フェアリーテイル Manga
Fairy Tail Volume 45 Review

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***SPOILERS***

Lucy uses forced gate closure to free Aries and Taurus, allowing Natsu to defeat Franmalth. This causes Master Hades spirit to be freed, where he has a message for Master Makarov. Mirajane destroys the regeneration equipment of Tartaros, thereby preventing Franmalth from being reborn. Seilah and Mirajane both power up for a full on physical battle. Mirajane takes a beating and recalls how as a child, she and her siblings were thrown out of their village after one of Mirajane’s arms became demon-like. It is Makarov that explains her demon takeover magic to her, and Elfman and Lisanna also learn take over magic for beasts and animals respectively.

Mirajane defeats Seilah while Kyouka is summoned to the Tartaros leader Mard Geer, where she is subsequently punished. Erza battles Minerva, but when Mard Geer causes the cube to reveal its true shape as the beast Pluto’s Grim, all of Fairy Tail are engulfed, save Lucy. Lucy has a tough battle, first summoning Sagittarius, then releasing him to summon both Leo and Virgo to fight. The two are not enough, so she also summons Aquarius. She can only hold them at bay along with Leo and Virgo, so Aquarius tells Lucy to sacrifice her key in order to be able to summon the Celestial King. Lucy does not want to do this, but has no choice.

The Celestial King destroys Pluto’s Grim, then faces the Underworld King, Maud Geer. As the two battle, the Celestial King grants Lucy the power of Aquarius so she can defeat Jackal. The Celestial King’s time is running out because Lucy is running out of power. As such, he frees the Fairy Tail members and petrifies Maud Geer as well. The Celestial King then leaves as Natsu and other Fairy Tail members save Lucy and prepare to attack.

Wow. There was a lot if interesting things happening here.

Lucy gets two of her Celestial Spirits back, but she loses Aquarius as a result. I have to admit, Mashima-sensei got me here. Even though Aquarius isn’t dead, she’s no longer part of Lucy’s Celestial Spirit team. It was rather emotional in a way that I never expected. I guess part of that is the fact that Aquarius was with Lucy from volume 1 of the manga.

Mashima-sensei has never explained how any of the Celestial keys came to be, but one presumes that a new key will be formed and perhaps Lucy will find it on a new quest.

Then again, if she’s been granted the power of Aquarius, does she really need to be able to summon Aquarius any more, other than for sentimental purposes?

While this was mostly a volume dedicated to Lucy, Mirajane gets a little bit of love. She doesn’t get to really kick bottom, but she does get to look cool when she destroyed the regeneration tubes. Further, we got a look at her past, which apparently Mashima-sensei has wanted to do for a while. Unfortunately, the flashback of her joining Fairy Tail doesn’t quite jive with my memory of Erza joining Fairy Tail. However, I looked back and Mirajane wasn’t in the flashbacks of Erza joining Fairy Tail.

I do remember a scene where Mirajane looks like a punk and she clashes with Erza. So I wonder how she got from this depressed state we’ve seen in this volume to where she was a punk.

Since there’s really not a lot else for me to say about this volume due to the heavy action involved, I’ll shift to something that I did like — the splash page for chapter 382. I just chuckle at the Snow White parody with Lucy being Snow White and some of the other guild members playing dwarf roles.

In the end, there was a lot of action, a nice bit of flashback for Mirajane, and some sad emotions as Aquarius is no longer available to Lucy. Combined it made for a pretty good volume.