FAIRY TAIL ZERØ ch 05 review
フェアリーテイル ゼロ 05
Fairy Tail Zero chapter 05

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

On their way to Magnolia, Mavis, Zeira, Yury, Precht and Warrod make camp with three day’s journey still ahead of them. With Mavis guarding the camp, the others go to gather provisions. The guys regale Mavis with tales of their treasure hunting adventures. During the chat, the discussion of the Tenrou Jade comes up, leading Warrod to tell Mavis that she shouldn’t be so trusting. She responds that she can trust them because she’s looked them in the eyes.

Mavis realizes Zeria isn’t around and goes to find her as Warrod suggests to Yury and Precht that he’s lost interest in the Tenrou Jade and that they should just give it to Mavis, something Yury rejects. Meanwhile, Mavis chats with Zeria, who confesses that had Mavis not been with her years ago, she would have died. As such, she vowed to protect Mavis, but now that they’ve left the island, she finds herself afraid. Mavis assures her that as long as Zeria is by her side, that’s all that matters since they are best friends.

As such, Zeria wants Mavis to teach her magic and wants to be trained immediately. She falls into a pool of water, so she decides to go ahead and bathe, inviting Mavis in with her.

Arriving in Magnolia, the group makes the terrible discovery that a bone dragon is attacking the Kardia Cathedral, something Mavis identifies as as Blue Skull’s Dragon.

Thoughts/Review:

Mashima-sensei has to be trolling fans with this Zeria business — is she alive? Is she a ghost? Is she an illusion? Can  Yury, Precht and Warrod actually see her or are they playing along with the “strange little girl” that they’ve taken a liking to?

This chapter has her saying that she wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Mavis, yet nearly everything else about the chapter when it comes to the others dealing with Zeria doesn’t ring quite true. At one point, Yury again calls out to Mavis as if to say,  “Who the heck is this Zeria you keep talking about,” but in all the chapters, he’s yet to actually ask anything.

I personally think that Zeria is dead and is a ghost, using whatever magic Mavis uses in the current Fairy Tail manga to be seen by members of the guild. While there are things that can be used as evidence against this, I think those are merely to muddy the waters and that at the end of this initial arc, Zeria will do something to keep her promise to protect Mavis, but which will remove her from the story.

Speaking of Mavis and Zeria, Mashima-sensei surprised the heck out of me by servicing both girls heavily in this chapter. He made sure to emphasize the “budding young women” aspect of their bodies in doing so. ^_^;

Finally, there’s the surprising bone dragon at the end of the chapter. I’m most curious to see where Mashima-sensei goes with that.

So, a chapter of surprises, but still interesting. I could have done without the loli ecchi time, but oh well.