Fairy Tail Chapter 330: Trying To Be Funny

Comments:
Wow, this weeks chapter in Fairy Tail was pretty much a disappointment. Obviously nothing much happened, though we finally were introduced to the matchups of these fights which are Laxus vs. Atlas Flame, Cobra vs. Rock Dragon, Wendy vs. Zirconis, Natsu vs. Mothergale, Sting and Rogue are fighting just some dragons.

It was in some way just a gag chapter where there was some attempts to make humor, sure the perfume guy is trying to be funny hitting the dragon with his armpit smell but it's really not what I'd expect. Zirconis I really like in a way as a character, but his magic was a little bit gag-oriented also, which I'm really not a huge fan of. We'll see what's going to happen but this weeks chapter wasn't a good one.

Recap of Fairy Tail Chapter 330: Zirconis' Magic

-Natsu is on Mothergale dragon with Future Rogue, Rogue orders the dragon to spill some of his/her? eggs to the ground spawning some small dragonspawns.

-Laxus attacks Atlas Flame and hits him hard.

-Cobra arrives to save  the guild of Blue Pegasus who were opposing the dragon with rock skin.

-Then there's Zirconis whose magic erases human clothes.

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Toriko Chapter 232: Toriko Defeated!?

Comments:
Wow, I think that Toriko took the "award" for the best mainstream manga for this week.

It looks like that Setsunos and Zaus' fight is about to begin and without a doubt it will be interesting. We got some information about some mystery dark chef called Joa, who I believe was implied to being the leader of Neo. This is in my opinion pretty much amazing change of events, since it changes the balance of the series' "protagonist and antagonist group" setup. Previously there has been obviously good guys (IGO) and bad guys (Bishokukai), but now there's the third faction called Neo which without doubt will stir the soup up even more. The story seems to be getting more complex and I'm really loving that.

Then there is the obvious surprise which is Komatsu coming to the scene of Toriko and Starjun and sees that Toriko has been defeated. I'd like to believe that there's obviously something more to that, but in a way I'm happy to see that Toriko wasn't shielded by protagonist armor. There however may be some kind of deception that Toriko didn't get beat after all or something like that. It's very, very interesting choice from the author to not actually show the fight, but I'm sure there's good reason for that. I'd like to see Toriko evolve beyond how he currently is - his fighting style I'm not too fond of, even though it isn't bad at all. It just could be a bit more entertaining, but thankfully this series presents a lot more interesting characters so I'm not too concerned about that.

Recap of Toriko Chapter 232: Wriggling Shadows

-Setsuno has been wounded by 'traitors' sided with neo. Her face looks scary as hell and she frees herself destroying Kuribous hand in process.

-However it was not his hand which got destroyed but gimmick frypan.

-Setsuno starts telling that there are 5 cooking fest champions, Zaus, Yuda, Buranchi and her, but there's actually one more. She's talking about the dark chef Joa, who was banned from the world of cooking.

-Zaus surprisingly attacks Chiyo behind him piercing through her with his sword. He then uses Calorie gui, apparently sucking Chiyo out of energy.

-It seems that face-off between Setsuno and Zaus is about to begin.

-Fighting is going on and we are shown several people doing their stuff.

-Then we see some of Komatsu, who arrives to where Toriko and Starjun are and sees that Toriko has been defeated.

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One Piece Chapter 708: Luffy In Trouble

Comments:
A decent chapter this time, nothing special, but still fine One Piece quality.

It was pretty much expected that there would come a small fight and as expected it ended very short. I was pretty surprised that Don Chinjao was actually so strong and his head not getting pierced by a sword was pretty weird. More weird however was that Cavendish actually attacked Don Chinjao instead of Luffy, but maybe that was because he wanted to take down Luffy himself. Don Chinjao and his family are 'revealed' to have some real goal, if it isn't the Mera Mera fruit then what are they aiming for?

Then there was Crazy Rookie Bartolomeo, who seems to have some unknown, but seemingly cool power. I indeed found it funny him being so carefree and actually peeing outside the arena. It was pretty evident that Fishman Hack was somewhat hyped up during this and the last chapter, but it looks like it was supposed to boost Bartolomeos hype up even higher so to say. I find it very entertaining that the blocks have so many interesting and strong characters of who you can't really say who will win. In this case there are basically three who would be suitable for winning this block and they are Bartolomeo, Bellamy and mysterious gladiator Ricky. At this point I would like for Bartolomeo to win the block, but depending on how gladiator Ricky presents himself in the chapters to come I may have to change may opinion.

Recap of One Piece Chapter 708: Colosseum Of the Thieves

-Luffy has been found out, he still tries to convince that he is Lucy.

-Don Chinjao isn't convinced however and tries to headbutt Luffy breaking the ground.

-They say that Don Chinjao had a bounty of over 500 million when he was at his peak.

-Cavendish unseathes his sword/blade, which is Durandal, one of the world's legendary swords.

-Don Chinjao attacks with Battle head, Cavendish counters with beautiful blade - blue bird.

-Now Luffy attacks him, but it's uneffective. They say that Don Chinjao split an entire arctic continent with only a mere headbutt.

-We see that Don Chinjao's beard has grown for one reason or another. Don Chinjaos grandchildren, Sai and Buu come and stop him.

