Fairy Tail Manga Volume 31 Review

フェアリーテイル
Fairy Tail Volume 31 Review

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***SPOILERS***

Highlights for Fairy Tail volume 31 start with Makarov making Gildarts the new Guild Master, whereupon Gildarts flees, but not before making Makarov Master again and reinstating Laxus. The Tenrou Island survivors learn they need to train up rapidly to make up for lost time, so they pay a visit to Porlyusica, whom Wendy says has the scent of the Air Dragon Grandeeney. Porlyusica is the Edolas version of Grandeeney and has a book of magic given to her telepathically by the dragon to give to Wendy. Fairy Tail starts a three month training regiment to be ready for the Grand Magic Games, but the Tenrou folks plans are thwarted when the Celestial Spirits have them over for a "night" of fun, which translates to three months real time. Merudy, Ultear, and Jellal show up with a plan to help these Fairy Tail members overcome their weaknesses with the limited time left, but they also warn of possible dark danger coming from the games. Two new dragon slayers make their presence known as part of the Saber Tooth guild.  Wendy goes missing on the eve of the games, so Elfman has to substitute for her in the Fairy Tail team of Natsu, Lucy, Erza, and Gray.

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It is somewhat amusing to me to see Natsu and the others from the Tenrou Island incident having only the strength of average Fairy Tail members (or somewhat above average in the case of Erza and Mira). Granted, it is pretty standard operating procedure in shounen manga for the protagonist to need to train up to get to that next level. However, with Fairy Tail, they already started out strong. They haven't been shown needing to train to get stronger. Instead, the members of Fairy Tail, primarily Natsu, Erza, Gray, and even Lucy sometimes, end up in a situation where they reach deep and do things they've not done before.

However, Mashima-sensei decides to continue to eschew the cliched training arcs by humorously having (some) Fairy Tail members that needed training lose all of their time in the Celestial realm. Still, it was interesting to see that realm, even if reading Capricorn using Western honorifics made my eyes hurt. But I digress...

With the seven year jump, I liked seeing Jellal, Merudy, and Ultear again. This continues Mashima-sensei's love of redeeming characters, which I have no problem with. I like the idea that this trio formed an independent guild (Crime Sorcière). I liked the little moment between Jellal and Erza, though I didn't like the cop-out to avoid their progressing any kind of romance. Yeah, I know - this is a shounen title so we can't have much romance beyond that. *_*

I didn't like the dues ex machina moment for Ultear coming up with a way for Natsu and the others to be able to compete with the reps from the other guilds in the upcoming Grand Magic Games.  But, that's the price paid for the earlier eschewing of Fairy Tail training (though some members not in the games did go through training).

I'm not sure what I think about Mashima-sensei introducing two new dragon slayers (Sting and Rogue).  It seems like this is just another excuse for Mashima-sensei to have another dragon slayer vs dragon slayer setup

The cliched onsen scene made me laugh in cliched fashion. Not only did I chuckle at Erza's nonchalant attitude about the guys joining them, but when she moments earlier attacks the onsen privacy fence for intruders, the fact that Droy got hit in the keester still makes me laugh out loud.

Some questions. What is the Lumen Histoire? What is Zeref's connection to the games? What happened to Wendy?

Finally, there's a scene stealer within the Fairy Tail guild, who's not (yet) a member -- Bisca's and Alzack's daughter, Asuka. Man oh man. *lol* Is Mashima-sensei trying to prove that he's not just obsessed with young women with "huge tracks of land?" ^_~  Still, there's no denying that Asuka is a little cutie. I started looking for her in the background of guild scenes as well as the ones where she's more visible, such as when Makarov carried her on his shoulders.

Seriously, it would be awesome if Mashima-sensei did some exploring of the Connel family, but since this is a shounen manga, combined with Bisca and Alzack are B-team members means I won't see this happening. I can dream though.

On the Kodansha side of things, the usual hybrid adaptation is here (I promise not to rant about that here). The omake stuff is all here, from the Lucy and Mira Q&A, Mashima-sensei's two notes, fan art, etc. There are some translator notes too, which I always appreciate.

Now that the manga goes into a battle tournament mode, I'm not sure how much I am looking forward to the next volume, but I'll read it just the same.