Anime Reviews: Fairy Tail Episode 59 - Recollections of Jellal

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 After beating Angel, Lucy makes her way over to Natsu to help him off the raft.  Unfortunately Angel still isn't beaten, but her attack misses as Caelum betrays her as well in favor of Lucy.  However, the attack blows away the rocks blocking the raft Natsu is stuck on, and he starts drifting down the river.

Lucy manages to catch up to him and grab his hand, just in time to go down a waterfall and some rapids, and then an even larger waterfall with him.  Lucy grabs hold of Natsu and holds her as close to herself as possible, in an attempt to protect him during their ride.

Brain senses Angel's defeat, and part of the tattoos on his face disappear.  He claims that Angel's death won't be in vain, despite the fact that she isn't really dead.

Jura and Hoteye discuss how Nirvana changes the personalities of those caught in between light and darkness, just to make sure we get it, and how he himself was doing bad things for money so he could find his lost younger brother.

 

Interestingly enough, during a minor flashback it shows that apparently Brain used to work for Jellal, or something along those lines.  Interesting, I hope this gets explained later on, as it introduces a background for Jellal that hasn't been fully explored, and I would love to see more of.

 

And then we get into the bit that hurts this episode as far as quality goes.  Wendy's flashback.  Granted, flashbacks are necessary at times, but even this anime likes to stretch things more than they should.  In this case the flashback goes on for far too long, considering what actually happens.  Here's a hint.  Wendy is left crying after her dragon, Grandine, leaves, which in itself was interesting enough as it provided a hint as to how Natsu must have felt after Igneel left.  Makes the whole thing more real.  Jellal finds Wendy, though why Jellal is just wandering around isn't explained.  Suspicious methinks.

And then they walk.  And walk.  And walk.  Granted, young(er) Wendy is cute and all, but gorram it there is a limit to how much walking and little girl crying I can stand.  Here's a hint, it starts at .5 seconds, and ends at 1 second.

The only thing of worth that comes out of this flashback is Jellal mentioning something called Anima while they are wandering.  Future events for the anime are clearly being set up, so I think it's a guarantee that the anime will continue past this storyline.

Erza finally reaches Jellal and discovers that Jellal can't remember anything, other than Erza's name.  He basically acts like a sad puppy dog, desperate to figure out what is missing from his memories...

So Erza decides to kick him, and tell him exactly what he did.  For her amnesia is no excuse for the atrocities he committed, as it shouldn't be.

Elsewhere, Lucy wakes up bandaged, and wearing new clothes.  She discovers that Virgo came to the world under her own magic power, and gave her and Natsu a matching set of clothes.  Natsu thanks Lucy for helping him, and Lucy's blush is amusing enough, without the introduction of the anime only running gag.

It really is a great gag though, especially if you support the pairing it is made about.

Virgo leaves, and Sherry attacks Lucy and Natsu, still under the influence of Nirvana, that has changed color yet again.  Gray jumps her...

Heh.

And suppresses her long enough for Lyon to show up and reveal that he's not dead.

It's Shonen, what did you expect?

Seeing that Lyon is alive is enough to release her from the grip Nirvana had on her, and turn her back to good.  Not sure if that's how it was meant to work, but whatever.

Back with Jellal and Erza, Cobra comes out of hiding and asks Jellal why he released Nirvana if he can't remember anything.  Jellal says that while he can't remember anything, he can remember that Nirvana is dangerous, and as such he released it in order to destroy it.  He sets a self destruct magic on Nirvana, and ties it to himself, so that when he takes out Nirvana he will take out himself as well, as atonement for the things that he did.

Man, people in this series are obsessed with self-sacrifice.

The flashback was terrible, and the episode suffered for it.  But after that there were some good scenes.  Nothing particularly stellar, but still watchable.  As such I can't really give this episode a terrible grade, terrible flashback aside.

So we'll go with a:

B-

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