-Meanwhile the battle royale is on - Abdullah and Jeet have taken down Tank Lepanto.

-Bellamy however takes down both Abdullah and Jeet at the same time.

-We then see Bartolomeo peeing outside the arena - fishman Hack tries to attack him with karate, but his arm gets hurt instead.

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Naruto Chapter 629: Edgy Obito

Comments:
It's good to read some Naruto after a week long break. Nothing special really in this chapter, but I'll write up something.

This chapter when I think about it was a bit better than I first thought.  I'm sure that a lot of fans thought it was very disappointing for Obito to do all these things only because Rin was killed by Kakashi and it's pretty evident that Kishimoto realized this. He obviously wanted to clear this out of the way and what would have been better way to do that than conveniently make Kakashi and Obito go together to another dimension?

Even though Obitos reason for being "evil" got some clarity I still find it a bit lacking how it makes him seem a bit too edgy with all the fakeness of the world but then again, I myself can't think any good reason for evilness in general, so that's for sure one struggle for story authors to figure out.

What actually surprised me was the windhole in chest of Obito, which was a great pull by Kishimoto, it somewhat made the chapter in some weird way. Great way of showing Obitos current state of mind.

Recap of Naruto Chapter 629: Windhole

-There's a full storm going on and apparently a nuke-like huge explosion

-Some or most of the shinobis are all right thanks to Narutos chakra.

-Naruto runs out of power, but then everybody rises up, Hinata says for everyone to join their forces.

-Meanwhile Obito and Kakashi drop down to the other dimension.

-Kakashi starts attacking with Raikiri instantly, however he stops just before hitting Obito.

-Kakashi starts talking how Obito used to remind him of Naruto a lot.

-Obito clears the though out of the way that he in fact didn't start the war because of Rin.

-It's revealed that Rin herself to die by the hand of Kakashi since she was maid into the Jinchuuriki of the Sanbi.

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Nantsu No Taizai Chapters 16-27: Series is Progressing Very Well

Comments:
It's been a while since I've written recaps of Nanatsu no Taizai even though it would somewhat deserve them. So I decided to try something new this time: recap / comment 11 chapters in the same post!

It's great that Nanatsu no Taizai doesn't reveal too much. In chapter 16 there was the miraculous healing of the doctor who was stabbed pretty much straight through the heart. I like it how he's left to himself to speculate why it happened and the sins including Meliodas kept quiet. I'm pretty sure that they should know about it, but decided to leave it as a mystery. Soon we are also seeing something which brings us closer to the bigger picture of the series, straight quote: "When the skies are fillied with crossing shooting stars, Britannia will be visited by an immense menace. It is an omen of the beginning of a trial of ancient origins. A holy war between the guiding hand of light and the bloodline of darkness". (Chapter 16, page 19) Interesting, I must say.

As we moved forward to the arc of the Capital of the Dead, at this point I felt a bit bored for a while with series. Just a moment before the arc of the capital of the dead we were however shown the true essence of Meliodas' broken snake sword, which essentially looked like a huge spirit snake/dragon, I wonder what that is if it isn't his sacred treasure, which he apparently sold?

As I already said, the capital of the dead arc was a slight disappointed until King was finally showing his stuff to the readers. That part I really liked and no wonder, his spirit spear Chastiefol and his various abilities with it were visually very impressive. I really ended up liking King as a character also.

In the chapter 27 King explains to us that the sins as they were formed by King of Leoneth were given Sacred treasures, weapons which apparently boost their strength hugely. I really liked this revelation since it pretty much gives something to look forward to and gives some continuity for the story. We still have yet to see three more sins, who without a doubt will be pretty interesting as the sins until this point have all been very unique characters with very likeable personalities. We don't know how many sacred treasures are still lost, but we will be having some more journeys concering the three which were stolen, sold or lost by Meliodas, Ban and Diane. It's a great move from the author to reveal the story and the background bit by bit, but not too much and at the same time make the readers wait for more along with the revelations.

I find it extremely pleasing that the story has managed to kept it's extremely swift pacing: there's nothing better than a good story with good characters (though with only decent art) that progresses so swiftly that there's not many chances if not any for boredom. Though I have to admit that the Capital of the Dead didn't live up to my expectations, but it ended up being pretty good with Kings showdown, which was pretty much amazing.

Recap of Nanatsu No Taizai Chapters 16-27:

Chapter 16

-Baste Dungeon has just been destroyed.

-The previously stabbed doctor is surprisingly alright and his wound closed itself. The same thing happened with Meliodas' wound.

-Fox's sin of greed, Ban is formally introduced at this point. He's wearing some badass leather outfit.

-The sins + princess + the doctor have a party.

Chapter 17

 -Our heroes are looking at a map and planning which way they should go. They travel in the hut which is on a huge pig.

-They encounter couple of knights who present themselves as the holy knights of the kingdom. They almost let the sins pass until Diane accidentally reveals their identities.

-Then something appears that moves quickly and eats the knights, it's a black hound. Ban tries to intimidate it, but the black hound grows in size instead.

-Captain Meliodas drops down and grabs his broken sword which shows to the black hound as a huge dragon / snake-like thing. It's obvious that it doesn't show to the other people around them. The hound retreats.

