Review

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Fairy Tail: Final Season - Episode 4 [Review]

Although this episode covers the usual decent amount of manga chapters, I have to admit that I'm glad the Evil Gray storyline doesn't drag on past this episode, because it gets dark. The Avatar cult is a particularly vicious group of foes, made up of so-called black wizards (magicians who use black magic) who aren't kidding around when it comes to fighting dirty. Gomon's specific magic is manipulating torture devices, and even without Mary's pain magic or Abel's use of Mr. Cursey (from the debacle on Tenrou Island), that's dangerous enough. Poor Lucy takes the brunt of it this week as Gomon pinpoints her as the weak link, not necessarily magic-wise, but certainly on the emotional front. This leads to some very upsetting imagery as he prepares Lucy for torment – specifically the moment when he strings her up by her wrists and spreads her legs. It really shouldn't be such a relief that he's “only” planning to chop her in half with an axe. (The fact that he doesn't need her legs apart to do so still makes for some worrisome motivations on his part.)

Of course, what Gomon isn't counting on is that Lucy is Gray's weakness as well. Our favorite ice mage has, as it turns out, been undercover in the cult in order to help put a stop to them from the inside, and it's strongly implied that he and Levy were working together on this at Erza's behest. He's not willing to break his cover to keep Natsu from being pounded, because he knows that Natsu can take it. But Lucy is another story; she doesn't have the physical strength to make up for the sealstone depriving her of her magic and she's frankly at risk for something much worse than just a punch to the nose. We could argue, really, that the jig was up the minute Lucy slapped Gray before Mary hit her with stomach pain (or cramps) – Gray is visibly taken aback and not quite sure how to handle the situation once she's involved. Him being shown with his eyes closed from that point on until he leaves the scene is really very telling.

The kicker here is that if Natsu understood what the word “sneak” meant, none of this would have happened. (Probably. This is still Fairy Tail after all, so something would probably have gone wrong.) The minute Virgo tunnels them into the cult's stronghold, Natsu starts bellowing for Gray at ear-destroying volume, ensuring that every single person in the building knows that someone has managed to infiltrate their stronghold. It's very Natsu, and in his defense, it never once occurred to him that Gray might not jump at the chance to rejoin Fairy Tail. After all, Gray isn't Wendy; he's been around much longer and a part of Team Natsu from the start. He, Natsu, and Erza are effectively siblings, orphaned a second time when Makarov disbanded the guild, so why wouldn't he want the chance to come home?

That doesn't mean that it isn't still a relief when we find out that he's able to manipulate the black markings on his body at will and had only done so to cover up his old guild mark. The moment when Gray freezes Gomon in his icky, icky tracks is like letting out a breath you didn't know you were holding. For poor Lucy, Natsu, and Happy, it may be a little late for true comfort, but the important thing here is that it happened.

That's really the highlight of this week's episode – the swift end to the brutality Lucy is about to suffer with a helpless Natsu looking on. The moment poking fun of people who get tattoos in Japanese or Chinese without knowing what they really say is also pretty great, but it's really that release of tension that makes this episode worthwhile. Not only does it reassure us that Gray's still who he always was, it also gives us hope for the eventually recreation of the Fairy Tail guild. That's not worth some of crap Lucy, Natsu, and Happy went through, but it does go a way to making it better.

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 79 [Review]

The gang faces two harrowing battles and gets hit with a shocking revelation in an action-packed Boruto: Naruto Next Generations. While engaged in battle with Kokuyou, Boruto's group is joined by Cho-Cho and Inojin, who arrive just in time to lend a hand. Ino-Shika-Cho then advise Boruto and Sarada to continue their pursuit of Mitsuki while they keep Kokuyou busy. Hoping to head them off, Sekiei entrusts a couple of Akuta with guarding Mitsuki, intercepts Boruto and Sarada, and engages them in combat. Although he initially has the upper hand, Sekiei eventually depletes his energy, but just as Boruto is about to deal the finishing blow, he's stopped by Mitsuki, who helps his new “friend” to his feet and guides him to safety. To further punctuate his point, Mitsuki slaps away the forehead protector Boruto attempts to hand him, hits Boruto with a burst of Snake Lightning, and leaves with Sekiei and Kokuyou. Upon seeing how thoroughly defeated Boruto is, Kokuyou calls him a husk and reasons that he's not even worth killing.

