User blog:EvanDude345rv5/Fairy Tail 334 , BOOM HEADSHOT! WTF ?

WARNING: This chapter contains major character death !

Whoa, things really did pick up quickly for the chapter. I complained about the lack of dark serious moments and what don i get  ? Ironically the most fanservicey character in the series getting  brutally mauled by dragons. Damn it Mashima, you're going too far with the whole dark nature now, last thing i want to see   is  one of my favorite characters turned into swiss cheese  ! Who says  Fairy Tail can't be dark  ? When Mashima meant darker, he really met  darker !

Seriously, last week Sakura becomes Erza level badass in Naruto and now  we see Gray ,a major character actually die within Fairy Tail. This is no longer a coincidence,  Kishimoto and Mashima switched places because the tone of both series have started to mirror each other more. Naruto suddenly has side characters useful and badass again and started using women right and Fairy has a much darker, more serious tone and  now killing off characters for once  or at least trying to kill off characters.

Our cover  starts off with  ironically enough Gray,  geez looking at it again it seems more like a middle finger to the many fangirls of  Gray. The cover even states that Gray doesn't  know  what the future brings,  i have a joke for that  but it would be in very bad taste, anyways moving on.

Our chapter begins with Erza and  Jellal, i'm pretty sure alot of Jerza fans like myself would be happy with this moment here,Especially Carrot. Anyways Millianna isn't too happy with seeing Jellal right there still finding him responsible for alot of  stuff he's done in the past. Millianna doesn't look too happy about this,  either that or she's jealous Jellal is stealing Erza from her  XD.

Millianna then recaps everything  Jellal has  done to them. Jellal did kill  Simon, he  did held  Erza's  friends captive within the tower and did  try to  resurrect  Zeref  so i can't  personally blame Millianna for  holding a grudge  against Jellal, if  i was  her and had no knowledge of his  nature on anything of that  sort, i would  be pissed that Erza would  defend one of the worst criminals within Fiore  but  really what does she hope to gain fighting Jellal by herself   ? First of all she has to get past Erza and i don't see how Millianna can beat Erza even in Erza's severely crippled and magicless state  let alone  able to handle a Former Saint Wizard  who's at 100 %  and second of all she'll be wasting magic and given the threat of the dragons, not something you want to do.

Anyways before Millianna can do anything, Ultear appears to set the record straight.



Hey wait a minute, wasn't  she  dealing with Rogue not long ago   ? Geez Ultear, you really chickened out didn't you ? Kinda lame Mashima, i really wanted to see Mirevana stop Ultear and we can get bitch on bitch action but no.Anyways  despite the 180  turn on  not killing  Rouge,  Ultear  makes it up more with her taking the fall for Jellal by admitting to her past sins.

Ultear admits that she was the one who controlled Jellal from the shadows  back in the days she was within Gilmore Heart and obsessed with finding the One Magic and how  Hades  used her to seek out Jellal as a valuable asset due to his domain magic powers which could be of great use to them. She also takes responsibility for Jellal's  actions while he was brainwashed, not the least being Simon's death and the construction of the Tower of Heaven and pulling a Lelouch Vi Britannia move as if she was still a villain all this time  despite reforming her ways shortly after Tenroujima.

Erza then explains that Ultear was also led  down a dark path to  Millianna   and  all of them reflect on the dark reality of this world. I personally  do wish we see  Erza healed up and  fighting alongside Jellal and Millianna, we need  Erza being a badass again and Jellal is long overdue for his epic moment as well and  i'm curious to see how Millianna fares against these miniature  dragons.

Well one would be asking, if Millianna was there, where in god's  green earth is Kagura  ? Well right here



We finally  get some panel time with Kagura and she seems to be  resheating Archenemy  after hearing about Ultear's  words and the truth. Mashima ,if you kill off Kagura,  expect me to hunt you down. Also please show more Kagura damn it, we need more badassery from her.

Meanwhile we cut to Ultear  monologuing to herself about  why she didn't take her chance to kill Rouge   but she  pussied out because she can't bring herself  to  kill an innocent  person  due to Natsu  saying a previous chapter saying that  "We'll be the ones going down the wrong path   ". While i can complain about Ultear listening to a complete idiot like Natsu and not  acting within her  vicious nature,   i'm not going to  because this was actually a decently done character development moment, that  and we  still get our dragon battles. Also if you think about it, if Future Rouge dies along with Present Rouge,   the dragon Slayers won't get a power boost killing their dragon opponents and they'll all be fucked when Acnologia  finally makes his appearance and humanity would still be  fucked either way. I'm still mad we didn't get our catfight between Mirevana and Ultear , wouldn't that be  pretty cool    ?