-Their destination is the capital of the dead, they'll look for King there.

-Then King is introduced as a floating, young looking kid who's talking to Gilthunder It's revealed that the black hound is something like a pet to King.

Chapter 18

-The three of the sins finally arrive to the village which is called "Capital of the dead"

-Ban goes to look for information and sees a kid at a rundown place.

-Elizabeth starts asking Meliodas what kind of person King is. Meliodas tells a great story about Ban, King and stuffed animals.

-Ban encounters another kid who stabs him, understandably it doesn't really concern Ban much. They tell how Holy Knights messed with them too.

-Suddenly Ban sees King in front of him and coughs blood. King stabbed him with a huge spear and says hello Ban. Ban however doesn't recognize King in his child form.

Chapter 19

-King makes a huge hole to Ban's chest with his spear. The hole gets rejuvenated quickly and King tells us Ban's nickname: Ban the undead.

-King tells us about Ban's sin of greed, which he satisfied as the price for immortality. Ban killed the saint of the fountain of youth.

-King and Ban fight, King seems pretty powerful with his spear as he can float himself as move his spear in the air with his will alone.

-We see that Ban does something, but we don't get to see what because Meliodas interrupts him.

-The other sins are happy to see King, but King decides to just flee.

-The sins want to go to the capital of the dead and are revealed that that's where King also wants to go.

Chapter 20

-The kids tell the sins a tale how they could go to the capital of the dead.

-We see King in the forest, he seems to have some kind of grudge with Ban.

-The sins manage to get to the capital of the dead, which looks like a world made of crystal pillars.

-Ban starts chasing something, King follows him.

-Back at the village the kids are amazed as the sins disappeared, then some woman knight comes before them..

Chapter 21

-The woman is revealed to be a Holy Knight, who grabs the kids and forcefully orders them to reveal the way to get to the capital of the dead.

-Ban and King have a small miniature fight and they talk about the past.

-King shows us a flashback about his hometown and how a certain bandit was after the hidden treasure the town was guarding. The bandit stole from the "fountain of youth" a cup of water that gave life and never ran dry. The bandit killed the guardian saint of the fountain and the saint happened to Elaine, Kings sister.

-Kind says that his sacred treasure has many forms, he presents one of its forms, spirit spear chastiefol form three and stabs Ban with it. It seems Ban as he can't die, starts to just petrify.

-Meanwhile the holy knight hits herself in the chest, taking a shortcut to the capital of the dead, essentially killing herself.

Chapter 22

-The sins and the holy knight start fighting, Hawk flees along with Elizabeth.

-Holy Knight tells us something about Dianes ability which is exclusive to the members of the giants clan, which is the ability to bend iron like it's made of toffee and raise the ground up like towers.

-Diane can turn minerals into sand, which manifests as an ability "Sand Whirl". She however gets out of it quickly

-Meliodas fights with her bare handed, not using his sword. He is then about to grab his sword when the Knight attacks and the Knights explosion hits herself. We are revealed that Meliodas' ability is "Full counter".

-Meanwhile, Ban gets fully petrified

Chapter 23

-King is about to leave when he realizes that Elaine is near them. He sees that Elaine kisses Ban and the petrification is released. Elaine doesn't let King see her, as she's still mad to him for leaving them in the past.

-It seems that King had somewhat misunderstood the situation with Ban and his sister.

-The fight continues with the sins and the Holy Knight whose power is "Explosion". Ban appears and stops her with his unknown power.

Chapter 24

-Bans power is "Snatch", his powers aren't well-known to the kingdom, but it seems he's able to somehow telepathically grab things. The knight attacks him with Drift bomb.

-The three sins are having a bit of a trouble with the knight. Meanwhile King and Elaine are talking and she tells him that he fought seven hundred years of loneliness because King left the country. It seems that Ban killed Elaine pretty much because she wanted so.

-As the sins are having a little bit of trouble with the knight, King finally joins the battle.

Chapter 25

-King, Grizzly's sin of sloth has joined the battle.

-We are seen the legendary spirit spear, Chastifol in action. It's said to be a holy weapon crafted from the sacred tree only found in the fairy realm.

-King's power is revealed to be "Disaster"

-It's one on one and the Holy Knight is having some serious trouble with Chastifol chasing her.

-Holy Knight starts to load "Brilliant detonation", which seems to generate a huge explosions.

-King uses spirit spear Chastiefol's form five, "increase", which multiplies the quantity of the spears by ten or hundred-fold.

-King is formally introduced as Fairy King Harlequin, The King of Fairies as he destroys the holy knight.

Chapter 26

-The Holy Knight Geera is "defeated" and the sins start to return to the world of the living.

-King introduces himself to Princess Elizabeth with his old form.

-At the same time we see Geera tied to a tree, Lord Helbram is front of her saying that she failed.

-King is saying that the sins should have been a lot powerful that they were fighting the Holy Knight Geera. he asks them what happened to their Sacred Treasures. Bans was stolen, Meliodas sold his and Diane lost hers.

Chapter 27

-King is surprised that the sacred treasured entrusted by King of Leoneth when the seven deadly sins were formed were lost.

-King explains how powerful the sins should be with their weapons by using the lake as a parable.

