フェアリーテイル
Fairy Tail Manga Volume 05 Review

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SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Lucy has Virgo dig a pit and cover it to trap Sherry and company but only ends up snaring a still frozen Natsu, who’s ice covering shatters.  Sherry and company arrive on top of the giant rat Angelica, who is flying with her tail.  They dump a corrosive agent over the entire village but Natsu disperses enough of it to spare the villagers at the cost of their village.  Natsu goes after Toby and Yuuka to fight while Lucy grabs hold of the fleeing Angelica and brings the rat down by tickling her.  Natsu doesn’t take long to defeat Yuuka and defeats Toby by outwitting him.

Meanwhile, Sherry is upset at letting down Lyon and Angelica getting hurt. She reveals she is a doll wizard by manipulating a large tree to “come to life” and attack Lucy.  Lucy summons Taurus, who fells the tree.  However, since Sherry’s magic allows her to control anything not human, she quickly takes control of Taurus to have him strip Lucy.  He does this while telling Lucy he isn’t in control and Lucy does something nearly impossible — a forced gate closure which sends Taurus back.  In order to trick Sherry, Lucy summons Plue, who’s immediately controlled but with no attack power, Lucy is safe and thus brings out her whip to use on Sherry.

After Sherry releases Plue, she manipulates rocks and boulders to form a rock beast.  Lucy flees to the beach but then decides to summon Aquarius.  Sherry takes control over Aquarius and orders her to attack Lucy.  Aquarius is irritated and says she was going to do that anyway.  As per normal. Aquarius’s attack not only hits Lucy but takes Sherry as well. Aquarius leaves and a dizzy Lucy is able to overcome a dizzy Sherry before Sherry can recover enough to use her doll magic.

Erza arrives and her first prisoner is Lucy (after saving her from an attack by Angelica), quickly followed by Happy.  Elsewhere, Gray wakes up at the refugee camp, having been rescued and his wounds tended to, and quickly discovers Erza along with Lucy and Happy in a large tent.  Erza has been briefed by Lucy and Happy and isn’t interested in the mission but only in returning the wayward team to Fairy Tail for punishment. Gray will not back down even for Erza and tells her she’ll have to stab him as he’s not leaving until things are taken care of.  Hearing this, Erza changes her mind and frees Lucy and Happy, stating that they’ll complete the mission and then there will be punishment.

As the group heads to the temple ruins, Gray recounts how he and Lyon as children trained under a powerful ice wizard named Ur.  Gray had been found by Ur and Lyon after Deliora destroyed Gray’s village and left him an orphan. While Ur’s training isn’t what Gray expected, he does the work but when word reaches him of a new Deliora attack he angrily leaves Ur and Lyon.  Ur, who’d lost her daughter. goes after him and ends up sacrificing herself to seal Deliora in unmeltable ice.  Lyon was devastated that his hero had been bested by a demon.  However, Ur is still alive as the ice thus if Gray melts it with Moon Drip, then he does in fact kill Ur.

Meanwhile, Natsu has caused damage to the temple ruins so that the are now tilted more than enough to prevent the Moon Drip ceremony from being completed.  Gray confronts Lyon and plans to use Iced Shell to seal Lyon but is stopped by Natsu.  Lyon’s cheeky assistant Zalty is then somehow able to restore the ruins to their proper angle, forcing Natsu to give chase while Gray again squares off against Lyon.  Gray tells Lyon that Ur is still alive, but Ur already knows and simply stabs Gray with a sword.

Thoughts/Review:

An interesting volume to be sure.  ^_^

So, Lucy gets her first real fight and scores a cheap win.  *lol*  Well, I do have to give her credit for thinking on the fly when she summoned Aquarius, knowing Aquarius is an equal opportunity fighter.  Lucy also gets credit for somehow doing the unthinkable and that is to force Taurus back to his universe and without using a key either.  Sherry’s reaction to this strongly suggests this is not something a celestial wizard should be able to do.  Even Aquarius, despite her sarcasm, seemed impressed with what Lucy did before she exited the stage.

Speaking of thinking on the fly, I laughed at Natsu’s resolution to the fight with Toby.  What Natsu did is an old trick, but I didn’t expect Natsu to do it and that’s what made it funny and clever.  I mean, why bother with battling someone when you can get them to take themselves off the playing field?  ^_^

Erza’s arrival was pretty awesome.  She takes out Angelica (is that rat finally dead now?) and then has Lucy understand a tiny bit of why Gray and Natsu obey her.  I laughed when Happy tried to escape but failed.  I liked how Erza didn’t allow Lucy’s pleas to affect her but did allow Gray’s attitude of “kill me then ’cause I ain’t stopping” attitude to change her mind about helping the villagers.  I’m sure Erza respects Gray’s conviction in this matter as he’s willing to die for the cause.

Gray’s backstory is interesting although the stuff with Lyon is a cliche.  That’s why I still can’t get into the whole Gray vs. Lyon fight stuff very much.

On the Del Rey side, I noticed “tidal wave” used incorrectly again.  I don’t know how old Mr. Flanagan is, but I’d be he’s close to my age because he uses “tidal wave” still in this volume and in the translator notes section, his translated title for Uchuu Senkan Yamato is Space Cruiser Yamato.  I know that back in the day, non-Japanese fans used “Space Cruiser Yamato” though why is more of a mystery to me seeing as how the series was based off of the World War II battleship, Yamato. ^_^;;;  Today, the official Japanese title in English is Space Battleship Yamato and apparently has been for some time.  This is more of an observation than a complaint though.  ^_^;

I do have a complaint about the columns in “Explain Mysteries of Fairy Tail” section of the extras.  Gah!  I hate it when publishers of manga in English go through the trouble of publishing manga unflipped so that we read it Japanese style but when the English text comes out, suddenly we have to go Western.   By the time I get to this page, I’ve been reading 186 pages right column then left column and then suddenly I’m supposed to reverse the flow and for a single page, read left column-right column.  That just irritates me to no end but at least it wasn’t a two-page jack-up.  *_*

So, another volume comes to an end.  I’m looking forward to seeing how this one is resolved as I expect the demon to be freed.  So, how they defeat it should be most interesting.