5 Point Discussions – Fairy Tail 13: “Fairy Heart”

Who are the members of the Spriggan 12? And what’s the secret behind Fairy Heart? Remember, if you like this article and 5 Point Discussions, please share it on Facebook or Twitter! It really helps. And if you’ve got any comments or questions, please hit me up @SageShinigami.

1. It took 290 episodes, but we finally have the truth behind what Fairy Heart, the ultimate weapon of Fairy Tail, really is. Despite Mavis being supposedly “dead” after Zeref’s curse, it seems she was really only placed in a coma. Zeref returns her body to Fairy Tail, just happening to meet Precht, the interrim Guild Master after Mavis vanished. Driven to bring her back to life, Precht tries to revive her for nearly thirty years–along the way realizing Mavis must have been afflicted with Ankhselam’s Curse of Contradictions, hence Makarov’s mother dying shortly after his birth.  After three decades of trying every arcane method possible to revive Mavis, Precht eventually abandons the guild, broken by the knowledge he’s forced to keep to himself.  But more important, combined with Mavis’ undying body, all the attempts to revive her create something which isn’t meant to exist: a magical lacrima with limitless energy.
For those wondering why Makarov didn’t use Fairy Heart in the countless encounters they’ve had with Dark Guilds, unsurprisingly they’ve never actually tried to use it, since it does contain an actual human body.  Without ever actually testing its powers, they have no way of knowing if they could ever shut Fairy Heart off, or if it’d simply fire endlessly.  It does suck to spend all this time explaining the story of a weapon which could be effectively useless, but at least Mashima closed the loophole on why Fairy Tail couldn’t use this incredibly convenient macguffin.

2. It really is good to have Fairy Tail cementing itself as the best family in anime again. After Mavis explains her story, she apologizes tearfully about her actions having brought so much misfortune on the guild.  It’s good to see from her end, but her fellow guild members remind her she hasn’t done anything wrong. She cared about someone, and there’s never been anything wrong with that. Moreover, forming Fairy Tail is the reason any of them have a home to begin with, so it’s hard to be too angry considering the majority of them escaped some horrible conditions before being welcomed into their current home.  It’s good they chose to address Mavis’ responsibility for their current predicament, and put it all out in the open since they’ll have to deal with it as a guild, but they were smart enough not to spend too much time on it.

3. They’ve already agreed about the necessity in fighting Alvarez, but what are they going to do about Zeref? A being which is immortal in every sense of the word, even if they’re able to bring down the Empire–it’s hard to beat someone who can’t die and is bent on destruction. But Natsu has been developing a special technique just for battling Zeref–something he can only use once, but he’s convinced it’ll be good enough to bring down Zeref. Without reading ahead, these single-usage techniques never work out that well, but there’s a first time for everything? Presumably, Natsu learned something from watching Igneel battle with Acnologia, since we see him later in the episode talking about the Dragon King Festival.

4. This episode had enough time to shove giantess and foot fetish material in. “Neat”.  Okay, I’m not going to spend much time on this–but we knew Marin Hollow wasn’t dead when Brandish “erased” him. That isn’t her power, so when we rejoin them we see Marin is roughly a few inches tall and is essentially spending his time painting Brandish’s toes and begging to be restored to full size. Now Marin was a despicable goon so I’m fine with this, but either way this was a creepy scene. I wouldn’t look down on it as much if Fairy Tail wasn’t so well known for its fanservice so much…but we’re only a few episodes removed from a beach episode.

5. Before the episode end, we get two significant events pushing the plot forward. Zeref gathering the Spriggan 12, and Makarov running down the abilities of each of the members. The group doesn’t particularly seem to get along very well, and are only united in their shared worship/fear of Zeref. This is also where we get our first glimpse of God Serena, the strongest Wizard Saint who abandoned the continent of Ishgar. He looks weird, but if he’s stronger than all of the other Wizard Saints there’s a good chance he’ll give most of the team a run for its money.
The character that won’t be nearly the threat the story keeps trying to fool us into believing they are? Ajeel, the Desert King.  Unfortunately for him, we’ve spent so many episodes downplaying Fairy Tail’s strength, while he keeps bragging on its own, even going so far as to brag he alone could wipe out all of Ishgar by himself.  There’s a reason the story never showed them actually fight him, with Makarov taking the team and running in terror, while Laxus nearly took the guy out with a single lightning bolt. These are all very obvious signs this is a starter pack villain–someone team Fairy Tail stops to prove they’re a threat the Alvarez Empire has to take serious.