-They then talk about what's going on with the kingdom and the holy knights, Geera is also revealed to being "the new generation" of holy knights

-They arrive to new town and see that there's new wanted poster of princess Elizabeth. Understandably they get soon recognized.

-New holy knight is introduced, Griamor, who's essentially a huge man on a huge horse. He's about to kill civilians for "false" report, but Elizabeth runs to stop him before that.

-Griamor grabs Elizabeth, but gets interrupted by Elizabeth's sister Veronica.

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Fairy Tail Chapter 329: The Plot Becomes Clearer

Comments:
I somewhat enjoyed Fairy Tail once again, these whole dragon shenanigans are fresh enough for me to enjoy this thoroughly.

So the plot has become pretty clear at this point: in the future the gate wasn't opened and the dragons didn't come through, but it was acnologia who started ruling the world seven years from now. Future Rogue isn't as corrupted as we thought, but still he makes for a bad guy at this point. He does want to stop Acnologia, but still he's fixated on ruling the world himself. At this point we do have seven dragon slayers versus seven dragons, now that Cobra has arrived to the scene. Maybe we'll be seeing from three to six chapter per dragon, which hopefully will be pretty interesting.

But there's a small fallback to all this. For the whole time there's been the mystery of "seven" in Fairy Tail, which I've thought as somewhat intriguing, but if the whole point of the seven was this moment, where seven dragon slayers will be fighting against seven dragons then I'm a bit disappointed. Of course the series won't be ending to defeating these seven dragons, since there's still Acnologia + Zeref left to be defeated. It's pretty interesting how the rest of the series looks a lot clearer at this point, after only one chapter. I might be wrong though.

I believe that the dragons are of course made to be defeated at this point, so that the seven dragonslayers will get their powerup, though I dunno whether Sting and Rogue will get their second one. I doubt that. This actually makes me think about how the "good dragons", who were allied with humans actually foresaw all this and raised the kids to be dragonslayer, we still don't know why they went to hiding, maybe to not to be killed by Acnologia?

Recap of Fairy Tail Chapter 329:

-Natsu is standing on top of the tower, Future Rogue orders his dragon to kill Natsu.

-Natsu tries to attack Future Rogue, but is unsuccessful, Rogue tells him to watch the town below.

-Down on the ground Fairy Tail is fighting against Atlas Flame dragon, Makarov tries to punch it's burning body, but gets burned himself.

-Meanwhile, Sabertooth guild is fighting against the dragon. Rufus remembers that both Sting and Rogue killed dragons when they were young, Sting admits that it's half true and we see that the dragon in fact told Sting to kill him.

-Rogue says that Skiadrum was ill so he just assisted him to die.

-Then the scene changes to Natsu and Future Rogue, and Future Rogue drops the bomb: in the future there wasn't dragons ruling the world, but a single dragon, Acnologia.

-Natsu then hits and drops the dragon that Future Rogue is flying on.

-The chapter ends when the seventh dragon slayer arrives, Cobra. Next chapter's title will be "Zirconis' magic".

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Toriko Chapter 231: Zebra Unleashed!

Comments:
It's great to see Zebra once again. I've always been very fond of his abilities, which in my opinion are being used in sp imaginative manner that it actually manages to amuse me quite much.

The Four Heavenly Kings have all had great powerups, Sani literally has the power to basically eat anything around him and we still haven't even seen what's up with Coco and Toriko. At this point it looks like Zebra doesn't have any big shot to fight against, I actually thought that the Nitros would present some sort of challenge to him but I was terribly wrong. It seems that the Nitros are nothing short of fodder to him at this point.

There is so much for the author to go through at this moment: there's Mansam + Shigematsu, Setsunos fights, Toriko vs Starjun, Coco vs. the guy I don't remember at this point (I do remember that they jumped into the black hole) and most likely a lot more that I can't recall at this time. I'll be interested in seeing the continuation for this arc. 

Recap of Toriko Chapter 231: Zebra Counterattacks!

-People are watching the chef's holy land, coookinh island which has turned into a sea of flames. They are wondering how they got there and quickly come to conclusion that it was Zebra who "shot" them there.

-The weird looking scum beast handler and another guy try to attack Zebra, but they get countered by Voice breath and beat punch.

-He then sets his eyes towards the Nitros. Zebra quickly beats one of them with martial arts, voice burst, sound knuckle and Onsoku idou (="Speed of sound movement"). He then uses sound bazooka, which shakes entire arena.

-Setsuno and Chiyo are fighting: Setsuna has lowered the 'pressure' around Chiyo, making lack of air around her. Setsuno soon gets grabbed by some giant guy. Another one uses Shokujutsu "Calogie Gui" on her and finally cooking king Zaus hits her with Ittou Rinne Oroshi.

-Setsuno is understandably enraged now.

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One Piece Chapter 707: Luffy Is Found Out!

Comments:
Great to have early chapters this week. Some things that stuck to my mind this week:

In B Block the king Elizabello the second is hyped pretty much. It seems he does have pretty much power, but not too much - destroying enemy fort's wall with only one punch and having to recover a lot after that isn't much in the world of One Piece. We'll probably see him using the punch in one way or another and I can't help to even predict what's going to happen with it.

