko, but I still liked it, since we got to see that smug look thoroughly wiped off Youko's face. I had a feeling she'd be able to infuse herself with yokai powers. I like the new armor Erza uses, and that it provides a reason why she couldn't use it in Earthland (that

With the next conflict more or less laid out for us, we're at a point where educated guesses can be made about the coming chapters, and I have a few. I'm guessing the next chapter will probably be devoted to Erza taking on Youko. Youko may show off some additional abilities, and may even try and turn the others into yokai again. Of course, Wendy could probably pretty easily reverse it, unless Youko has a plan to counter that in turn as well. Either Erza will tell the others to go on ahead while she fights Youko, or the others will stay to take on the yokai. I'm guessing Youko may be able to do more than just summon yokai; maybe she'll be able to do something similar to Lucy, and imbue herself with their powers herself. Speaking of which, one thing I was moderately surprised about, was that Lucy wasn't going up against Youko. They seemed to be setting that up with comparisons to their powers, which are actually somewhat similar all things considered. I suppose to that end

The chapter opens with Youko sicking her yokai on the team, and while they manage to fight them off, Youko simply summons even more. To even the odds, Aquarius tells Lucy to summon all her spirits, which she can do now that she's in Elentir. Lucy proceeds to do just that, and for what I think is the first time in the series, all of Lucy's spirits are deployed to battle. The spirits do pretty good against them, while Lucy uses her Star Dress Mix, and manages to beat a bunch of them. Meanwhile, Erza jumps at Youko, though Youko swaps herself with a paper illusion, but Erza manages to find and challenge the real one, where the chapter ends. All things considered, there isn't much to this chapter, as its mostly about the teaming taking on Youko and her summons, but I'd say it succeeds in that capacity. While I'm guessing people more familiar with Japanese folklore can pick out and recognize the various yokai that Youko uses, I can't say I could really identify any. They do have

One thing about the last few chapters, was with what they established But now that this little subplot is done, I'm really not sure where it'll go from here. The fact remains that the team is still trapped in this cave, and still have no way of getting out, and neither Faris nor Touka have an apparent way to help them. For the next chapter, I'm assuming that we'll see whoever it is that Faris and Touka are meeting, and the team will probably try and discuss their next course of action. Aquarius will probably offer something, and maybe they'll get interrupted by Youko's arrival. To that end, my first guess for the next fight will that it'll involve Youko, mostly because Selene said (now this may be a mistranslation) for her to. My guess is that Lucy will fight her, because they have comparable abilities, though Lucy may be somewhat handicapped by her inability to use Spiritual Arts. This could be where the yokai-transformations can come into play, in that Lucy retains her ability

That time of the week again. Again, another chapter that's probably going to piss people off, but that's neither here nor there at the moment. So this chapter shows Gray (predictably) struggling with Happy and Carla, finding it difficult to hurt them, but fortunately Natsu shows up and wallops both of them without much trouble. Cat-Wendy cries about it, as Aquarius forces her to drink her water, claiming its poison; Cat-Wendy responds by activating her magic to reverse the effect, which has the side effect of transforming her to normal. After turning the cats back to normal, though, they're ambushed by Erza, whose been turned into a giant spider... only for Wendy to easily reverse the transformation in the following page (even Happy and Carla comment how she was just a punchline). As the team regroups, Selene gets angry, as she hisses at a terrified Youko to "entertain her", as Youko promises to do that. The chapter ends with us finally seeing Faris and Touka again, as they