フェアリーテイル
Fairy Tail Manga Volume 06 Review

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SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Natsu pursues Zalty but doesn’t take long to discover that he needs to go after those still attempting to melt the ice around Deliora.  Meanwhile, Lyon has stabbed Gray and though seriously injured, manages to defeat Lyon after a protracted battle. Natsu is forced to continue to battle Zalty and learns that Zalty has ancient magic to control time over specific objects.  Despite this, Natsu manages to get a hit on Zalty and send him flying while above, Erza takes out Toby with Lucy and Happy also on the scene.  However, they are too late as Toby has managed to free Deliora.  Gray is preparing to cast Iced Shell to reseal the demon but Natsu stops him, planning to battle the giant monster himself.  To their surprise, the monster starts falling apart as it turns out that Ur’s original spell drained the life from Deliora.  All they saw were its remaining moments.

Natsu and Happy are excited that the beast is dead with Lucy and Gray relieved.  That changes when they see Erza’s stern look and reminder that they still have not completed the S-class quest.  After learning more information from Lyon that reveals his group did nothing to turn the villagers into demons, Erza and company return to find the village restored to the way it was.  Erza gets more information from the villagers and comes up with a plan.  She tells a very excited Natsu that they are going to destroy the moon by combining the power of her Haja no Yari lance and Natsu’s raw physical power. Hurling the lance at the moon, instead of shattering the moon, they shatter a dome that had formed over the island.  Now that the moon is no longer purple from the dome, it is revealed that the islanders were never human but were always demon.  However, they’d just forgotten.

Erza and company return to Fairy Tail, having taken only a Celestial gold key as payment.  Natsu had been worried about punishment until they see their guild building has been heavily damaged and the members forced to go to the basement.  Master Makarov is seemingly undisturbed by this unprovoked attack by the Phantom Lord wizard guild and even has fun spanking Lucy.  However, that changes with Fairy Tail wizards Levy, Jet, and Droy are found the next day brutally beaten and nailed to a tree with bands.  Lucy stays with the wounded, remembering her growing friendship with Levy because of their mutual love of books, while most of the rest of the members of Fairy Tail storm the Phantom Lord guild building.  As they do so, Lucy is captured by two S-class wizards from Phantom Lord, part of an S-class foursome there known as Element 4.

Thoughts/Review:

Heh!  Mashima-sensei doesn’t bother with worrying about how the stories fill a tankoubon, unlike others such as Akamatsu-sensei.  This is not a problem, mind you, but simply an observation as Mashima-sensei takes us right from the conclusion of the Deliora story into this guild war with Phantom Lord.

Going to the conclusion of the Cursed Island arc, I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Deliora was already dead and apparently simply going through the last echos of life after it was defrosted.  How delightfully twisted is that?  Mashima-sensei had been setting up a huge battle from the moment he revealed Deliora and then just said, “Oh yeah, its already dead.”  *lol*  Awesome.  ^_^

The other nice twist was having the village actually be filled with demons rather than humans who thought they were being turned into demons.  Having a crystal shell dome hanging over the island came off as rather weak to me because it seems like this would have been something seen in more ways than just the moon changing color.  However, that can be forgiven simply because of how excited and eager Natsu was at the prospect of destroying the moon with Erza.  *lol*

Speaking of Erza, I laughed at how she fell into Lucy’s pit and still didn’t miss a beat.  Further, I loved how Natsu and Gray were not at all thrilled at the prospect of bathing with Erza at Lucy’s house.  One can only imagine the experiences they went through as kids to overcome normal, teen male urges at the thought of bathing with an attractive battle maiden.  *lol*

Ultear turned out to be another twist.  She is a very powerful mage to be able to not only shape shift, but also to control time at very specific places and levels.  This kind of time manipulation is something I’ve seen only once before (that I can think of) and that happened with technology in the British comedy/sci-fi series Red Dwarf (actually, it happened in two episodes).  I thought of Red Dwarf because of how Natsu’s punch on Ultear, as Zalty, finally caught up with her when she spoke with Siegrain.  I wonder what he’s up to.

Speaking of wondering, I wonder if Lyon and his companions will join a guild or form one themselves.

Its too early to say much on the guild war, but I don’t think it is that difficult to say that Natsu and Gajeel will be fighting at some point.  They are, after all, both dragon slayers.  Of course, Mashima-sensei could do another Deliora on us.  *lol*

Lucy again shows how weak she is and Mashima-sensei makes sure to make her weaker still by again separating her from her keys.  Interesting that the Phantom Lords send two of their S-class wizards to grab Lucy rather than hang around to defend the fort against potential counterattacks by Fairy Tail.  With Sol spouting French, I am reminded of an old argument of mine for retaining Japanese honorifics and certain Japanese terms in translation/adaptations.  At least here, the French is not made up for the adaptation but is a transliteration of what was said in the Japanese.  That’s the way it should be, right down to the French honorific used.  ^_^

Since Mashima-sensei took me right into the next story with a cliff hanger, I’d better start reading volume 7.  ^_^