フェアリーテイル
Fairy Tail Volume 26 Review

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Highlights from this volume begins with the invasion of Tenrou Island by Grimoire Heart as Master Markov discovers the Master of Grimoire Heart is the previous Master of Fairy Tail, Precht, now known as Hades, who subsequently defeats Markov. One of the Seven Kin of Purgatory, Azuma, quickly defeats Panther Lilly and Wendy. Natsu battles Zancrow, and manages to defeat him with a bit of aid from the seriously injured Markov.  Azuma encounters Mirajane and Lisanna, where he imprisons Lisanna with an explosive device and forces Mirajane to use her Satan Soul to battle him despite her weakened condition. Mirajane is unable to defeat Azuma and sacrifices herself to save Lisanna.

Elfman and Evergreen battle Rustyrose, where they learn the purpose of Grimoire Heart’s invasion – the capture of Zeref and the creation of a new world for mages only. Rustyrose subsequently defeats Elfman and Evergreen. Ultear finds Zeref, who’s wrath causes her great fear, but she’s able to overcome her fears and as one of the Seven Kin of Purgatory, she defeats and captures Zeref. Natsu, having been healed by Wendy, discovers the scent of the guy he fought on Galuna Island and sets out to find him.

One thing I rather like about Mashima-sensei’s work here is how he deals with fights. He knows that folks want to see the clichéd, shounen battles. Heck, I want to see these fights too. But, there’s a fine line between a battle that just drags on too long and a battle that doesn’t get the job done.  For this volume, I felt that Mashima-sensei got things right. The various battles allowed us to see the fights we wanted, including Mirajane doing her thing. It is unfortunate, but not unexpected, that only Natsu won his fight.  Frankly, I would have loved to have seen Mirajane go nutso on Azuma and nearly kill him, but her sacrifice is more poignant I suppose.

In this same vein, we didn’t get to see how Ultear defeated Zeref, whom I guess is going to be the real Zeref for now since it is mentioned that he is “sleeping” (meaning his true self and power are dormant). Seeing Ultear overcome her fears would have been nice, but the way Mashima-sensei does things, it works out well.

It is always a laugh to me on how Markov is always taken down so easily at the beginning of these massive battles. I know that’s done to keep an overpowered fighter out of things, allowing the guild to do the heavy lifting. Not that Natsu and Erza aren’t overpowered, but they always are set up to overcome great odds and dig deep while Markov isn’t set up that way.

Speaking of overpowered, I guess I now know why Mashima-sensei had Gildarts, Freed, and Bickslow take a boat home.  I couldn’t understand why those three would leave, especially Gildarts. After all, this arc got started as an S-Class trial to possibly promote one of the selected Fairy Tail wizards to that lofty rank.  So why wouldn’t they want to stick around to see the results?  Since Gildarts has been billed as massively OP (and we saw a bit of that when he defeated Natsu in the previous volume), we can’t have him going around and kicking Grimoire Heart arse now can we?

Laxus got a brief cameo when Markov was defeated. I wonder if that means that he’ll somehow be showing up on the island to help. That would be a typical Mashima-sensei maneuver.

I like how Elfman and Evergreen continue to get close and work well as a team. I’d like to see them as a couple. ^_^

On the Kodansha Comics side of things, the usual stuff is here — Japanese honorific usage, translator notes, a preview, and other extras. I like that translator William Flanagan took the time to explain why he had Ultear address Zeref as “Lord Zeref” since she was using a non-standard honorific, “-kyou”. I wish Kodansha Comics could have licensed the extras from the special (DVD) edition of the manga, but oh well.

I’m glad Kodansha Comics is pushing to get catch up with the Japanese releases by publishing a new volume every month. Because of that, when I finally am able to score manga purchases, I end up with a few volumes of new goodness to read.  As such, onto the next volume! ^_^