- #50
When Tartaros first appeared :
The council got slaughtered -> Face was activated -> Face was destroyed-> Fiore was left defenseless in the possibility of a war with Alvarez AND Makarov decided to disband the guild.
Translation : Tartaros had an impact on the setting and by the extension the plot.
Furthermore the events that transpired concerning the mains as individuals gave room for their development : 1-Natsu and Gray lost their fathers (or kinda at least) 2-Lucy sacrificed one of her friends(kinda..) 3-Wendy finally learned to stand up for herself and activate DF 4- Erza was reminded of her childhood torture and had her confidence in herself shaken (supposedly)
Translation: On top of their impact on the setting/world/plot , or however you wanna call it they impacted the mains as well.
This crucifixion scene is nothing of the like. It's just gratuitous violence , most probably for shock value. It doesn't change the fact that half of the Spriggans were irrelevant (at best) so far. It doesn't change the fact that this arc lacks a chain of events. It's just filler until we get to Zeref and Acno.
It went from a ridiculous arc to a ridiculous arc coupled with a gratuitous scene.
I can't understand where the glorification of this chapter or the "in your face haterzz" comments come from......
^THIS SO MUCH.
Tartaros not only had great build up and pay off, but also lasting consequences. It changed every character involved, no matter if they won or lost. It had great and well written escalation of threat, the villains set up from the start that they are the threat and there were consequences from the very start. I mean one of first things they did was completely decimating the organization that existed since the very start of the manga and in such a brutal and striking way. And even though the first introduced Gates lost, they did not lose in shameful way. Even in losing they were portrayed as a threat. Jackal got owned and Tempesta got destroyed but neither of fights felt like a true win. Even in their defeats those two characters felt like a force to be reckoned with. And then things very nicely escalated from that. The destruction of the guild? The way elfman was used for that? Even if it was thwarted, it still had impact because of HOW it was done.
This arc just feels random like filler stuff. Mashima wants the readers to think this is some huge ass war, but so far this feels less urgent than even the damn Phantom Lord attack all the way at the start of the manga. Crucifixion scene would have worked damn well during Tartaros, but not with this. There's no reason to fear for those characters hanging on the crosses since every single character asspulled away all the consequences so far. There's no real reason to fear a spriggan approaching since most of them were shameful idiots who did not manage to accomplish anything at all.
Why should we even believe August hype? God Serena got SHITLOAD of hype since the very start of the arc, no scratch that, since the introduction of Four Gods. And he got an absolutely anticlimatic fight and death. Why should August be different?
If Avatar and GMG arcs are great example of great build up followed by awful letdown of pay off, then Spriggan arc is an example of shitty-to-nonexistent build up followed by letdowns and asspulls.
