The second season of the anime is up to episode 30, and the manga is at chapter 405. Loads of spoilers below the fold.

Manga first: all hell is breaking loose. This feels like a series-finishing arc. Igneel has appeared and it won't surprise me if Metallicana and Grandine show up, too. We're probably in a fight to the finish with Acnologia, and END is probably going to revive, and maybe we'll finally have it out with Zeref. And Makarov is in the cellar of the old guild hall, getting the Lumen Histoire. (My guess: It's Mavis's body, and she's going to come back to life. I think we finally find out about that in the next chapter, coming to a web site near you next Monday.)

The HEAD countdown reached 00:00 in chapter 404, but 405 rewound time to show other people during that last couple minutes, and I have a feeling it may be five or six more chapters before we find out what it did -- if anything. I've thought of several possibilities for how it won't take everyone's magic: Gildarts has been out there destroying all the heads, or the other guilds have been, or Metallicana and Grandine have. (Or maybe all of the above.) Or maybe Lumen Histoire will prevent it. Or any of several other possibilities. What I don't believe is that everyone is going to lose their magic.

All of these are things he's been laying groundwork for during the entire series. The only thing he's been hinting at which hasn't come out yet is the possibility that Lucy may be able to use the "One Magic" and may need to.

I'm not convinced we know the full story about Acnologia, and we may get a heel-face turn from him before this is all over. The only things we really know about Acnologia was that he was originally a human dragon-slayer and by far the most successful one, during the war 400 years ago, and that he bathed in the blood of each dragon he killed, and it ultimately turned him into a dragon. And... he seems to hate Zeref and shows up everywhere Zeref's magic manifests. Which is why I'm not convinced he's a true villain; he may end up as an enemy-of-my-enemy, and it may ultimately be Zeref or END who kills him.

I don't actually believe that this arc will end the title; the magazine won't let the magaka get away with that. (It's like how Toriyama was pretty much forced to keep going with Dragon Ball even though he wanted to end it after the Frieza story arc.)

But we're definitely going to get some permanent changes in continuity. We've already had one: The Aquarius Key is broken and gone. And it's possible Lucy can't keep the Taurus and Aries keys. She may have to give them to Yukino. In any case, however, it's no longer possible to summon all 12 members of the Zodiac.

As to the anime, it's running well behind the manga. The Magic Tournament arc ended in ep 25 or thereabouts and we got some filler.

Episode 29 didn't feel like it, but it begins the new story arc -- and it isn't one that's in the manga. In ep 29, Lucy and Yukino summoned each of the members of the Zodiac in turn and tried to do something nice for each of them, as an expression of gratitude for their help in closing the Eclipse Gate.

The real reason for the episode was to make sure the audience knew about all 12 of them, because in episode 30 they all become dark versions of themselves. Virgo switches from being a masochist to being a dom. The others are all equally strange. Most of them change appearance radically. And none of them obey summons any longer and they all deny that they still have contracts with Lucy and Yukino.

It's really strange. I wonder how much involvement the mangaka had in planning it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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