THE Fairy Tail: 100 Years of Research The anime series has added a handful of new antagonists and villains to the story, as any action anime sequel would. However, the new villains are still not delivering as well as hoped, with the few known members of the Daibolos guild posing a real but not particularly dire threat to the Fairy Tail guild mages on the Guiltina continent. Furthermore, if the entire Fairy Tail guild mobilizes, then they can annihilate any dark guild or other villains, so episode 9 does the right thing and readjusts the relationship between heroes and villains.
The members of the Fairy Tail guild all wield powerful or even overwhelming magic, and together they can defeat any threat, dragon or human. That's why it's important that these mages fight each other using the brainwashing power of Whiteout magic, which not only raises the stakes in episode 9, but also serves as a throwback to a memorable story arc from earlier in the original Fairy Tail anime. Time passes as the wizards of Fairy Tail battle each other over Aldoron's titanic body, adding a much-needed level of urgency to this intense yet bloodless feud.
Episode 9's civil war battle solves two problems at once
United, the heroes of Fairy Tail fail to create much tension
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As a shonen action anime series, Fairy Tail must create believable tension and suspense about how and even if the heroes will defeat their enemies and prevent disaster. After all, anime fans know that the heroes usually win, so the trick is to make the situation seem hopeless and use organic and natural methods for heroes to overcome adversity and still win. The original Fairy Tail The anime has done this with mixed results, either by including just enough defeats or sacrifices to maintain a sense of danger, or by isolating a small team of heroes who cannot easily call upon the value of the power of friendship of the entire guild. Now, in the sequel anime, with the likes of Acnologia and the dark guilds defeated, the entire Fairy Tail guild is more united than ever. At first glance, nothing and no one can challenge such a large and powerful group, except each other.
So, by pitting a handful of Fairy Tail members against each other during battles in episode 9, the 100 Years Research cleverly dodges the potential problem of the entire guild banding together to overwhelm any group of villains with their sheer numbers. It's uncommon for anime heroes to have such a large, cohesive group to call upon, and instead, shonen anime focus on main trios or quartets like Team 7 in Naruto or Yuji Itadori's trio of sorcerer students in Jujutsu Kaisen. It is the exception when fans see something like the entire Demon Slayer Corps trying to assault Muzan Kibutsuji, while in Fairy Tailsuch tactics could easily become the norm. To address this, the 100 Years Research The anime first sends Team Natsu to a whole new continent to isolate them, then the White Wizard brainwashes most of Fairy Tail and sends them against Team Natsu.
In this way, the entire guild is at war with itself, ensuring that they can't just band together to crush the likes of the Diabolos guild, the mighty Ignia, any of the five Dragon Gods, or the White Mage herself. This is far from the first “friend vs. brainwashed friend” scenario in shonen anime, but on this scale, it seems like a fun novelty, while also ensuring that the guild's power is limited. This helps keep some stakes and tension on whether Team Natsu can get the job done in time while the White Mage tries to destroy the one-eyed Aldoron five.
Additionally, splitting the Fairy Tail guild against itself solves another potential problem: having too many protagonists to deal with at once. Having so many heroes at once not only ruins the tension over whether the heroes can overpower a stronger foe. Such numbers also overstretch the narrative, juggling too many characters and thus depriving many of them of a fair chance to shine. Again, sending Team Natsu to a new continent largely solved that problem, but they could still call on their comrades in an emergency to deal with their greatest enemies. So, with the White Mage brainwashing most of the guild, most members like Gajeel, Mirajane, and even Makarov Dreyar can still be included in the story for some screen time, but not as heroes. Giving them limited screen time is fine if they're antagonists to deal with rather than other heroes to keep track of in the long run.
The White Mage's Army is a nice nod to Laxus' civil war
It's similar enough to be evocative, but it also has new stakes.
This isn't the first time that members of the Fairy Tail guild have clashed with each other in non-lethal battles, and even Bickslow of the Thunder God Tribe says so himself in episode 9 as he faces Gray and Juvia on the battlefield. The original instance was the civil war that Laxus Dreyar instigated to eliminate the weaker members of the Fairy Tail guild, an event that turned the entire Thunder God Tribe into antagonists, and the city of Magnolia was nearly destroyed in the process. Now there's a new civil war, and it's important that while this is obviously a repeat of an older storyline in Fairy TailIt's not as redundant as it might seem. The stakes and methods are different enough to make this a fun callback to that previous story arc, but they accomplish different things for the story.
First off, this Fairy Tail civil war was instigated by an outsider, in this case the White Wizard. This takes some of the personal stakes out of this civil war, as all of the Fairy Tail guild members are innocent and this civil war isn't rooted in personal drama like it was last time. It might be a little disappointing for some fans that the personal aspect has disappeared, but this civil war needs to be different somehow, and furthermore, it's clearly meant to be a bump in the road rather than a serious story arc. Given the fast pace of the 100 Years Research anime, there's no time to completely rehash the original Fairy Tail Civil War arc. A quick reminder is all this anime needs, and at this rate, that's exactly what it's going to get.
Another difference between Fairy Tail's two civil wars is that this one has a time limit rather than a clearly stated goal of eliminating the weaker members of the guild. Different goals and stakes are a good way to distinguish these two civil war arcs, and again, this fits perfectly with the fast-paced anime sequel. This anime can't dwell too much on one particular plot point, so rushing the heroes into a race to protect or destroy the orbs of Aldoron is a good choice.
If the White Mage manages to destroy all five of Aldoron's orbs, then disaster will follow and the Hundred Year Quest will be seriously jeopardized. So, Team Natsu and Juvia must not only fight their guildmates, but also outdo them in protecting Aldoron's orbs. The life of an entire dragon depends on it and every minute counts, which adds a lot more excitement to a battle that the heroes will obviously win otherwise. The physical stakes if the heroes win this civil war aren't substantial enough on their own, so adding that time limit gives this arc some impact to help it move past the Mercphobia incident from earlier.
Episode 9 is an emotional summary of how far we've come.
The advantage of sequel anime is that they are all already strong.
When an anime franchise has an original series and a sequel series, there is one key factor that sets them apart that fans will take note of. In the original anime, the protagonist and his allies will be total underdogs with a lot to learn and a lot of room to grow, which is a shonen staple. Such was the case in Fairy Tail as Natsu, Lucy, and the others learned new spells, obtained new magical items, modified their attacks, and more. It was gratifying to see Lucy collect more Celestial Spirit Keys and see Natsu take his fire magic in new directions. However, in a sequel anime like Fairy Tail: 100 Years of Researchthe heroes have already reached final levels of power, which changes the narrative.
An example is clearly shown in episode 9, when the members of Team Natsu fight their whitewashed guildmates on Aldoron's body. Such fights are short, intense, and exciting to watch because these battles compress everything the heroes have gained into a short amount of time. Those battles aren't just fights: they're a vivid summary of how far the heroes have come, something only an anime sequel can pull off. Episode 9 makes it look glamorous when Lucy Heartfilia first summons Leo and Virgo to fight the Strauss, then ends the episode as a magical girl as she forms the Leo-Virgo hybrid star suit. It took a while for Lucy to pull off stunts like those in the original Fairy Tail anime, but here is one of the first things he will do during a fight.
Elsewhere, Natsu and his rival Gajeel Redfox take turns quickly outdoing each other with powers that took over 300 episodes to acquire, and Erza Scarlet may be doing something similar soon with her many swords and armor. Best of all, showing off these familiar powers suggests that Natsu, Lucy, and the others have even more room to grow and innovate, because if they've gotten this far, they can go a little further. That, above all, should make the rest of this sequel shonen anime worth watching.