フェアリーテイル Manga
Fairy Tail Volume 40 Review

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***SPOILERS***

Lucy finds information that destroying Eclipse will cause Future Rogue and the dragons to disappear and return to their own time. However, it takes Natsu battling Future Rogue to destroy the gate by accident. Mavis notes that not one dragon slayer was able to slay a dragon. There’s a fancy party thrown for all the mages, where Natsu finally shows up, wearing the king’s crown. Doranbalt has a conversation with Jellal, where he reveals he’s rewritten the Council’s memories to protect the royal family since Eclipse was actually part of Zeref’s magics. Jellal and Merudy don’t know where Ultear is when an old woman approaches them and delivers a message from Ultear. Fairy Tail takes a coach home when they pass the old woman, whom Gray appears to recognize as Ultear.

Fairy Tail returns to Magnolia to the warm welcome of the town and the rest of the guild.  The returning members are shown that their guild building has been rebuilt. Elsewhere, Mavis meets with Zeref, though he can’t actually see her, he knows she’s there. Raven makes her peace with Fairy Tail and Lucy discovers her apartment has visitors again, this time Erza, Wendy, and Carla. Erza’s a bit concerned about Natsu and Gray being delayed on their job, so the trio sets out to find them. When they do, they find Natsu and Gray have been fighting, and they both nail Erza accidentally and pay the price.

One of the Wizard Saints, Warrod Sequen, puts in a request to Fairy Tail for Gray and Natsu, so Makarov sends Erza, Lucy, Gray, Natsu, Wendy, Happy, and Carla. The retired Warrod has been attempting to reclaim the desert with his green magic.  He reports that the Village of the Sun has been frozen over, including the Eternal Flame. The team takes the job and he sends them there via a tree that grows the entire distance. The village is filled with giants, all of whom are frozen. The Fairy Tail team encounter three members of a treasure hunting guild while all of this is observed by Minerva and one other from Succubus Eye guild. Erza does some investigation and suddenly finds herself turned into a child.

So, when all is said and done, the big red reset button is pressed by destroying Eclipse. The dragons disappear as if they’d never come through, but everyone is still damaged as if they had. I guess what we are going with is that there are multiple universes based on timelines.

I do note with some interest (as did Mavis in the story) that none of the dragon slayers were able to slay one dragon. I guess that gives Mashima-sensei an opening to have his dragon slayers do that in the future, if he should so desire.

Speaking of Mavis, she was pretty humorous in her being at the party but not being able to eat. Yeah, you feel sorry for her, but it was still amusing.

On a more serious front, it is interesting that she knows Zeref. It is also interesting that though Zeref couldn’t see her, he was aware of her presence.

It was also nice getting to see Mavis back when Fairy Tail was first formed during Warrod’s flashback to when he was in Fairy Tail.

While on the subject of Warrod, I’m rather disappointed with the nerfing of the Wizard Saint rankings. Up until now, Wizard Saints were supposedly the most powerful of the most powerful. While Warrod has impressive magic, as seen by how he transported the Fairy Tail team to the Village of the Eternal Sun, his introduction establishes that Wizard Saints aren’t necessarily powerful warriors.

I was stunned to see that Ultear was apparently turned into an old woman as the result of her spell. Mashima-sensei likes to redeem villain characters, and this appears to be her ultimate redemption, based on the symbolism in the artwork. Well, if the formerly deceased Jellal can be brought back to life, then Ultear could be restored to youth down the road if Mashima-sensei so desires.

I’m not sure why Mashima-sensei suddenly decided to have Gray and Natsu bicker with each other again, followed by roping Erza in when the two accidentally punched her. I’m guessing he thought it would be funny, but for some reason, it just fell flat with me. It was a “been there, done that” kind of moment, even if the look on Erza’s face after they bloodied her nose was somewhat amusing. I think this is because the characters had seemed to move on from that petty bickering, so returning to it for no apparent reason just felt out of place.

Finally, as to the new mission, I really have no feel for it. I’m not surprised to see Minerva show up to get some payback on Fairy Tail.

On the Kodansha Comics side of things, it is the usual. The Japanese honorifics appear to be back in place, save for any brother/sister honorifics. The standard extras are all here as well as a couple of pages of translator notes, which is always welcome.

And so things move quickly along from one story arc into the next with very little downtime between stories. Basically, this volume is filled with a big mix of massive action, humor, big breasted fanservice, and even a bit of poignancy over Ultear.