Then we were shown some of the people who were introduced earlier, Oda has apprently decided to show us a bit more in detail what people can do. Too bad that we didn't see Bartolomeo doing his stuff, but I sure like his carefree nature. The mystery man was indeed interesting, but there's really nothing much to say about him. That older spectator seemed to recognize him, but understandably we weren't revealed any more. It's great that there is constantly something to wait for in weekly chapters.

Bellamy sure has changed. Last time we saw him on Jaya we really didn't see much of him, only bouncing from one building to another and then getting one-shotted by Luffy. I couldn't help but to notice that his skills remind me a lot of Luffy and in some way spring fruit is very similar to Luffy's. I believe that it's so underrated fruit that Oda may as well have some role for Bellamy in the near future.

Finally, Luffy gets found out. Don Chinjao recognizing him and pretty much saying that he hates Luffy was a pretty big surprise to me. Cavendish, who also bears some hatred against the supernovas is an extra at this point: Luffy is certainly in a pinch now. He's currently standing in between two apparently pretty strong people, but I wonder if they are going to start fighting, when that might be against the rules of the Corrida coloseum. We'll see.

Recap of One Piece Chapter 707: B Block

-So B-blocks battle royale has started.

-Tactician Dagama is sure that they will be taking the Mera-Mera Fruit with them. He thinks that their king Elizabello the 2nd is a born weapon of destruction. The punches he throws with his body are so terrific that he only needed one punch to open a hole in the enemy's fort. However he can only throw one of those punches.

-It seems that Dressrosa's captain Lepanto has leapt over to help Elizabello for money. Lepanto tries to attack Bellamy, but Bellamy dodges with his spring spring ability.

-Bellamy reminds me a lot of Luffy, he uses Spring Death Knock to hit Lepanto.

-In the water surrounding the arena there are school of "Little fighting fish", which attack people who fall in to the water.

-We see little bit of Abdullah and Jeet, then the scene changes to "Hyakudanhack", fishman who uses Fishman jujutsu and is a friend of Jinbei (Jimbe).

 -Then there's Long legged tribe Jaokundou martial artist, Blue Gilly, who uses his legs to attack the gladiators.
 
-Then there's an unknown gladiator, who seems to be incredibly strong. (Former) Gladiator Ricky.

-Luffy and Cavendish are talking, Cavendish once again tells about his resolution to kill the "worst generation", those who were rookies two years ago.

-Then a huge man, Don Chinjao, comes near Lucy (Luffy) and Cavendish, asking from Strawhat Luffy, whether Garp is doing well. He then says that he almost got killed by Garp in the past and decided to hate him until his grandchildren's generation.

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Naruto Chapter 628: Final Battle is About to Begin

Comments:
It's great to see some of the previously dull war when there's something to wait for: I really liked reading this weeks chapter.

As Naruto has already risen already to the lead of the Ninja alliance, it's been for a long time a definite indicator that Naruto will in fact be Hokage in the end of the series. Of course this has been in some way obvious for the whole time, but I just rolled an idea around my mind where Naruto has actually gone beyond the idea of being Hokage and resigns the position for someone else. That would be an excellent ending in my opinion, but the whole series is built all the way from the beginning for Naruto to achieve the status of Hokage so I still think that it's the most probable scenario.

Obito and Kakashi are going to have their final clash in other dimension - I really don't find much interest in that since Kakashi has pretty much lost his value to entertain long after the early days. Don't get me wrong, he is still pretty much awesome, but not as awesome as he used to be. This seems to be just a way for Kishimoto to deal with Obitos resentment towards Kakashi, I hope it doesn't drag for too long.

 And finally we have the alliance versus Madara + Juubi. It looks like we are going to have the final battle pretty soon. Sasuke, Orochimaru and the previous hokages are along the way to battle against Madara. So it will in the end be that Sasuke and Naruto unite forces to fight against the bigger evil. It will without a doubt be an amazing battle, since there are basically the most powerful people fighting together. I just hope that Kishimotos art will keep up, it hasn't been too bad, but there's always room for improvement. As the series is going towards it's end, it would be perfect if Kishimoto would ie. release a chapter biweekly just to hone the art to the max. Even though it would be nice to read a weekly Naruto, I still appreciate good quality just too much.

 Recap of Naruto Chapter 628: Here and from now on

-The fight continues between the alliance and Madaras bunch. -Madara and Obito attack with a fire/flame breath -attack, but Narutos Kyuubi chakra manages to protect everyone. Sakura is wondering whether this harms Naruto in some way.

-Obito tries to attack Naruto from above using time/space ninjutsu, Naruto however manages to dodge. It looks like Juubi is storing up chakra.

 -Then we have some friendship stuff, Naruto announces that not having his friends is the most painful thing for him.

 -Then we see some Madara, who notices familiar chakra approaching: it's Hashiramas chakra and Madara seems to be trembling with excitement by it.

-Kakashi and Obito went together to other dimension, Juubi released some powerful jutsu which created complete destruction with hurricanes and lightning.

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Fairy Tail Chapter 328: Seven Dragons

Comments:
A great chapter, we got to see a lot of dragons once again which is always pretty nice. I really liked most of things in this chapter and I'm going to tell you why:

First of all, I think it's great that they managed to shut down the gates. There was a slight disappointment about that to be honest, since I actually waited for something else from the "zodiac", than all of the twelve celestial spirits coming at the same time. I was somewhat hoping for something bigger and more impressive, but that's just me. It was just a thing that came to my head during the chapter.

