February 9th, 2011 
AstroNerdBoy フェアリーテイル
Fairy Tail Manga Volume 03 Review
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SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
As Makarov parties with his fellow regional guild masters and lusts over Lucy’s breasts, he receives a letter from Mira about the team Erza formed, which sobers him up immediately. Elsewhere, Erza sends Natsu and Gray to stop Erigor while she quickly dispatches Eisenwald members before her. Natsu and Gray split up with Gray encountering Rayule. After Gray wins the fight, he discovers that Erigor’s target is not to broadcast Lullaby at the station but to kill the guild masters at their meeting. Meanwhile, Erza gets the civilians to flee and discovers Erigor outside the station. He has erected a wind barrier around the station and kicks her inside, where she and her team are trapped.
A frustrated Natsu encounters Kageyama and makes him pay for the abuse on the train. Meanwhile, Gray has informed Erza of the plan and they find Natsu with Kage, whom they need to dispel the wind barrier. However, he is stabbed by another member of their banned guild and is out of action. Happy produces Virgo’s key for Lucy to use as Virgo has digging abilities. Virgo now has a slender, normal appearance and addresses Lucy as “princess” but gets the job done.
Happy uses all of his power to fly Natsu to where Erigor is on a railroad bridge where the two battle. Erza, Gray, Lucy, and the injured Kage race in the magic cart to the battle site only to discover that Natsu has defeated Erigor. Kage takes Lullaby and flees, going to the building where the guild meeting is being held. He contemplates playing the flute when Makarov challenges Kage’s way of thinking after agreeing to listen to Kage play the flute. Kage changes his mind and drops the flute defeated but the flute has other ideas and changes into its true form, a giant, soul eating monster named Lullaby. However, the combination of Gray, Natsu, and Erza quickly defeat the monster but destroy the guild meeting site in the process.
Returning home, Lucy writes a letter to her mother and finds a half-naked Gray in her apartment. Gray reminds her of Natsu’s challenge to Erza, which is just about to start. They arrive in time to see the fight start but just as it is going good, the Council sends people to arrest Erza for the damage caused during the fightwith the banned Eisenwald guild.
Thoughts/Review:
What is this?! Man, what a cop-out by having Erza’s and Natsu’s fight cut off by having Erza arrested. I would have enjoyed seeing who would have won, though I suspect Erza would have done so. However, it would have been close I think. Maybe once this business with Erza is resolved, they can resume their fight.
The Lullaby story was interesting and done at a quick enough pace to keep me involved. It is true that Mashima-sensei doesn’t write anything too deep but it is entertaining and that’s pretty good. One thing I like is that we really don’t have characters “powering up” as we go along. Natsu, Gray, and Erza are already very powerful and thus Erza is able to wipe the floor of countless opponents while Gray and Natsu easily finish off their opponents. Natsu’s fight with Erigor is not what I’d consider a “power up” moment even though Natsu did draw greater power to defeat Erigor. What I see it as is Natsu reaching deep and doing the needful to get the job done.
Anyway, my point is that I’m enjoying seeing heroes who are already powerful and don’t need to get more powerful to defeat an enemy but need to become more resourceful. I look at a title like Negima!, which is better written in my opinion, but had a cast of characters where many already have powers and abilities but then have to seriously train to get them to progressively higher levels. There’s nothing wrong with that approach and I have enjoyed that in Negima! because the characters there are only in junior high school. The characters in Fairy Tail are all adults and belong to a guild where they get paid to do jobs. In other words, these are professionals and so I’m gratified to see that the fights aren’t drug out but simply are with our heroes clearly having the advantage.
The only character that I think needs training is Lucy. Good grief, she seems mostly worthless. I like Lucy as a character but in combat, she mostly is on the sideline because if she can’t summon a celestial spirit, she can’t do anything.
Still, there must be something to her because Virgo requested her key be delivered to Lucy once her contract with Duke Everlue was voided due to the Duke’s arrest. Otherwise, why would a celestial spirit want to be specifically given to a person. On the other hand, Happy not giving Lucy the key back when they were at the guild in volume 2 makes me suspect that this transfer of ownership was a later thought by Mashima-sensei. After all in volume 2, Happy talks about Lucy’s celestial spirits and one would have thought that this would have reminded him. Instead, we get Happy trying to remember something he had to say to Lucy in volume 3 but not remembering until they need to dig out.
Regardless, I suppose it is true that there must be something to Lucy as she now has four gold keys. However, I still maintain that she needs to train or something to become more useful in combat.
Speaking of Lucy, while Mashima-sensei apparently has a thing for big breasted women, he does appear to favor Lucy. Makarov making two drunken remarks about Lucy’s breasts go in that vein as does the frequent cleavage shots given to her. However, I do note that Mashima-sensei’s having Gray constantly lose his shirt as well as Natsu’s frequent open-shirt appearance is a way of tossing some fanservice at the female readers (and I’m sure there are some, at least in Japan).
