User blog:LastationLover5000/Fairy Tail 333 - In Which Ul, I Think There Is Some Sort Of Therapy For That Facial Tick (Man and Man, Dragon and Dragon, Man and Dragon)

"Future Rogue went astray somewhere, not the Present Rogue. The Present Rogue hasn't done anything wrong. If we kill him...then we'll be the ones who have strayed off the path..."

- Natsu Dragneel



Welcome to the Chapter Review Corner



The chapter has been released, and that means it's time to blog. To those new to my blog, welcome. To my continued readership, all I have to say is, thanks. SARA, start the broadcast.



Are you ready to begin?

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually — from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint — it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff.

So, some people are a bit confused by the timeline, so I'm gonna try to explain it the best way I can. The shortest way to say it is that time is always in flux, very rarely is something set in time, a fixed point, where nothing can be changed, and Hiro is now abusing the hell out of that by combining what I understand of time (from about a year of watching Doctor Who) and adding "alternate timelines". Looking at this showed, while Fairy Tail has been running on one singular "timeline" for the entirety of the series, on July 7th, the future split as two different paths were taken, and variables traveling back in time, and those traveling forward from the distant past, affected the current timeline. In what should have been the "canon" future, the Eclipse Gates were opened for whatever reason, allowing 10,000 dragons to come through, destroy civilisation, and rule the Earth. This is the timeline Future Lucy comes from, the post apocalyptic future where humanity is all but extinct. Then there's a second future, where Lucy managed to close the gates before any harm was done, but Acnologia eventually came to rule the world. This is the timeline Future Rogue comes from. What WE are operating in now is a third timeline, where events of the two are being combined, left out, or new events are happening altogether. What this is is a temporal tipping point, where the entire future now revolves around friggin' Natsu and company. ....I'm starting to lose faith. Long story short? Time can shift. Time can change. Time can be rewritten. Okay? Everyone got that? Good, we have a review to do, Allons-y!

I'm just gonna gloss through quite a bit of the nonsense here. The explanation for how Natsu overcame the Dragon Manipulation Magic? He and Atlas Flame became friends. I...I'm sorry, we banned this weakass magic? Mothergrea and Atlas Flame square off, and it's actually a bit impressive until Atlas Flame reveals Natsu ate some of his fire, and is now even more literally powered by dragon flames than before.

In any other series, this would be awesome.

Meanwhile, the king is going on a tangent about the death, destruction, and misery that's happening before his beady little eyes, collapsing to the ground in grief as he says that nothing will ever be the same again....no. No no no no no. Absolutely not, Hiro, you are not doing this NOW. You cannot try to sell us the grief, horror, and shock value of seven dragons wrecking havoc upon the world when the last three chapters consisted of naked Lucy, pointless comedy, and the power of nakama. It has the same effect as this:

Thanks Slowpoke, you're only five chapters late

Meanwhile, one of the Dragons tells Present!Rogue to stand down, as they have orders to spare him, and only him, telling him he will live through this despair to become their King. Rogue is shocked and denies this, then his Shadow starts talking to him again, causing him to try and crush it as Ul looks on. ...She needs to crouch more, seriously, one second.

Yeah....

As it turns out, Natsu and Ul had a discussion about an hour prior over Future and Present Rogue, with Ul thinking killing Present Rogue is best because it will change the future and erase Future Rogue, Natsu makes her promise to leave Present Rogue, who has not done anything wrong, alone. However, as she sees the destruction his Future Counterpart is causing, she decides he must die.



Now, without further do, let's bring up the scoreboard.

Score
The art this chapter was awesome. Scenery, battle effects, the dragons. 10/10, but why is it that's the ONLY thing that's been awesome in these past chapters? The story scrapes by with a 5/10. The chapters are finally acknowledging that "oh damn, dragons are attacking, this is serious business.", and Ul seems to be taking control of the plot herself, I love her for that. 5/10. The fight...about the same. The dragons squaring off was awesome, but Natsu was just as boring as ever. 5/10. Overall, it's an OKAY chapter, and I really want to see something better soon Hiro.



Fairy Tail is all done for today, but it'll be back next week with Fairy Tail 334 - Sin and Sacrifice. I look forward to all of your comments, but try to behave, we don't want to have to play mediator.