フェアリーテイル Manga
Fairy Tail Volume 37 Review

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***SPOILERS***

Highlights from this volume begin with the rescue team with Yukino overcoming the Hungry Wolf Knights before encountering Lucy from a few days in the future. She has a dire warning about an attack of ten thousand dragons that is coming.  Princess Hisui explains her actions and the real Eclipse plan to Defense Minister Darton.

In the tournament, Erza unexpectedly encounters Kagura, which was not something Mavis had expected. As they battle, Minerva joins to battle them both. Despite her great power, Minerva finds she cannot overcome the pair of them, so she produces the captured Millianna. The enraged Kagura goes after Minerva, but Minerva uses magic to switch places with Erza so that Kagura and Erza battle. Erza ends up defeating Kagura, so Minerva puts a sword through her. She frees Millianna, but reveals how much she abused her, enraging Erza.

Gajeel encounters Rogue and has a chat with him, but in the end, Rogue’s shadow wants him to kill Gajeel.

So, I was totally wrong about who came to the past. Mashima-sensei pulled a fast one by showing Levy writing to Lucy from the past, but she had Lucy be the one come back to the past. So now there are two Lucy’s in the present. I’m interested to see how Mashima-sensei deals with this paradox.

As to the news that future Lucy brought, I guess it is time for the dragon slayers to shine if 10,000 dragons are coming. Of course, the whole purpose for future Lucy to come to the present is to change the future, so who knows if there will actually be a dragon attack. Well, there almost has to be one since there are a lot of dragon slayers around and missing dragons was one of the elements that got this manga started.

I was surprised that Mashima-sensei ended the fight with Hungry Wolf Knights so quickly, but I didn’t mind to be honest.

Regarding the three way battle between Minerva, Kagura, and Erza, I certainly can understand why Mashima-sensei had three battle babes doing their thing. I did cringe at the retcon whereupon Erza knew and remembered Kagura from their slavery childhood.  It is not atypical of Mashima-sensei to do such retconning, so I just will roll with it and move on.

Mashima-sensei has also set up Minerva quite well as someone the readers will want to hate. That way when Erza inevitably kicks her arse, everyone is even happier about it.

Finally, we got something weird going on with Rogue. Is his shadow something weird for sure. Is this the result of his shadow dragon magic combined with despair? I guess we’ll find out.

On the Kodansha Comics side of things, it seems pretty much the usual extras and such. I can’t tell if the honorifics are fully back or not, but Yukino did use “-sama” and one of the translator notes mentions her usage of “-sama” in regards to her using the term “castle-sama.”

Overall, a rather interesting volume. I’m looking forward to seeing how Erza defeats Minerva, how this shadow thing affects Rogue, and how everything turns out in general.