The reason why it's so good that they shut down the gates is pretty simple: otherwise there would be too much dragons story wise. Hiro Mashima would either have to tune down individual dragon's strength to at least make it seem that the Fairy Tail characters have some chance, so this is a lot better way to do it. Seven if without a doubt some sort of magical number in this manga and it's also a good number for dragons against who our heroes have to fight against. There's enough variety in the dragons which I went throught in the last chapter, which is surely a good thing.

So the aim of Future Rogue came clear in one panel, which I found a bit weird. I expect that there's something else to it and surely we will see some sort of flashforward or a story told by Future Rogue how he came to be like he is.

From Fairy Tail as a series I'm hoping for a long arc this time: there's a lot for things that Mashima could do now with all the possibilities. In my mind I see that they would have to plan carefully, train and do all kind of crap to take down even one dragon. That would somewhat keep things in perspective about the dragons actual strength, but I'm not too confident that this will happen. The most likely scenario would of course be that all the guild joined together in friendship manage to take down the dragons.. Which in my opinion would be a horrible turn of events.

Then there's Natsu who seems to have done some bodybuilding in the span of getting beat up by Future Rogue and now. Natsu really did get his ass handed to him the last time they fought, so I'm really not expecting him to go against the Future Rogue + most likely immensely powerful dragon. I'd find it too weird for Natsu to suddenly powerup so much that he would take both of them down.

Recap of Fairy Tail Chapter 328: Zodiac

-The dragons are flowing through the eclipse gate

-Lucy is trying to close the gate by pulling the lever, but she doesn't have enough strength. Arcadious notices this.

-Yukino comes running to the scene and says to Lucy that they will use all twelve celestial keys to close the gates.

-Together they say "Celestial spirit of the twelve golden paths, lend us the power to seal this evil" "Open, twelve gates of the Zodiac". Then all the 12 celestial spirits come at once and try to push the door shut and finally they succeed.

-Seven of the dragons came through however. Future Rogue comes to the scene and says that seven will suffice: his motives are coming clear, he or someone he works for wants to control them.

-Future Rogue announces the era of dragons where human species shall become extinct. He then uses the secret art of domnating dragons, Dragon manipulation magic and rides away along with one of the dragons.

-He then says that one of them can stay and do as he pleases: coincidentally it's the one dragon they met at the dragon graveyeard (Dragon's grave), Zilconis.

-It seems though that another one stayed too called Atlas Flame, dragon whose body is covered in flames.

-The guild of Sabretooth are trying to take down the one who has a weird head. Blue Pegasus are attacking the one with rock/earth body. They soon realize that dragons scales are too tough.

-The chapter ends with Natsu being on top of a tower, planning to attack Future Rogue who's flying over him.

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Toriko Chapter 230: Zebra On The Move

Comments:
Pretty much feels like that this week was pretty weak in chapter wise in basically every manga. One Piece felt really short, Naruto is on hiatus, Bleach is pretty much crap anyways and now Toriko offered somewhat uninteresting build-up chapter.

Pointers:
So Elg vs. Branchi got its final moments with Elg showing his 'true' face, which was highlighted as being very ugly. The whole point of that may have seemed very pointless, but the reason for that was to bring out Branchis great nature of symphatizing with his enemy. That was in my opinion pretty good moment and displays good eye for such things from the author.

Then we get something from the battlefield: Yuda rises up and then things start to shift somewhere else: at the IGO Neos plans are starting to move and the ugly guy whose name I now don't remember apparently killed some chefs who were holding a meeting there. Then we see Mansam getting stabbed by a giant snake controlled by Shigematsu, IGO's (former I presume) vice president, who apparently has turned to Neo. On the surface these things don't look like much, but in my opinion bring some depth to this manga. In One Piece I love how the things are moving on the background and situation constantly changes around the world and now I'm seeing similar trend going on in Toriko. First we had basically two major organizations, IGO being regarded as somewhat good and Bishokukai clearly bad - Neo is still pretty much mystery at this point but it's very clear that Neo is going to stir things up.

The final, major build up of this chapter is Zebra finally getting on the field. His entrance didn't lack any hype: he took out instantly probably hundreds of scum beasts who themselves were advertised as being very strong. I'm looking forward to see who he's going up against and especially how he has evolved skillwise.

Recap of Toriko Chapter 230: Betrayal!

-After receiving so many shocks Elg's regenration has stopped and his real, ugly face has surfaced.

-Branchi somewhat comforts him saying that he's not ugly and continues that in his village there are Daruma, Kappa and Oni who are real monsters. Then it seems that Elg dies.

-On the next page we hear words Ishoku Dougen - Sosei giri, meaning that medicine and food have the same origin / resurrection cut. It's Yuda who rises up and is pretty angry to Bishokukai.

-In IGO headquarters people there are in panic thinking that they should send people over. However it seems that someone talking to Shige has betrayed IGO and killed all the chefs in the meeting.