Speaking of Sabertooth, we cut to Rouge  reflecting on the words of  dragon he's fighting about him causing all this chaos  when Sting comes  running bringing his  dragon with him  and basically pulling a Natsu on us  and acting like an idiot. We then learn that the Dragon Rouge was fighting was Revire and Scissor Runner is Sting's opponent. Then we  see  Sting and Rouge  do something that they haven't  done within 30 chapters,  actually be  badass  as they plan to kick the dragons ass together in this epic pose.



One has to laughing at the irony of all this happening though,  It's  ironic that  Rouge thinks that  with Sting around he'll be safe and  Sting would kill him  but  the irony is that it's not going to be enough [|200px]

Meanwhile while Ultear is being emo and blogs about  how she can't kill Rouge  Merdery and Juvia  finally meet each other again and     Gray manages to   shield them from an incoming laser with  Lyon chasting the two girls  for nearly getting hit. Gray them seems to be confessing his feelings for  Juvila when then  this happens !

Crap, yeah that look like it  hurt  but this is Fairy Tail right  ? Marakov surrived didn't he  ?


 * Turns next page *

Gray is shot multiple times within the chest and his right arm is nearly severed in quite a brutal fashion,   shit   that looks painful as hell but  survivable by  Shonen standards as long as  there's a skilled enough healer right ?


 * Turns last page *

HOLY FUCKING BATSHIT HELL ! THEY KILLED GRAY! YOU BASTARDS !!!

No seriously, what in the flying fuck just happened  ? Gray was shot in the head ! Is this even Fairy Tail ? When i said last week Mashima was being more like Kishimoto, i didn't mean it this way. Hell this is something Oda would do. This can actually rival  Ace's  untimely  death in the moment of sheer ,soul crushing tragedy levels.

Hell given we spent more time with Gray than with Ace and Gray actually has a confirmed love interest with him, in some way this is seriously more tragic than Ace on an emotional  level, at least in my opinion. Think about it, we spent 90% of the story with Gray, we got to know him well and have a arguably bigger connection with him than Ace and i'm not  saying Ace's death wasn't  tragic  but  let's be  fair, we only know  him and seen him for 2  arcs   and while he did grow on us,  he didn't become that close with Luffy as Gray has with Natsu and the others, also as much as i would've loved Ace to be part of the Strawhats,  he was never  part of the strawhats.

However here's the reason why at the same time this isn't as tragic as Ace's death despite the connection with Gray being a main character, this is Fairy Tail, it's token them this long just to start killing off characters and i seriously doubt he's going to start with one of the four main characters of the plot this early within the final chapter,especially to low tier fodder baby dragons. Also people are forgetting that Ultear exists and she has time powers and as proven within the timeskip to affect humans, hell she saved Natsu's life by healing him with her time magic not long again so  i doubt she doesn't have the power to bring back the dead because let's  face it, Gray is still fucking dead ! Unless he's Hidan or Aizen, i don't see him walking off a headshot.

Yep Mashima really did go overkill mode to prove he wasn't fucking around this time around and yeah it's pretty hard to argue that a headshot can't kill you, especially when you're body is looking like 50 Cent after being shot 9 times however we still have Ultear. Gray's death is still less impactful than Ace in the way theyre might be a chance for him to be revived or that was a clone, Ace on the other hand, you know he's dead no sooner Akinau's fist went through his heart. As strange as it sounds, One Piece takes death alot more seriously than most Shonen. Granted not many people actually die in One Piece and the only  real notable death's so  far are Ace and Whitebeard  but they do the deaths the best  in the regard that you  know they're dead and nothing  would bring them back. In Bleach, they can't  write anything right and  the deaths they actually do write we don't care about  ( Seriously who gives a shit about Sasabike )  and in Naruto, death is meaningless as proven with Edo Tensei and  Rinnegan.

Still  whether  Gray  dies or not in this chapter or the next, it has definitely  set the overall tone of this entire arc. It has  finally moved away from the comical aspects and got into the really gritty and morbid territories of a final arc. We  moved from the  campy fanservice of 330  and 331 to the lighthearted bonding moments of 332 and 3334 and now we're in the " We're not fucking around anymore  "  zone of this chapter  and removed any  pretense of a good guy shield. This chapter is an excellent heartbreaking twist of emotional and  definitely raises stakes and makes you  want next week to come so you can see how much further and  darker Mashima would  go.

Overall : A +