User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 373: Life or Death?, Review./@comment-3987368-20140228134931

I think I would say I liked this chapter.

It isn't anything special, since it's mostly just set-ups for the next few chapters and fights that are gonna happen in between them, as well as Face's pending activation, but it isn't the worst way to do that and it needs to be done at some point so I'm fine. The thing that probably grabbed my attention the most is Zeref's conversation with Natsu and how he talked about Igneel being unable to defeat E.N.D. At this point, we don't know how the battle went, per se, but we do know Igneel lost. The way he's talking about it makes me think that a loss wasn't the only thing that he got. The phrasing of things like "Let him live of kill him." is kinda peculiar to me? Obviously, Natsu would choose to kill him by normal standards so either Mashima is saying there's more to E.N.D than meets the eye or that's what he wants us to think and that's what he wants us to do but in reality he's going to unintentionally make a red herring by having the whole thing end up as a normal battle.

Personally, I think it could be a few things. One of them could be that E.N.D knows where Igneel is and will share the information with Natsu if Natsu doesn't kill him and/or if Natsu does him a favor. Here, Natsu may have a reason to consider the proposal but I doubt he'll take it in the end. This'll be an "I wanna follow my own path!" kind of thing. Another might be that E.N.D now has a different kind of connection with Igneel and maybe killing one means killing the other. Really, I'm just speculating, but I can't shake these thoughts. I just want something to happen so Natsu can't take a straight-up battle road to victory and has to do something else which will hopefully change him as a character in a believable way. Don't comment on the unlikeliness of that. I'm entirely aware.

The Lisanna events in this chapter are to be expected, since I figured she wouldn't be travelling around that long in the base alone. To be honest, more than her search and her reunion with Mirajane, I took notice of what she was wearing. No, not cause she shows a lot of skin but cause Mirajane commented that she was using animal soul and Lisanna pointed out that she didn't have any clothes. I looked at older pictures of Animal Soul:Cat and noticed a change in the design. Previously the top had straps around her shoulders like so whereas the new design, as seen [http://www.mangareader.net/fairy-tail/373/14 here in the bottom panell does not. Yeah, nothing major but something fun I found.

Obviously though, I am interested in the upcoming fight between Mirajane and Sayla. The main issue that's been pointed out by others is Lisanna being taken hostage (or something to that effect) and used against Mirajane and while it's entirely possible that it's going to happen, we can still hope that Mirajane fights well enough alone and Lisanna is helpful, or at least gets knocked out quickly. Though that'd result in her being naked again. Not that I'm complaining.

I'd have liked to see Jellal's crew again. Ever since Chapter 364, I've been wanting to see these guys as a Black Ops Crew or something, going out in various guises and trying to work behind the scenes to help bring down Tartarus. Though now, it seems that Zeref is their mission, though that may be more of a long-term thing and Tartarus can still be their current focus. On that matter, Doranbolt is the one who got them together, so where's he? I mean, he's like the only councilor around at the moment. Surely, we should be allowed to see what he's up to. I would hate it if he's the kind of person who'd put all his eggs in one basket, especially a basket as volatile as one consisting of criminals both new and old.

I'm not really big on the Lucy & Wendy vs. Keith fight. They both got their asses kicked by Jackal and if anything, Keith looks just as tough but will be even more insurmountable. Not gonna be surprised if someone comes in and saves them, or they win by some fluke like ejecting him from the Cube the way people in the movies can beat terrorists by kicking them out of airplanes and stuff.

So, overall, yeah, good chapter. I just hope that these battles don't turn into mountains of Nakama pudding cause I'm sure we're all sick to our stomachs of it.