フェアリーテイル
Fairy Tail Manga Volume 04 Review

–> PURCHASE FROM RAKUTEN.COM (formerly BUY.COM)
–> PURCHASE FROM BARNES & NOBLE
–> PURCHASE FROM RIGHTSTUF!

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The mood is down at Fairy Tail as Erza is put on trial, the Council members using thought projection rather than attend in person.  Natsu bursts in to “help” by disguising himself as Erza but that ends up getting them both thrown in prison rather than continue with the show trial where Erza would have been released. After being freed, Natsu again challenges Erza, who knocks him out in one blow.  Mystogan arrives at the guild and his sleep spell puts all to sleep save Master. After taking a job and leaving, everyone wakes up.  When Laxus chastises everyone from his second floor table, Natsu challenges him but is prevented by the Master from going upstairs. Mira explains to Lucy that only S-Class wizards are allowed on the second floor, which contains S-Class jobs.  Erza, Mystogan, and Laxus are all S-Class wizards.

Natsu decides to do an S-Class mission and has Happy steal the cheapest mission they can find. They convince Lucy to join after she discovers one of the rewards is a gold key for one of the celestial spirits.  Mira discovers the S-Class mission to the cursed Galuna Island, also known as the Demon Isle, is missing and reports it to Master Makarov.  When Laxus mentions having spotted a “cat burglar” stealing the mission, Mira gets angry and Makarov orders Laxus to bring them back. Laxus refuses but Gray decides to take on the task of bringing them back.  However, once Gray finds them, Natsu knocks him out and takes him with them on the boat ride to the island.

After the boat owner reveals he is from the island and is cursed with a demon arm, the man disappears and the boat is taken ashore by a giant wave.  Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Happy make their way to the walled village and learn about the curse, which apparently turns the moon purple and leaves the villagers with demon limbs.  However, for certain periods of time, the villagers all turn into full demons.  Occasionally, one of the villagers doesn’t return to human form and is slain, which happened to the village chief’s son, who also happened to be the boat owner.  The villagers want their wizard guests to destroy the moon.

After a sleepless night for Lucy, she takes the others out to do some investigating.  In the jungle, a rat taller than the trees and dressed with a maid hat and a lingerie top attacks them and sends them running with its foul breath. Gray takes it down by icing the ground, after which he and Natsu beat it.  Lucy leads them to some ruins where Natsu quickly causes the floor to collapse. At the bottom of the fall, Gray is horrified to see the giant demon Deliora, still sealed in ice.  They hide when three people arrive and the girl Sherry laments the beating that “Angelica” (the giant rat) took from intruders.  After those three leave to find the intruders, Gray states they should wait and while they wait, Lucy summons Lyra, who in addition to song, provides information about Moon Drip, which apparently this group of humans are using to attempt to melt Deliora’s ice encasement.

When Gray discovers the leader is none other than his old childhood companion Lyon, Gray attacks.  Lyon sends Sherry and her two companions to take out the village. Happy gets Lucy to safety while Natsu takes an ice attack from Lyon.  Gray gets Natsu clear as he’s now mostly encased in ice and battles his old training comrade. Apparently, Lyon is angry with Gray for causing the death of their Wizard teacher, Ur.  Lyon defeats Gray, causing the still encased Natsu to have to flee with him.  Meanwhile, Lucy arrives at the village with a plan to deal with their enemies.

Thoughts/Review:

Man, I really have to work harder on making the summaries shorter. ^_^;

Apparently, Siegrain and Erza have some sort of past together based on his remarks to her.  It can’t be too good based on her reaction to him but it should be fun learning about that whenever Mashima-sensei gives us the goods. Also, Siegrain has an interest in Natsu apparently.

I wonder what Mystogan’s deal is that he feels the need to not only keep himself completely hidden but also put his fellow guild mates to sleep whenever he drops in for a job.   I say “he” but for all I know, it is a chick or something else.  ^_^;

And speaking of “what is their deal,” what’s up with Laxus?  He’s pretty much a bastard and certainly isn’t a team player.  Of course, if he is as good as he claims (and he has to be pretty good to be an S-Class wizard), then I guess he doesn’t need to be a team player just as Mystogan isn’t.  Difference is that Laxus just likes to be a punk, so much so that he even made the normally cheerful Mirajane get angry.

Wait! If only S-Class people (and above since I’m assuming Makarov is above that level) are allowed to the second floor, is Mirajane going up there simply an exception to the rule since she seems to be the guild barmaid and handler of things when Makarov is away?  After all, Mirajane is still a wizard, even if retired at such a young age and so it seems to me that if Makarov literally smashes Natsu to prevent him from going up to the second floor to challenge Laxus, then the rules are very, very strict (though why you’d make a segregated place for S-Class mages is beyond me, even though Erza doesn’t hang out up there and Mystogan didn’t go up there either) though I suppose someone Makarov trusts needs to handle the request board up there.

Again, I love Mashima-sensei’s twisted sense of humor.  What I found the most humorous was Lucy dragging Gray, Natsu, and Happy out to the jungle early in the morning to do some investigation, then deciding that things might be a bit to dangerous and thus she summons Horologium to hide in. That was humorous, but Happy’s initial appearance of irritation at Lucy for hiding like that then shifted to, “say, mind if I get in there too” and I have to say that made me laugh out loud. That said, the pièce de résistance was the gigantor rat Angelica, how it was dressed, and its bad breath that knocked out Horologium.  *lol*  Didn’t expect that and that’s what made it so funny to me.  Sherry coming along later and calling Angelica “love” and denying Angelica is a rat was like an after dinner mint.  ^_^

Lyra shows the weakness of the celestial wizards.  If Lucy can only summon Lyra three times a month, then she has to be pretty careful to only summon her sparingly.  I’m not sure why Lyra would lightheartedly complain about not being summoned much nor why she would claim not to remember the terms of the contract she signed with Lucy.  As to her lore knowledge, initially I didn’t care for Lyra being the vehicle to provide the exposition about the Moon Drip magic and how it could revive Deliora by removing the unmeltable ice. Then I recalled that bards are supposed to be filled with lore and Lyra could be considered a kind of bard, I suppose.  So its all good.

The conflict between Lyon and Gray seems a cliche to me.  As such, I’m not finding their fight of much interest but I do hope to see more about Gray’s past.

Erza’s imminent arrival on the island should make up for the lack of interest I have in Lyon vs. Gray. *lol*  That should be most interesting and fun to say the least.  ^_^

While on the subject of Erza, the way she knocked out Natsu in a single blow kinda surprised me.  I guess Mashima-sensei didn’t want to do an extended fight between two guild mates.  He did establish further why Erza is a force to be feared.  ^_^

On the Del Rey side, I only had one issue — the term “tidal wave” was incorrectly used again.  🙁  I’m going to guess that no one really complained about this but me when this volume initially came to the U.S. market. I know it is probably a small thing, but if the term “tsunami” was in the Japanese, “tsunami” should have been untranslated because what the group experienced is a tsunami, not a tidal wave.

Other than that, no complaints.  I did like the extras with learning more about the celestial spirits and further learning of just how weak a celestial wizard is since they can’t summon a celestial spirit except on days/times specified by contract.  That’s weaker than weak.

Well, onto volume 5!