Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest 03
フェアリーテイル 100年クエスト

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Skullion forces Kiria and Madmole to retreat, sensing that Mercphobia is not the real Water Dragon god (Suijin). Mercphobia’s lack of hostility puzzled Natsu and company. Elefseria’s attempts to assassinate him over the years amuses him. However, Mercphobia tells them that his power caused Ermina to be flooded at high tide. He used his magic to cause the humans to turn into fish to keep them alive. But soon, Mercphobia’s power will cause further destruction.

Suijin recounts that originally, he was an evil dragon who ate humans. But one day, he saved a human child named Karameel. The act caused Mercphobia’s change. So while Mercphobia wants Natsu’s party to kill him, he needs to get his dragon god powers back. Someone he knows as the White Mage stole these powers. Skullion, Kiria, and Madmole ash-teleport in after this information gets revealed.

Skullion battles Gray and is surprised by Gray’s demon magic. However, he easily defeats Gray. Natsu battles Madmole, but despite defeating Acnologia, Natsu quickly loses to Madmole. Erza battles Kiria. After a short time, Kiria uses magic that causes Erza to become timid and shy, defeating her. At the same time, Kiria easily defeats Lucy, Wendy, Happy, and Carla.

Back at Fairy Tail, Gajeel’s obsession over Touka causes a strain in his relationship with Levy. Elsewhere, Jellal pays a visit to Blue Pegasus. However, no one in the guild has seen or heard of Touka. He then visits Mermaid Heel. There, Kagura tells Jellal that she saw Touka at Fairy Tail. As such, Jellal goes to Magnolia and confronts Touka, the White Mage.

Thoughts/Review:

On one hand, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest 03 did something that surprised me. On the other, the episode did exactly what I expected, and it is BORING!

Power Creep

The problem with a battle, shounen series is power creep. So in the OG Fairy Tail, the “big dogs” of the guild became quite powerful. In fact, Natsu defeated the most powerful entity on the continent. And yet in Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest 03, in order for there to be a challenge, Natsu’s party get humiliated by some bozos. That means that in terms of power, Diabolos have to be more powerful than Acnologia. After all, the Diabolos team didn’t even break a sweat to defeat the Fairy Tail members.

Lucy, Wendy, Happy, and Carla aren’t even a factor in the fight against Kiria. Madmole doesn’t even get scratched fighting Natsu. Erza holds her own against Kiria, but she needed to be humiliated, so Kiria gets a convenient power to change Erza’s personality to weak, timid, and cringe. What the smeg does that power have to do with Blade Dragon magic?

Then there’s Gray’s fight against the Diabolos boss, Skullion. At least the writers (and assuming this is from the manga, that’s Mashima-sensei) gave Skullion a moment’s pause, thanks to Gray’s demon magic. But it was only a moment and Gray’s down. And thus thanks to the magic of power creep, the fearsome Acnologia becomes a chump of sorts.

Based on how things went in the OG Fairy Tail, I predict that Mercphobia will revive Team Natsu. After that, Team Natsu will get serious and defeat Diabolos. And then, despite how nice Mercphobia is now, I suspect it will be a massive battle once he gets his powers back. That said, Mercphobia being good was a twist I didn’t expect.

Cameo Party Continues

As expected, the cameo party continues in Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest 03. Jellal’s journey chasing Touka is just an excuse to bring in the 50-billion characters that were in Fairy Tail. As I said when reviewing the Fairy Tail manga, I don’t mind redemption stories for characters. The problem becomes when suddenly, everyone who was an enemy is now an ally. So they join the existing allies. And for some reason, Mashima-sensei liked bringing everyone back from the dead, even though there are too many characters to do that.

Putting that aside, the fact that the “White Mage” is Touka sure is a plot contrivance. I figured that Touka somehow tied in with Team Natsu’s quest. I just didn’t know how until this episode. Nevertheless, there are two outcomes for Jellal confronting Touka. First is that she denies everything, and Jellal can’t prove jack. Second is that she easily defeats Jellal in combat, then goes back to Fairy Tail as if nothing happened. I predict option 2, but we’ll see.

Regardless, while I get the purpose of the cameos, they really are a distraction from the actual story. It is just a bunch of fan service that wastes a lot of screen time.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, I found Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest 03 to be fairly tedious and even cringe at times. Thanks to power creep, the VERY POWERFUL members of Team Natsu are easily humiliated and made to look like pathetic, weak chumps.