-Then we finally see some of Mansam, who destroys one GT robo with Wanted punch. He then is is suddenly pierced with a spike coming out of a huge snakes mouth. It's Shigematsu, vice president of IGO riding that particular snake.

-People in the battle look upwards and see a huge amount of scum beasts coming down. We are also introduced to the concept of Food pressure, which is similar to Food honor, it pretty much tries to control food with sheer force.

-Suddenly all of those monsters drop down and we see a huge monster with a scythe representing Zebra. "Shioto"

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One Piece Chapter 706: Change of Bellamy The Hyena

Comments:
I have to say that compared to quality of One Piece chapters this weeks chapter was in my opinion of somewhat lower quality. I'm basing this mostly on the feeling that I had after I had read the chapter and when usually I get sort of sense of excitement after reading One Piece chapter, this week I had none. This however is somewhat understandable, since we are on this boat for the long run so it's somewhat impossible to make incredible chapters every week. Those incredible moments have to be of course built up in good manner.

Even though I didn't get any seriously good feelings about the chapter I really don't have anything bad to say about it except that it felt extremely short. The essential change of Bellamy was this week's chapters main point and very understandably. In the span of two years he managed to change from a somewhat filler character into a villain who I now consider a lot "better" in a way. I like it how such a character has been going through not only in means of outer appearance, but more importantly in change of ideals, which is in some way one of the main point of the whole manga.

I think that Oda really succeeded in bringing up a character which earlier was very uninteresting and spin him up in a way making him a lot interesting than before. The more I think about it the more I love this weeks chapter title: "I won't laugh at you".

Recap of One Piece Chapter 706: I won't laugh at you

-Captain of the Balt Club pirates, Bartolomeo the Cannibal with Bounty of 150 million beli is finally properly introduced. He somewhat looks like a vampire. He throws a ball at audience which seems to hate him. The audience thinks it's a bomb, but they are mistaken.

-One more person is missing, who is considered as exact opposite to Crazy Bartolomeo, he isn't introduced by name, but the announcer is pretty much describing someone who could only be Bellamy the Hyena.

-Back at the coliseum, there are a lot of people hurt from the battle with Jesus Burgess. Someone then bumps to Luffy and he is no one other than former captain of the Bellamy Pirates, Bellamy the Hyena, user of the Bane Bane fruit, bounty of 195 million beli.

-Bellamy the Hyena recognizes Luffy, who also recognizes Bellamy. Bellamy says that he went to the Sky island skypiea and changed. His resolution comes clear soon: if he wins the tournament, he will be raised to the status of leader in the Don Quixote family.

-We are then shown the C-block and its most promising fighters including Armed warrior Sai, Gladiator Lucy (Luffy!), Assassin, Kelly Funk, Bounty Hunter Jean Ango, Armed warrior Boo, Boxer Ideo, Fighting Bull, Giant Warrior Hajrudin, Assassin Bobby Funk and Don Chin Jao

-D-block includes Necromancer Mummy, Adventurer Orlumbus, Cavendish, Gladiator Meadows, Fighting Lion, Gladiator Rebecca, Pyromanic Damask, Gladiator Acilia, Army Captain Rolling Logan, and Army Commander Suleiman, once  again some of the names unreadable.

-Then there's B-block which includes Fighting king Elizabelio, Brawler Bluegilly, Army Commander Tank Lepanto, Criminal Abdullah, Pirate Bartolomeo, Gladiator Ricky, Pirate Bellamy, Tactician Dagama, Fishman warrior Hack and Criminal Jeet.

-The battle of B-block is beginning. Bellamy is thinking who he should take out first, we then see that some of them are combining forces even though it's battle royale.

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Fairy Tail Chapter 327: Dragons Are Finally Here!

Comments:
Ok, this was somewhat expected, but I still enjoy the current events pretty much.

First: Dragons are alwasy cool and I pretty much enjoy Hiro Mashimas designs of dragons. He manages to create a lot of varity between the dragons which is a great thing to do. The entrance of the first dragon was pretty much well done and was visually impressive.

Here are the different kind of dragon designs which we got, basically all of the dragons in Fairy Tail chapter 327, except for the one dragon in the first picture. We got a rock/earth dragon (Rock/earth dragonslayer, anyone?), some unknown, but rather cool looking dragon. I'm looking forward to see more of different kinds.

Second: This turn of events hopefully represents a whole new "chapter" in Fairy Tail story: The arrival of ten thousand (It would require pretty much continuous stream of dragons for a very long time to actually make ten thousand of them go through the gates)  will pretty much be a huge threat to the existence of the people of the world. I'll be very interested in seeing which way it will go, but I believe that we will at least be introduced to some new interesting characters, including the gods of Ishval.

There are couple of things that are pretty much shrouded at this point. First is the reason why the parents of dragonslayers, Igneel, Grandine etc. Disappeared. I would like to believe it's a separate event and it has been made clear that they are not coming through the gate since they knew about Natsus and Wendys progress in this timeline and were apparently hiding somewhere in the world. However the timing of their disappearance and the date of current happenings, which is "coincidentally" 7th of July.

It's still pretty much a mystery why ie. Future Rogue wanted the gates to be opened even though he must have known that the dragons came through the gates. The whole different timeline shenanigans need some light to be shine upon them, as I really don't feel like parsing them down.

