Natsu and Gray are surrounded by the dark guild Naked Mummy, the guys from episode 51, whose two guild leaders both call each other the older brother. It gets old. Fast. Fortunately Natsu and Gray echo my sentiments, and beat the snot out of the annoying minor characters. Good. Because the next episode that features them gets an automatic failing grade.
Back with the Oracion Seis, Happy explains what it was Jellal did, while Brain keeps insisting that Wendy resurrect him. Wendy, refusing to believe that Jellal did all the horrible things Happy says he did, and she heard in rumors, asks for some time to think. Brain gives her five minutes.
Natsu and Gray are attacked by Erigor, from way in the beginning of the series. While Natsu and him fight the other groups are attacked by more guilds. While the fight against Erigor may come out of nowhere, it's still a nice little bit of filler that's been put in there. By showing Natsu fighting a foe that he had some difficulty with at the beginning of the series, the creative team are able to showcase Natsu's growth. Granted it is not only obvious, but assumed considering it's a shonen series, that Natsu has grown stronger, but as far as filler goes, this one is good as it accomplishes more than just filling time in the episode.
The entire bit could have been dragged out, and in older shonen series it would have been dragged out. To be honest, if they tried that here I'd hate it, but I'd understand why they did it intellectually. It speaks to the merit of the anime team that they know not to stretch it too much, and instead put it in there to take up a little bit of time and contribute to the overall story a bit, and then move on instead of belaboring it. Fairy Tail has definitely been showing signs that their production team has learned from the mistakes of earlier series and is taking steps to fix them.
Natsu, Gray and Charle make their way to the Oracion Seis base, and Natsu calls out for Happy and Wendy, drawing out Racer who comes to stop them. Gray holds him off while Natsu takes Charle and goes after Happy and Wendy.
When Natsu makes his way into the cave the Oracion Seis are using as their base he arrives to find Jellal resurrected. His reaction is less than enthusiastic.
Jellal takes out Brain and leaves, saying Erza's name to himself, while Natsu takes Wendy and heads back for Erza.
Wait...why is he looking at his hand like that?
Pacing wise this episode was only so-so. Not too much happened, while at the same time I enjoyed seeing them use filler properly. While Natsu did manage to get Wendy away from the Oracion Seis, that plot thread is still not yet finished. And until he gets her back to Erza it won't have the sense of conclusion I'm looking for. A decent episode, and nothing to make you stop watching, but overall it isn't one of the stellar episodes of the series.
C
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