User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 457: Naked Battle, Review./@comment-26441125-20151019102926

Okay, so here's the dealio. I saw the Carrot of Jerzaness also mention this, so credit there, but every part of this chapter was good...with a caveat. Lucy about to straight up prison shank a bitch!...while butt naked. Layla being name-dropped!....one and a half arcs too late. Erza struggling against Azir!....And then gaining the upper hand because of...ugh...Natsu. I really wish Mashima would just end his love affair with those two, because both of their characters are in dire straits. Especially Erza, who began as perhaps FT's best character and has been steadily degraded ever since, because at some arbitrary point, Mashima just decided from here on out that ERZA MUST ALWAYS WIN! The way every shonen character has ever worked, and most, just, characters in general work, is at some point, they have to LOSE. Not tie, not have to really dig deep into their nakama power, just lose. They have to be in a fight where they have no chance of winning, and then proceed to get the ever living shit kicked out of them. Sure Erza had Jellal, and Natsu had Gildarts, but neither of those fights really ended with serious consequences. Jellal got beaten by Natsu, and Erza really only lost the will to fight in that case, and Gildarts essentially said, "No biggie, you're the main character, you get a pass." (Natsu then proceeded to use his one chance at development for the greatest asspull in history.) They've never just...not been good enough. Jellal, Laxus, Lucy, Cana, Gajeel, they've all had to grow out of necessity, because at some point they just didn't cut it, and they had to move past that. Those losses changed them. Natsu's been in stasis ever since the series started, and Erza ended up like that somewhere around GMG. So I'm really hoping that at some point, whether it's Azir or Dimaria or freaking Zeref himself, that Erza just loses. Natsu too. I hope they fail and the rest of Fairy Tail has to step the hell up to survive, and maybe, juuuuuussst maaaaaaaaaaaaybe, Natsu and Erza will be different people at the end of the series than they were at the beginning. My hopes aren't too high, though.