Anime Reviews: Fairy Tail Episode 100 - Mest

Watch the Show Here!

The Story
The first stage of the exam ends, as Natsu, Gray, Levi, Cana, Elfman, and their respective partners move on to the second stage. Rather than a fight, this stage has them scouring the island for the grave of Fairy Tail's first master, Mavis.

But something is afoot, as Mest might not be who he says he is, and nobody can remember anything specific about him. And the mysterious stranger has entered the story, as he runs into Elfman and Evergreen, nearly killing them if not for Natsu's intervention.

The Review
It's been a while since I've written one of these, but hopefully those of you still around, who have been waiting oh so patiently, can find it in your hearts to forgive my procrastination.

It's been a while, so I had to refresh myself about what has happened up to this episode. Not that it took too long, Fairy Tail is hardly Tolstoy. I was pleasantly surprised, upon my reentry into the fascinating world of weekly anime blogging, to find that I had restarted by career with my favorite episode of this Fairy Tail arc.

Heh.

There are some great jokes in this episode, especially the reveal of how Evergreen and Elfman managed to beat Mira. Evergreen lying about the two of them being engaged was funny enough, but Mira's imagination of what their kid would look like, as well as her reaction to her own imagination was possibly the funniest thing I've seen in Fairy Tail.

The fights themselves were standard Fairy Tail, which means that they were all top notch. I have to admit that most of the quality in the fights comes from the excellent musical accompaniment, not quite so much from the animation itself. Not to say that I think the animation is shoddy in the slightest, I just don't think it's nearly at the level of the score. Then again, I'm a bigger fanboy for the Fairy Tail score than I am for any other aspect of the show.

Mest's scene with Wendy, at the beginning of the episode, was bizarre. Mashima takes an odd approach to character creation, which sometimes doesn't get beyond the "give them a weird quirk" part of the process. And Mest's is not one of the best quirks Mashima has ever thought of. Fortunately, it doesn't rear its ugly head beyond the few minutes during which it is introduced.

The mystery, if I can even call it that, of Mest is executed in an interesting way, though I think none of the viewers believed even for a moment that he's actually a member of Fairy Tail. Though this does bring up an odd point. The power levels of the different kinds of magic are a bit confusing. During his first introduction, Mystogan used his power to put everyone in the guild to sleep. This was to show how powerful he was. But even then, Makarov was able to stay awake. I have a hard time believing that Mest is powerful enough to actually influence the memories of everyone in the guild, including Makarov. Though the fact that everyone is noticing how fuzzy their memories of him are does show his spell isn't nearly as powerful as we might have initially believed. He's just lucky everyone is too thick to bother questioning their clearly questionable memories.

In fact, I highly doubt they are unaware of magic that can influence one's mind. The fact that they can't remember anything concrete about Mest should be the first warning sign that something isn't right!

The Grade
Overall, one of my favorite episodes of Fairy Tail for the jokes alone. However, the rest of the episode doesn't quite push it over the threshold into true greatness. For this I give Fairy Tail - Mest a

4/5

Buy The DVDs!
Fairy Tail: Part 1 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Fairy Tail: Part 2 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Fairy Tail: Part 3 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Fairy Tail: Part 4 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)