Anime Reviews: Fairy Tail Episode 105 - Fire Dragon Vs. Flame God!

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The Story
Natsu fights Zancrow, but is overpowered by his God Slayer magic, and blown off the mountain. Elsewhere, Lucy and her group are fighting Caprico, but are unable to lay a hand on him. Loke shows signs of recognizing Caprico.

Natsu wakes up and finds the injured Makarov, who tells him to take everyone and flee from Grimoire Heart. Natsu refuses, and before the two can argue anymore, Zancrow arrives. Natsu shakes in front of his powerful opponent, but says that he may be afraid but he's not afraid of Zancrow, he's afraid someone other than himself will beat up whoever it was that hurt Makarov.

Lisanna and Mirajane face off against Azuma, with Lisanna showing off impressive transformation skills. But Azuma is too powerful for her. Mirajane lands an attack from behind on Azuma, who realizes that the sisters are more powerful than he had first suspected.

Natsu attempts to eat Zancrow's flames, after being trapped inside them, but is unable to. Makarov grabs Zancrow with a giant fist and begins to crush him, while his hand is being burned by the flames. Natsu empties all his magic power and is able to absorb Zancrow's flames into himself this way. Combining the two flames together he is able to defeat the God Slayer.

The Review
Well, since I promised to last review, I might as well get into why I hate the idea of God Slayers in Fairy Tail. Now, I could write a manifesto about why I think this such a stupid idea—something that I've been saying for years any time the topic is brought up. But, for the sake of brevity, and clarity, and not sounding like a raging lunatic, I'll keep my complaints limited to two points.

First, the thought process behind this development is as obvious as it is juvenile. "Okay, I need an enemy to seem really tough for Natsu at first. What's stronger than dragons? Oh, I know, gods are! Let's see, I want to have a connection between the two so readers know exactly how much more powerful Zancrow is. I know! I'll call him a God Slayer. That's like a Dragon Slayer, only better!"

It's the kind of reasoning I would expect from a preschooler, not a professional writer. It wouldn't be as obvious, were it not for the fact that:

Two, at no point in the series have we been told that gods are a real thing in the Fairy Tail world. We've seen cathedrals and churches, but we've never actually heard anything about the gods of the Fairy Tail universe. The existence of religion, a topic that hasn't gotten enough coverage for this sudden twist, does not automatically mean gods actually exist. Considering how many religions there are in the real world, and how mutually exclusive they all are, even if one of them is true, there will be multiple religions whose gods turn out to not actually exist. In the same way, just because there is religion in Fairy Tail doesn't mean that the gods of that religion are real. We've seen Celestial Spirits, and the Spirit King, are they the gods? Or are they more like angels? These are questions that need answering if we're supposed to buy the idea of God Slayers.

Furthermore, with Dragon Slayers we know for a fact that dragons are real and something that can be slain. And throughout the series we've gotten examples of how impressive their power is. With God Slayers, until we see what gods in Fairy Tail are like, what their power levels are, we don't really have any reference for how impressive a God Slayer actually is. Are we talking Norse or Greek god levels of power? Who are undoubtedly powerful and immortal, but not invincible according to their respective mythologies. Or are we talking about the Abrahamic god, the creator of all things and the most powerful being in the universe, incapable of being defeated under any circumstance? If we're talking the latter, then yeah, God Slayers would be impressive. But without knowing this, my only reference is that gods are more powerful than dragons. Which apparently they aren't because Natsu managed to beat Zancrow.

Ultimately, it comes down to needing a reference and foreshadowing for God Slayer powers. Without that proper foreshadowing Zancrow's power comes across as less than a lost magic with a deep, rich history, and more like the result of a playground argument.

Child 1: "I'm the most powerful because I'm a Dragon Slayer."

Child 2: "Oh yeah, well I'm even more powerful! I'm a God Slayer!"

Hiro Mashima (Hiding in the bushes): "Holy crap that kid's a genius!"

Police Officer: "Sir, this is the third time this week, you're going to have to come with me."

Hiro Mashima: "Run away!!"

My thoughts exactly, Natsu.

As for the rest of the episode, the focus was definitely on Natsu's fight, but we did still break between different scenes to help the pacing flow better. And in this case it worked out quite a bit better than last week. We only switched between three scenes overall, and each was long enough to take up some time without having to switch between a bunch of shorter segments. Azuma's blatant sexism is more amusing than offensive and it just makes me want to see him get his butt handed to him. Lisanna's transformations were weird, either goofy or fetishy, and she really should listen to Mirajane and let big sister handel the situation.

Despite my complaints about Zancrow, the finale of the episode was a lot better than I expected. Once again the music helps pick up the slack. Any climactic scene would be epic with Fairy Tail's soundtrack playing in the background. It helps me enjoy the scene without thinking about how dumb it is overall. And ultimately it's why I'm going to be giving this episode a higher grade than initially planned. It's worth a watch, just don't think about it too much.

The Grade

3/5

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)