User blog comment:Omega natsu2/Fairy Tail Episode 208: Astral Spirytus, Review./@comment-7418318-20141115083909

Somehow this arc manages to get my hopes up only to dash it again :(

So now those keys not only close the gate, they also guide them? How very convenient Deus Ex Hisui turned out to be again. But didn't she say that the contract holders need to charge the keys up the previous episode? How are they already charged if she's giving them out only now? Did Lucy and Yukino charge them and then neatly put them back into the case or what?

Though I did like that the princess couldn't quite keep up with the mages. They are used to walking for long stretches and should have more overall endurance due to their kind of work and training than a princess. It's just a tiny detail, but in this episode I'm happy about any little positive thing I can get.

Which brings me to something that probably constitutes the "highlight" of the episode, though not so much for what it is, but for what might come from it. "God of darkness". Is that just generic ritual babble, or is there really some kind of Dark God involved here? Maybe some malevolent counterpart to the Celestial Spirit King that got sealed away in ages past and who's prison eroded due to Eclipse. While quite cliché, it could still turn out interesting. One of the very few positive aspects of this episode, IF it's not just generic ritual babble.

Warren read their thoughts without their knowledge or agreement? Isn't that rather morally questionable to do to friends? Also if he could locate them, he should have been able to message them through his telepathy, so it's stupid that he stayed quiet... or that he stayed at the guild instead of accompanying the team. If it's such a strain to work at the edge of his range, he could just walk closer. It's not like walking, or even jumping around and fighting are having any negative impact on his telepathy, as can be gauged from his fight against Max in the Fighting Festival.

Also how convenient that he sent just the right number of people so they could have a bunch of 1v1 battles

Whenever I saw Cancer, I expected him to clap his sciccors like castanets and dance to some spanish music, but Saturday Nightfever? I sense a dance-off between the crab and the stripper coming... and I'll hate it to no end.

Cana vs. Scorpio started out as a big WTF moment, but it's still salvagable. If at some point Cana throws the game and beats him down in an actual fight, this could serve as a gibe against all those ridiculous card-fight series. It reminded of this.

Another WTF with Capricorn... though I don't see how that'll be salvagable. Levy is the kind who'll play the quiz and stick to the rules.

Now here comes the dashed hopes part. The Elfman vs. Taurus fight started out quite nice. I really liked those high-speed take-over changes that Elf did. And just when I was really getting into the action, it fell apart after a few seconds because of ... sweat? O.O Seriously?! Leaving aside how totally ridiculous this crap was I'm also pretty sure that reptiles don't have sweat glands, so why would he splash around sweat in the Lizeard-man take over of all his forms? Argh...

Natsu vs. Loke will be nakama-speech mode with the occasional punch to punctuate an argument during which Leo will start to remember short flashes of his lost memories... nothing we haven't seen a 100 times before I'm sure.

I'm not quite ready to give this arc up yet, but I am starting to lose hope here. This is like a reversed KotSS arc. Instead of starting crappy and ending on a good note, it started out nice and then became crappy.