User blog:LastationLover5000/Fairy Tail 403 - In Which I Wonder Why I Punish Myself Further (Erza vs. Kyouka)



"Know despair, Erza."

- Kyouka to Erza

Welcome to the Chapter Review Corner



Every time I walk through that door...it feels like the first time. To those new to the blog, welcome, to my continued readership, all I have to say is thanks. SARA, how's it looking?



All systems are up and running TOM; are you ready?

When I say thanks to you guys before every review, it's not simply some pre-scripted thing. I genuinely mean that. You lot put up with quite a lot of shit on my behalf; my own personal complaints, Hiro's terrible writing, and of course, war in the comments. So I would like to extend a very large thank you to absolutely everyone who still reads my reviews. I'm grateful to my entire readership for sticking it out this long; so, if you may, please take my hand just a little longer and we'll walk through this hell together.

Take my hand; we'll make it through this together

I just remembered I am taking time I could be using to write my story to review this. It kind of helps that I turned up on the wiki chat today, and everyone was like "AHA, DO A REVIEW" (well, most everyone), so I can't exactly refuse when I'm asked. Related, sorry for not reviewing the previous chapters...but they've just been so bad. When I went into this chapter, I was like "I know Erza's gonna win; I'm just here to see how she exposes her tits while doing it". And to be honest, that was this chapter's only real interesting quality: the fanservice.

And when that's the only positive about a chapter in the final arc of a series, that speaks volumes about the mangaka's writing skill (or in this case, lack-therof).

So we pick up with the fights against Kyouka and Erza, after Kyouka performed an organic link with the Face mechanism. Proving her power, Kyouka destroys Erza's armor, and wills the timer to skip several minutes, before their battle continues. Look, Kyouka read the chapter

Kyouka states that the activation of Face will end her life, and Erza replies that's some potcrock because she's forgone the way of magical friendship. I'm trying my damndest not to gloss over this, guys, but I REALLY have had enough of Hiro's friendship bullshit. With Kyouka as irritated as I am, she unleashes her Curse, bringing Erza's sense of pain to the forefront, and turning it up to eleven before ripping the knob off. And then ripping her clothes off; that is the reason I showed up.

HOW DARE YOU SAY WHAT HE SAID!?

So naturally, I saw this panel and my reaction was about:



It's sad, but all Erza is good for now is being something to look at. Nothing more, nothing less. Hell, I actually very much enjoyed her torture scene, like the first one. Pity it didn't last longer. If I had to give this chapter any compliment at all, it'd be that Kyouka make's damn good use of her powers, removing all of Erza's senses. And that was damn good; until she decided she wanted to suffer from Kaname Tousen syndrome. Instead of killing her opponent, who she deprived of every sense imaginable...she insists on talking when Erza can't hear a damned word she's saying.





And, because this is fucking Fairy Tail, Erza, through the power of sweet magical friendship, gets up, and DECKS Kyouka (who acts like this couldn't have possibly happened), before declaring her friends will be her light to help her fight.





Let's score this thing, before I die from bad writing.

Score
Hiro's art is always his saving grace, and Erza fanservice will always win me over. ✓+. The story itself, we got absolutely nowhere. ✓−. The fight, while action-packed, had absolutely no suspense; the ending of it in this chapter was even more insulting. ✓−. Overall Chapter, ✓−.



Fairy Tail is all done for today, but the main series should be back this week with Fairy Tail 404 - 00:00. You can bet I'll be right here to bring everyone the details as they come on in!