Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest is one of the new anime series arriving in the Summer 2024 anime season, launching an all-new adventure for Team Natsu in a continent named Guiltina. Back in Episode 1, Natsu Dragneel and his friends met the ancient dragon-wizard Elefeseria, who asked them to find and seal away the five Dragon Gods. In Episode 2, “The Sea of Dragons,” that quest gets underway, and there’s plenty of action and adventure to be had.
Episode 2 has a variety of fun developments to offer, including Team Natsu’s challenge to take down the Water Dragon God while another wizard guild makes its debut with two powerful fighters. Then there’s the matter of Touka, the mysterious girl who recently accepted a role in the Fairy Tail guild, much to Gajeel Redfox’s suspicion. So far, the seemingly innocent Touka is enjoying the many perks of joining the guild, but Gajeel and Jellal Fernandez won’t accept her as a friend or trust her until they get to the bottom of this, if they can.
My Hero Academia is closing in on its ending, but Deku’s own ending has much farther reaching implications for the universe.
Team Natsu Meets the Fish-People of Ermina
A New Setting Presents New Life
While the protagonist is the central driving force in a series, many side characters have honed their skills in unimaginable ways.
Worldbuilding was never the Fairy Tail anime’s strong suit compared to the likes of One Piece and Berserk, but the anime can at least provide colorful and fun backdrops for the wizard adventures, which the Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest anime manages to do in its second episode. So far, Team Natsu’s members have enjoyed the odd sights here in Guiltina, such as exotic plants and jelly-like creatures, and now they are exploring the coastal town Ermina, which has a secret. Natsu and his friends are urged to consume magic potions, and hours later, they’re woken up in their hotel when the entire town is flooded. Fortunately, Natsu and his friends can breathe thanks to those potions, so they’re free to change into swimwear and meet the residents in their true forms.
Ermina is regularly flooded, and the people here are actually intelligent fish who happen to have human forms. It’s all fun and games at first, but when Natsu’s friends reveal their true goal of sealing away the Water Dragon God, the locals turn against them, including Kashima and Sharkette, among others. So, the himbo protagonist Natsu and his friends need Lucy’s spirit Gemini to grant them fish disguises, allowing them to find the next lead in their quest in peace. Fans may note that this leads to yet another instance of gratuitous fan service in the Fairy Tail anime, with Lucy being robbed of her swimwear, not just once, but twice. Such fan service may feel jarring or odd to anime fans who are more used to modern anime trending away from such things. If new Fairy Tail fans watch this anime to get a sample of the overall franchise, they must be prepared for that.
Another development in the underwater adventure arrives when Natsu and his friends are led to a metal cage housing a blonde woman who is evidently an intended sacrifice for the Water Dragon God, and that’s when the mysterious captive makes her move. As an aquatic blue dragon approaches, the captive breaks free with ease and butchers the dragon in a fight. Now this underwater adventure has taken on a violent edge, one that will continue throughout Episode 2 and most likely into Episode 3 as well once it airs.
Team Natsu Fights Kiria, And Then Madmole and Sujin Appear
More Powerful Wizards Enter The Fray
Bleach’s ongoing final season, Thousand-Year Blood War, is universally loved, but it was incredibly polarizing in its original form.
At first, Team Natsu thinks that the blonde woman, Kiria, has just killed the Water Dragon God for them in a surprisingly easy battle, but it is not so. Kiria realizes that the dragon she just slew was the Water Dragon God’s servant, but that does not stop her from doing the last thing Team Natsu expects. Kiria opens her mouth and starts gobbling up the dragon’s flesh, feasting on its body to power up. Kiria then explains that she is a Dragon Slayer, just like Natsu and Wendy are, but not quite in the same way. She does not just slay dragons — Kiria makes a habit of eating them, making her the first known Dragon Eater in the Fairy Tail franchise.