This week's installment serves as the current arc's most action-packed installment to date. While Kokuyou and Sekiei are far from the most creative villains the franchise has given us, their signature techniques are unique enough to prove entertaining and put Boruto and company through their paces. Consistently on-point visuals and reasonably fluid animation also help make this battle-heavy episode a fun ride from start to finish. Also of note is that our heroes lose both of this week's big fights, illustrating that the current crop of Genin have a long way to go before they're ready for the big leagues. In all likelihood, Mitsuki is running a long con on the Hidden Stone shinobi in an effort to learn who their boss is, but seeing Boruto at such a low point will hopefully make the eventual payoff feel all the more rewarding.

Sekiei's blooming friendship with Mitsuki is proving to be one of the most fascinating aspects of this storyline. Like Mitsuki, Sekiei is somewhat socially oblivious while also being good-natured and energetic, making them a natural pairing. Although Mitsuki's loyalties are probably still to the Leaf, it's hard to believe that he isn't becoming fond of Sekiei on some level. On the flipside, Boruto and Garaga have yet to fully work out their differences, with the latter stubbornly refusing to assist his summoner until the absolute last second. Predictably, the giant snake gloats after Mitsuki coldly rejects Boruto's olive branch, though he seems slightly hesitant to do so. (He also doesn't make good on his vow to eat Boruto in the event that Mitsuki chooses the Stone shinobi over him.)

Now that we're fully into this arc's third act, it would be great to see more episodes like this one. After devoting a significant number of episodes to outlining the stakes and core mystery, the time has come to get to the bottom of the villains' scheme and lay the smackdown on the mastermind. While episode 79 hardly breaks new ground in the shonen action department, it's an above-average battle episode that leaves the audience eager to see what comes next.

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One Piece - Episode 859 [Review]

With the first stage of the cake baking finished, the Big Mom chase is getting ready to transition into the next phase. There's a refreshing new direction for the majority of our concurrent subplots, but as usual we're still waiting until the story can get its original momentum going again.

There are two main plotlines we're concerning ourselves with the most this week:

1. Luffy's Nuts Island Adventures—With Brulee in tow, Luffy's left Katakuri trapped in the mirror world without an exit, but while he's waiting for his Haki to recharge before he re-engages with that battle, he must dodge Big Mom and a handful of her more powerful children. There's a lot that this sequence offers, since it gives the Katakuri fight a chance to move between multiple locations beyond just the mirror world. This feels like the kind of detour the audience is likely to quickly forget, but then eventually go "Oh yeah! Remember when ______ happened?" It really pushes the comedy and surrealism of Totto Land. Brulee is our heroes' new overwrought hostage to take Caesar Clown's place, and we're weaving between several of Big Mom's tougher daughters as Luffy stays on his toes long enough to get back to the Katakuri fight.

I love the idea of baking little pocket set pieces like this into the narrative, but I wish that it was a more meaningful change-up for the story. Imagine if Katakuri had to follow Luffy to Nuts Island, and the rest of the fight took place with a raging kaiju Big Mom in the background? Rather, this set piece is more about compensating for how inconvenient Luffy's Fourth Gear is, and your regularly scheduled mirror world fight will resume shortly as if nothing had happened.

2. Sanji and the cake—The wedding cake is officially on the move, which means the Sanji crew has to get it by Oven without raising any red flags, which turns out to be futile anyway because Oven finds Chiffon untrustworthy to begin with. Chiffon's father, Pound, is also in the mix, and so there's a whole 'nother layer of family drama going on between a man trying to meet his daughter for the first time in years, and said man trying to fend of his ex-step-son because nobody in the Charlotte family has any respect for Big Mom's former husbands. Trying to keep his presence low-key, Sanji has to intervene by moving so fast and hitting Oven so hard that he's invisible to the naked eye. It's pretty much Sanji's only unique feat of strength in the entire arc, and it's really badass, but it comes at the cost of Chiffon being awkwardly forced into a damsel role so that the men can beat each other up a little. One step forward, three steps sideways!

These past few episodes have been a pallet cleanser to extremely mixed results. There are a ton of ideas that are interesting, but not especially productive towards the endpoint that the story is actually building to. The family drama stuff is tender, but also poorly defined. The only thing that really separates Big Mom's children from each other is that some of them have turned over to Team Straw Hat by pure happenstance, and some are still antagonistic out of an unexplored sense of family pride. Oven doesn't have his mom breathing down his neck in this scene. He's a jerk because he wants to be, and there are currently so many other places we could be drawing conflict from in a situation like this. Whether a given Charlotte kid is misguided or straight-up evil seems kind of arbitrary.

For all of its faults, this episode certainly isn't boring. I think this is the messiest stretch of the Whole Cake Island climax that we get, and it comes just as the anime's recent boom in quality is starting to calm down. Production-wise, this is a perfectly average episode. But "average" by Toei standards isn't really helpful once the story starts to get this tedious. A little more TLC could have gone a long way here.

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