May 14th, 2025 
AstroNerdBoy Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest Chapter 126 Manga Review
フェアリーテイル 100年クエスト
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Team Natsu, Jellal, and members of Sabertooth take a ship back to the continent of Guiltina. They discuss the situation of Athena until they reach the town of Firan. They pick an inn as their base of operations, then head into the city in tiny groups. Sai from Gold Owl spots Gray with Wendy and the cats, which angers him.
Erza and Jellal walk and talk, where Erza brings up him joining Fairy Tail. They run into an old man with a camera, who wants to take a photo of them on their date. They agree, but it is a trap. Elsewhere, Lucy and Happy encounter an old woman, who claims to sell information. As such, Lucy decides to ask about Athena.
Still elsewhere, Natsu gets ambushed by two mean, whom he easily defeats. A menacing large man named Iwashita from Gagarock Mining Guild shows up.
Thoughts/Review:
A good portion of Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest Chapter 126 is dedicated to recap on the Athena situation. Now we know why Sabertooth came back — it wasn’t to just do a cameo, but to be featured in this new story arc. I’m okay with that. Plus, Sabertooth would be unknown to Gold Owl and might be a deus ex machina element.
I suppose the reason that the Jellal and Erza, Gray and Wendy, and Natsu got targeted is because Sai saw Gray with Wendy. Although the chapter doesn’t show this, it is the only explanation as to why anyone would know Fairy Tail members are in Gold Owl’s town.
So, were the old lady and old man part of Gold Owl or some other guild? Natsu got attacked by folks from a miner’s guild. That begs the question of how much time passed from the time Sai saw Gray until the attacks started. The only way another guild would get involved is via a quest request for a reward.
Finally, we get a touch on the never progressing Jellal x Erza relationship. Erza can’t mutter about Jellal not noticing her in “that” way while at the same time, acting like a kid when asked if she’s in a relationship with Jellal.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest Chapter 126 starts setting up the new conflict. It isn’t quite jazzing me at the moment.
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We spoke in previous chapters about Grey and Juvia’s rather stagnant relationship. At least Grey’s insecurity seems to be the main barrier here. I don’t like it but I understand it.
Erza and Jellal is something I’ve never bought into. Granted maybe more happens between them after I stopped reading. I know it’s a consistent thing… But Jellal has never once interested me as a character (not helped by the fact he seemingly showed up everywhere early in in FT as at least 3 different people). He just seemed to exist as a character that the author liked and then shoehorned him into being Erza’s love interest. That’s a rather cynical way of looking at it, and admittedly it’s been a very long time since I read the series so my memories might be murky.
But to me Erza never really needed a love interest. Natsu/Lucy and Grey/Juvia I can at least see even if I don’t particularly like any of the characters involved. Erza early on always seemed so strong and independent and now she turns into a gibbering mess whenever Jellal shows up. Not saying that there’s anything really wrong with that, but it doesn’t seem to fit her character all that well.
I will admit a lot of this rant is because Erza is one of the few characters I actually like from the series despite the author trying his damnedest to ensure I don’t like her. Maybe Jellal is this super deep character that I just don’t understand but he always annoyed me when I was reading the series. In fact I have a particular image saved from those days with the cast of Fairy Tail showing up with Jellal’s (then called Gerard by the English speaking crowd since FT always has weird names) face superimposed over every character as a nod to how he just seemed to be everyone and everywhere.
I decided to read the chapter myself just to see… Yeah, standard “She’s not my girlfriend” fare along with “I’m not a good person blah blah blah”. I feel like this was going on even back when I stopped reading the series so long ago. Jellal is just such a… nothing character in my eyes. It’s actually a bit frustrating to see Erza simultaneously deny that she and Jellal are a couple while bemoaning the fact that he won’t look at her as a woman. Basically what you pointed out. Those two things seem very contradictory. I get that the author is extremely timid about progressing relationships involving central characters, but this behaviour is just bad writing. The two don’t seem to have much chemistry outside of the mutual denial of being in a relationship.
Again, there’s probably more going on that I haven’t seen but hoo boy. 600+ chapters and they’re still doing this same ol’ thing.