Opinions (B-):

So… Where to begin with this one? I’m not really sure. Fairy Tail’s Final Season’s last few episodes, have been… Trying, to say the least. It hasn’t been easy, seeing something I’ve loved, adored and talked about at length over the years fall so hard and so fast just as it was wrapping up it’s story.

I suppose I should start by talking about why I haven’t posted about this show in 3 weeks now. The honest reason here is that I just, didn’t feel like it. I actually did watch the last two episodes about a week ago, and even did a review on them each as I saw them, but what I saw… Well… It really didn’t sit well with me.

It wasn’t just that episode 33 was bad, but more so that it immediatly followed after episode 32, which really did feel like the Fairy Tail of old. If there was ever an indication that Fairy Tail’s Final Season wasn’t ever really going to fix itself, then well, these past two episodes were definitely it.

And after realizing that, I really hit a tough spot in terms of this series. This went beyond the general conundrum of “should I drop this show now? At this point?” and more or less spiraled into just clear overwhelming confusion. I’m not sure what to make of what’s happening to Fairy Tail in its last season and final story arc. Its not a question of whether its good or bad (it clearly isn’t good), but its more of a question of expectations and the long relationship I’ve had with this franchise.

When Fairy Tail (both the first and second series) was airing, I would wait eagerly every week for the episode to come out, and then proceed to talk and write about it at length. Fairy Tail wasn’t just a show I loved watching, its a show I loved immersing myself in and discussing. Its a show that motivated me to write about it, especially as many other blogs and anime watching critics and writers more or less ignored the show.

I always used to feel like Fairy Tail was something special, that it deserved the spotlight and attention that bigger shounen franchises like Naruto, One Piece and Hunter x Hunter have had in the past. And look, even I never thought that Fairy Tail was as good as those shows. No, Fairy Tail was just so different, so unique and so much more of a personal favorite of mine that I wanted more shounen like IT, to exist.

Fairy Tail focused on good storytelling and character dynamics and put that ABOVE the action and fights that most shounen series will focus on. Even when the show would wrap up its fight fairly quickly, I’d applaud it because the show generally was doing that in service to telling some kind of really touching character moment. The plot, also, was fairly unpredictable and interesting.

Yet… All of that is kind of gone now. And Look, now that I’ve had about a week to digest what happened last week, and now that I’ve watched this week’s episode, I can say that well… Fairy Tail is just kind of average now. Its an average anime series that kind of fits in with the time that we’re in right now.

Fairy Tail isn’t some unique, character driven shounen story with a unique world anymore. No, Fairy Tail is a fanservice ladden, corner cutting and genuinely disappointing shounen story that’s now more interested in pitting characters against one another, than it is on delivering some solid character moments or truly unexpected story beats.

The Natsu vs Gray stuff we got earlier was indicative of that, and the Sting vs Larcade stuff was about the same. Granted, I actually liked Sting finally coming into his own and doing something, but as usual, the show focused less so on the cool stuff, and filled most of the episode’s runtime with needless fanservice bits, or random face closeups.

Larcade as a character really does rub me the wrong way. I don’t like how he’s transformed the show into a crass ecchi show, and how the show has had to basically dive back out of that stuff in this most recent episode. I would’ve been much happier with Sting taking down Larcade in this episode, but instead we had the episode split itself off between Natsu’s weird mind trip and the whole Larcade stuff.

As for Natsu’s whole internal journey? Well, I’m not entirely sure why that’s happening. We all know he’s going to get out of it, so all it really is, is a way for Natsu to learn about his past. There’s a dozen ways to do this, and really, the only thing I can see with this is that Natsu NEEDS to be out of commission so other characters can basically do something.

This wouldn’t even be a problem if the show and the story just focused on ONE event at a team, and then just cut over to the next character once said event is done. Either way, I suppose this episode was an improvement over last week’s drivel.

Although, if the show had sunk any lower, I don’t think I’d be writing about it today. In the end, I guess I’m just tired. Fairy Tail’s Final Season has left me exhausted, and I just can’t… Deal with it anymore. I’m past the point of be a disappointed fan, and am now just an observer.

The reason I continue to write about this show is because of all the joy I got from this franchise in its first two series. At this point, I may as well see the show through to the end, even if I really don’t want to bother. I suppose documenting how I felt about this franchise as it wraps up, is worth something… Probably.