This is a brutal yet intriguing way to expand upon Fairy Tail‘s existing combat system, creating an alternative to traditional Dragon Slayers like Natsu, Wendy, and Gajeel. Kiria and her fellow Dragon Eaters are 5th generation Dragon Slayers, pushing the boundary of what Dragon Slayers can be in this franchise. And Kiria is not operating alone — later scenes in Episode 2 introduce her fellow guildmate Madmole, a heavily armored man who can repel any attack, even from Erza Scarlet herself. These two wizards belong to the guild Diabolos, which is likely situated here on Guiltina, meaning it may already rank among the strongest wizard guilds in the series. Diabolos has plenty of Dragon Eaters to its name, including the unseen member Skullion, and they are all hostile to Team Natsu.
This means a three-way battle is already emeging, with Team Natsu aiming to take down the Water Dragon God whle Diabolos’ members are racing them to find and devour that dragon for their own purposes. There’s little sign that these two wizarding guilds will cooperate in their mutual quest to find the Water Dragon God, and in fact, they are already coming to blows. Kiria spends much of her time in Episode 2 fending off Fairy Tail’s wizards, and there’s not much Natsu, Lucy, and the others can do to stop her. Then, the tension reaches the next level upon the arrival of the Water Dragon God himself, who surprises everyone with his humanoid form, including blue hair and two thick horns. In fact, he was the same man who briefly appeared in Episode 1, watching Team Natsu enter Ermina with his own two eyes. The episode ends on that cliffhanger, and time will tell what he thinks of the two guilds racing to capture him.
Lucy Heartfilia May Change the Parameters of the Entire 100 Years Quest
Lucy’s Perspective on the Quest’s Objective May Shift its Outcome
During a brief scene in Episode 2, Lucy Heartfilia wonders aloud if the 100 Years Quest actually means killing the five Dragon Gods or imprisoning them. She notes that the wording of Elefseria’s quest to them is ambiguous, because there is more than one way for a wizard or Dragon Slayer to interpret the stated goal of “sealing” those Dragon Gods away. Lucy wonders if her team is free to figure out their own way to deal with these five draconic beasts, and if so, that may make the quest easier. If Team Natsu is free to use any preferred method that suits their interests and abilities, then the quest may not be quite so challenging after all. Lucy even wonders if a dragon can be sealed by having its powers taken away and its fundamental nature changed, thus “sealing” the original dragon’s identity in a more abstract sense. This may make all the difference going forward as the quest continues and more Dragon Gods appear.
Fire Force mangaka Atsushi Ohkubo found some creative ways to make a fire-only combat system feel rich and complex all the same.
Gajeel and Jellal Dive Deeper Into the Enigma of Touka
Episode 2 focuses mainly on Team Natsu’s increasingly violent and dangerous mission in the flooded town of Ermina, but that’s not the only plot thread in progress here. Back home in Magnolia, most members of the Fairy Tail guild gladly accept Touka as one of their own, including the three Strausses, but Gajeel and Panther Lily are still leery of her. They are proven right when, for a few seconds, a cat-like tail is seen emerging from Touka’s clothes, right there in plain sight. The tail is gone before anyone can see it, so no one suspects a thing. So far, Gajeel’s amateur investigation is yielding nothing.
Touka’s cat tail could have been any number of things. One possibility is that Touka can use Take Over magic, just like Lisanna Strauss, to morph her body parts into those of animals. Veteran Fairy Tail fans have certainly seen Lisanna’s cat-girl form before, as a reference. The other, even odder possibility is that Touka is an Exceed in disguise, with the tail being part of her true body. Should that be the case, then Touka is from the pseudo-isekai world of Edolas like all Exceed are, and it’s anyone’s guess why an Exceed would want to join the Fairy Tail guild.
Meanwhile, the villain turned hero Jellal Fernandez is on Touka’s trail too, and given his skills and smarts, he might make more headway than Gajeel is. In Episode 2, Jellal visits the now-friendly Sabertooth guild to find a lead, presenting a photo of Touka to everyone, Rogue and Sting included. No one there has any solid answers for Jellal, but there’s no way Jellal will give up until he finds his answers. Now the stakes and anticipation about Touka’s mysterious arrival are even higher, giving fans another reason to catch the next few episodes and see what this new phase of Fairy Tail is really all about.
