User blog comment:Real Godisme/Chapter 479/@comment-7418318-20160328162012

Overall I liked the chapter. Sure it could have been better, but it could also have been far worse. Actually I expected the fight to end worse than it did, but let's get into the matter first.

First we get Jacob clearly dominating the fight against Lucy and Natsu, with them being unable to get even a single strike in, now that they lost the element of surprise. That certainly makes Jacob seem quite threatening, even if just for a little while.

I'm very happy with Lucy being allowed to show her smartness and quick thinking for a change. She was originally established as intelligent, but most of her fights (the few ones she's allowed to fight to the end anyway -_- ) she wins through dedication, determination and feelings for her friends and spirits, instead of outsmarting the enemy. Not that those fights weren't awesome in their own way, particularly the Tartaros one, but I really like her to outsmart the enemy.

I'd be overjoyed if we could get a combination of determination and smartness from Lucy in the future, instead of either/or.

Apart from the outsmarting thing, I'm also happy that after a looooong absence we see Gemi and Mini again. They are so underused it's not funny anymore (poor Capricorn must feel terribly neglected too by now).

But here a small disappointment comes into play. Why the Star Dress? It's the same situation as back with Virgo SD. She put the SD on and then the Spirits are the ones doing the abilities, so why bother with the Star Dress? In the end we still don't know what Virgo and Gemini SDs do, just how they look like... and Gemini SD looks like a jester costume. I didn't know what to expect from Gemini, but a jester costume was definitely not it.

Wait... did Makarov just do something? And not just anything, but something usefull oO Yeah, I had to reread those pages twice, because I couldn't believe it, but he actually did something usefull! For the first time in hundreds of chapters he did something usefull!

And then we got Natsu... oh well, it's not like I expected anyone other than him to deliver the finishing blow anyway. At least this time it took team-effort instead of him just throwing out a nakama speech before stomping the enemy flat without issues. That he didn't deliver a speech and didn't just easily finish Jacob off is by itself already better than I expected the fight to end. And between Lucy being smart and Makarov helping a little too, I'd even go so far as to call this fight enjoyable more than equalling out Lucy being stripped, changing into a Star Dress without using it and ... well Natsu being Natsu.

As I said at the beginning it could have been better, but it could also easily have been a lot worse. I usually don't like to give out points, but I think it's worth a 6 or 6.5 out of 10.