Fai said:
Lucy...literally got offscreened.
One of main characters.
THe protagonist telling the whole story.
Got offscreened and is now in for some fanservice bondage.
Not only she got no real fight and got offscreened, now most likely Natsu will save her AGAIN and she will again serve as a way to further his plotline....
Not only that but the rest of chapter was nonsensical nakama speeches again and again and again as a filler.
Mashima, I keep expecting the WORST out of you and you KEEP surprising with how much worse you can write than mye expectations....
What I do think is hilarious is how Mashima seems to have zero direction in this arc
"Oh look Nasu has a tumor"> "Oh look tumor is gone" > "Oh look it is back"
"Oh look Zera is dead all along"> "Oh Look Zera is back"> "Nope she is not it was just some very farfetched illusion shit that made no sense this time!"
"Oh look God Serena is hERE!" > "OH look he got oneshotted!"> "oh look he is back!" > "nope oneshotted again!"
This literally feels now as if Mashima is pulling this arc out of his own ass with no real plan for it. Stuff is introduced, then retconned away, then reintroduced via more retcons and so on. Did anything in last few dozen chapters had any real importance or value beyond maybe one or two events? Not really. Mashima wrote himself into a corner, has no idea or plan on what to do and is stalling.
Realistically Lucy is not the best fighter, heck even she admits that, for example, Brandish, it was clear she was helding back, she could've made Lucy's organs small or big, its easy for her. And against DiMaria? Well DiMaria can stop time, how will Lucy be able to defeat her? Few can now actually... Also Holologrium is the only thing that can save her once, and then what? So in that aspect Mashima actually did something good this chapter, the fanservice... not so much. Lucy is indeed one of the main characters, but this war is obviously more about Natsu & Zeref than anything. This whole arc is a mess honestly, not like the others were perfect, no, by no means... this just topped GMG as the worst arc in Fairy Tail.