ANIME MONDAY: Fairy Tail – “The Two Dragon Slayers” Review


Previously on Fairy Tail:

Fairy Tail stopped the Abyss Break spell from firing but soon found themselves in even worse trouble when Phantom Lord’s maste Jose entered the fight. With Gray, Elfman, & Mirajane down for the count, its up to a weakened Erza to hold of Jose while Natsu goes to have a rematch with Gajeel to save Lucy! Spoilers Ahead!

Natsu (Todd Haberkorn) reaches the top of Phantom Lord’s guild hall and engages in his long awaited rematch with Gajeel (David Wald). As Lucy (Cherami Leigh) & Happy (Tia Ballard) watch from the sidelines, they start to notice that Natsu is slowly starting to fight a losing battle against the Iron Dragon. As Natsu begins to get pummeled, Gajeel taunts him more by showing the destruction of the Fairy Tail guild hall.

This episode focues almost exclusively on the fight between Natsu & Gajeel so we don’t see much of anyone else who isn’t around while the fight is going on.

Said fight is a marvel to watch. Natsu & Gajeel blows in DBZ-esque fashion as the fight inside the guild hall and even in the air for a bit, matching each other blow for blow. We get a peek at some of Gajeel’s other abilities, like his Iron Dragon sword and his Iron Dragon Scales, both of which he uses to great effect to beat on Natsu.

The episode does take a bit of a detour in the middle when Natsu is knocked to an opening in a wall by Gajeel. Here he is forced to watch as Jose’s phantoms destroy the Fairy Tail guild hall. As the building is destoryed Natsu begins to reminisce on his early days in the guild as well as his first encounters with Gray (whose younger self is voiced by Ryan Reynolds), Erza (Colleen Clinkenbeard), Lisanna (Carrie Savage) & the others.

While it does distract a bit since the entire battle just stops it is nice to see some more development, we even find out that Erza taught him how to read after some friendly “persuasion”. Lastly we see a sad scene where he is standing before Lisanna’s grave.

The destroyed guild hall

Lucy is mostly used for moral support and a few comedic bits along with Happy and Gajeel’s entourage but she does do something of note when she summons her newest Celestial Spirit Sagittarius (Wilbur Penn), which she got after the Galuna Island arc. Sagittarius appears to be a man in a horse suit who shoots arrows. He helps Natsu regain his strength by shooting some arrows into some nearby machinery, causing it to explode and create fire for Natsu to eat.

“The Two Dragon Slayers” is a decent episode with consistent animation, good fight scenes, and some nice character development. While the flashback scenes kind of grind the episode to a halt, they aren’t enough to turn you off the entire episode and they serve their purpose well enough. The magic continues next week as the battle with Phantom Lord concludes.

3.5/5