Finally, Siegrain looks like a punk, doesn’t he? He did in volume one and again here. I don’t know if that means anything or not but he’s drawn to look like a cliched villain type character who has designs to rule the world which is why he’s on the Council with a bunch of old men. Having that girl with him adds to that impression. Hopefully I’m wrong about that.
So, a fun time to be had of butt kicking and mass destruction. *lol*
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I hope I don’t spoil you too much with this, but you’re almost right with your estimate of Seigrain.
Look forward to learn his story from volume 10 onwards.
Meanwhile, enjoy the upcoming demon island arc.
Nothing new to say here, you’re doing a fine job figuring it all out and have pretty well summed up the series and explained why it’s so fun to read.
I never thought about the “powering up,” but yeah… I can’t really picture a training arc like so many others have. It just wouldn’t work with FT very well since, as you pointed out, they’re already professionals… Well, except Lucy, but she’s fashionable and fun to have around… and those keys can come in pretty handy in a pinch.
Gray’s Shirt?
Just wait till he loses his pants >__>
I hope I don’t spoil you too much with this, but you’re almost right with your estimate of Seigrain.
Look forward to learn his story from volume 10 onwards.
Ah. Well, I look forward to that.
Meanwhile, enjoy the upcoming demon island arc.
Just finished volume 4. ^_^
Nothing new to say here, you’re doing a fine job figuring it all out and have pretty well summed up the series and explained why it’s so fun to read.
Sometimes I can figure things out…sometimes. ^_^
…those keys can come in pretty handy in a pinch.
Hmmm. Well, I’ve seen this a bit already.
@ Ku_fei lover: You forget to mention his underwear as well.
As for Natsu’s part, well since his source of power is his emotions, the need of power-ups is not that much necessary for him (unless he is hungry).
As for Lucy, she is an important character because whenever i read this manga i feel like it is a story which is being narrated by one of the characters who belong to the story, and that person is most likely Lucy (since she is a writer herself).
@ Hata: As you read the main story, don’t forget to read the short side stories of this manga since they are fun to read.
Gray’s Shirt?
Just wait till he loses his pants >__>
*lol*
As for Lucy, she is an important character because whenever i read this manga i feel like it is a story which is being narrated by one of the characters who belong to the story, and that person is most likely Lucy (since she is a writer herself).
Well, the story is mostly being told from Lucy’s perspective and she is the newest member of Fairy Tail.
You just hit on one of my favorite points about this manga (beside the humor).
Very few characters actually get drastically stronger through the series as is usually typical in shonen series (Lucy: yes, Natsu: probably but debatable, and then maybe a few more minor characters who needed it).
One of the things I like best about this is that it allows Mashima to insert less important characters back into the storyline (like say Kana) after being out of it for a few arcs, and have them still be quite useful.
“One thing I like is that we really don’t have characters “powering up” as we go along. Natsu, Gray, and Erza are already very powerful and thus Erza is able to wipe the floor of countless opponents while Gray and Natsu easily finish off their opponents.”
Yep. While they aren’t on the top of the heap, Natsu and Gray are pretty high up there, and Erza’s much higher up still. So the story skips most of the “encounter someone 100x strong, train to become strong than them” cliches. What “training” there is consists of the garden variety missions taken off screen between arcs that don’t feed directly into each other, and of course the difficulties encountered in the arcs themselves.
“The only character that I think needs training is Lucy. Good grief, she seems mostly worthless. I like Lucy as a character but in combat, she mostly is on the sideline because if she can’t summon a celestial spirit, she can’t do anything.”
Three things to keep in mind about Lucy. First she’s a summoner, so that’s largely how she fights. She summons things, and they do the heavy fighting. The summons in Fairy Tail are just a bit more modest than the summons in say Final Fantasy. Second, she’s only been making a living as a guild wizard for a couple weeks or so at this point. The rest of the group has been doing it for years. Third, the other three are so much stronger than her, that even when she improves they will continue to outshine her.
“On the other hand, Happy not giving Lucy the key back when they were at the guild in volume 2 makes me suspect that this transfer of ownership was a later thought by Mashima-sensei. After all in volume 2, Happy talks about Lucy’s celestial spirits and one would have thought that this would have reminded him. Instead, we get Happy trying to remember something he had to say to Lucy in volume 3 but not remembering until they need to dig out.”
Entirely possible. Mashima’s story telling is a mix of making things up on the fly, ploting things out in advance, and the occasional going back and looking over his notes for things to flesh out, or make use of. It has it’s flaws but it’s worked out pretty well for him.