フェアリーテイル Manga
Fairy Tail Volume 39 Review

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***SPOILERS***

Eclipse door opens and numerous dragons begin coming through. Lucy is unable to close the door, but with Yukino’s help, their combined Celestial magic does close the door, but not before seven dragons make it through. The various dragon slayers engage in combat as Natsu battles Future-Rogue. Even the imprisoned Cobra is released in order to help battle the dragons. Complicating matters are a number of humanoid-sized dragon warriors, whom the other mages engage in battle.

Natsu comes up with a plan and goes after Atlas, the Dragon of Fire. Upon consuming the fire dragon’s flames, Atlas senses the Fire Dragon King, Igneel. Upon learning that Natsu was raised by Igneel, Atlas switches sides and helps Natsu go against Future-Rogue.

Elsewhere, Ultear reveals to Millianna that she was the one behind the corruption of Jellal. Ultear begins to think that she can never repay her crimes. Things go bad for the mages and several die at the same time, so Ultear uses her Arc of Time Last Ages power to reset time, but at a great cost to herself. She’s only able to set time back a minute, something she laments. However, the mages that had been struck with killing blows are able to dodge death and try to help turn the tide of battle.

So now, we get to see dragon slayers vs. dragons.  Although I doubt that Mashima-sensei had this in mind when he first created the series, this is the fulfillment of that initial premise when he introduced Natsu as a dragon slayer.

Natsu consuming Atlas’s flame is not an unexpected move for him. Having Atlas work with him because of Igneel is also not unexpected. Still, it is fun to see.

While there was the usual shounen action stuff, the real interesting stuff for me was Ultear. I liked seeing more of her as a young teen.  I was surprised that Mashima-sensei has apparently killed her.  Granted, she could still be alive, but the implication of Ultear resetting time was that she paid for it with her life. It was not only in Ultear’s words, but her resolving things for Millianna and Kagura regarding their past and Jellal. We’ll see what happens though.

I was amused that Mashima-sensei took the usual shounen manga/anime trope of a guy groping a girl’s chest in an unusual direction. Natsu’s putting his hands on Lucy’s chest to cover her up was one thing, but him accusing her of being a pervert is what made me laugh.

On the Kodansha Comics side of things, I’m not certain about Natsu calling Atlas “mister.” I think the original Japanese term is “ojisan”, which can be mister or uncle. Considering Natsu considers Igneel his dad, to me, it would seem that based on how Atlas shifted allegiances, Natsu would call Atlas “uncle.” Personally, I’d been fine with “ojisan” (or whatever the original term was), but that’s just me.

I think the Japanese honorifics are retained otherwise other than the dropping of brother-sister honorifics. Yukino properly uses the “sama” honorific when addressing others, which is good.

There aren’t as many extras this chapter, but I think there weren’t as many in the original Japanese tankoubon. As such, there are notes from Mashima-sensei and a couple of extra art pieces, followed by a preview for the next volume.

In the end, the volume was highly entertaining, filled with action, fun, and interest.