Recap of Fairy Tail Chapter 327: My Share

-Lucy is yelling for everyone to close the doors.

-She is saying that door isn't an eclipse cannon, but a door connected to 400 years ago.

-Then suddenly a tremor hits which is originating from the castle. Then we see it: A huge dragon is coming through the Eclipse gate and stars destroying city surrounding it.

-More and more dragons are coming through the gate, Lucy is trying to close the gates with nearby trigger.

-The gate is in fact a device that puts together magic from the book of Zeref (Zelef in this translation) and celestial spirit magic. The full moon tonight is corrupting the magic so it connected with 400 years ago, in time in which dragons existed.

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Toriko Chapter 229: Tengu Branchi Is Awesome

Comments:
Well, a decent chapter in my opinion this week. Last week I was wondering how would it be possible for Branchi to defeat an immortal being, except for containing him in some way which would make Elg unable to do anything.

The conclusion was a bit better than I expected, but felt really a bit forced. It's great that the author decided to bring an immortal character into play, but immortality in itself is a bit hard concept in my opinion in this kind of mangas since it should be used very sparingly. I have to be honest that I really don't get it how it would be possible for something to be electrically charged in such a way that it would keep 'hitting' the target continuously, but in any case, I'll leave it up to the freedom of the series. In any case it would be pretty much useless to argue about how stuff works in a manga which is only limited by imagination.

The fight didn't leave up to expectations except that I ended up liking Tengu Branchi pretty much and I hope that we'll be seeing him more after this arc. Hopefully he will join Toriko, Komatsu and others when they head out to the gourmet world. I have always somewhat fancied electricity/lightning as power in series and I think that Tengu Branchi is very well designed, enjoyable character.

Recap of Toriko Chapter 229: VS Immortality

-Branchi vs. Immortal Elg continues.

-Branchi concludes that Elgs regenerative ability is "Nou-darake", which literally means "full of brains"

-It's a gene which is located in the head of an organism called planarian. Then we get a lot of explaining about Branchis techinque and some deductions about Elg wounding his cheek. No wonder Toriko needs some time to get translated.4

-Elg then proceeds to attack with all of his bodies, but Branchi rises up, locks on to all bodies and uses Heiretsu, "Eleki Cutter", turning electricity into sharp blades. He then continues with Fuurai Kamaitachi.

-However, Elgs immortal body is constantly adapting and it seems he's unshaken by Branchis attacks. He then starts kicking Branchi continuously until Buranchi is lying on the ground.

-Tengu Branchi does indeed have a trump card - he explains that his body is like a power plant which can convert all energy from the outside into electricity.

-He has accumulated huge amounts of electricity, which allows him to use Ougy Chokuretsu Daitai Dengeki which is essentially a huge bolt of lightning.

-Elg can regenerate as much as he wants, but that attacks electrically charged him so even if his cells rot and regenerate back he is going to keep getting hit by that attack forever.

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One Piece Chapter 705: Crazy Rookie Bartolomeo Hyped Up

Comments:
Needless to say, it was a good chapter even though there was minimal amount of happenings this time. Pointers:

Ok so the one guy who took the spotlight in this chapter was obviously Bartolomeo. Oda decided to introduce us to his advisor Gambia, who was then taken down by Mainard the Pursuer. It seemed as Mainard was supposed to be someone very strong, but the main goal for Oda was to hype Bartolomeo up. I'm very interested in seeing who and what kind of guy he is.

Then we got finally a confirmation that the blind swordsman is in fact Fujitora and I believe that his name was Isshou-san. It was expected and there's really nothing much to say about him. What I'm wondering is that how is it that they decided to go to the Green Pit, maybe Doflamingo tipped the marines off? Either way, I'll be waiting to see what's really going to happen there.

This chapter was in essence a build up chapter once again and I really though that it wouldn't be possible for One Piece to be any more interesting, but it seems that I was seriously wrong. I think that every situation with every character at this point is interesting enough that I can't wait to see what's going to happen with each and every one of them. Of course the tournament is the most interesting case at this point, but I can't say that I would be disappointed if the focus would change to the other strawhats.

Once again one more week of excruciating waiting for the next chapter. Feels bad man.

Recap of One Piece Chapter 705: Maynard The Pursuer

-The "champion" appears, Jesus Burgess. Franky is in the audience thinking that he should go and do his job. The one legged toy soldier wants to tag along.

-A certain marine is near the audience writing peoples names up: "Pirate Mercenary" Heildion, "Missionary" Gambia. He's obviously writing down pirates who are participating in the tournament.

-Scene changes to some guy at the corner of the colosseum's changing rooms: he's saying that "he'll as Isshou-san right away", it may be that he's talking to the previous guy writing down pirates' names. We are then introduced to "Bartolomeo Pirate crew advisor", Missionary Gambia.

-This guy is then introduced as Capman Marine HQ Vice Admiral Maynard the Pursuer, he took out Gambia.

-The blind swordsman seems to be a high up marine, it's seems certain that he's in fact Fujitora. He says to his underling that they should go to Green Pit. He is then formally introduced as Admiral Fujitora, I believe his name was previously said as Isshou-san.

-We get to see team which is in charge of handing Caesar over, the team includes Robin, Usopp, Law and Caesar of course.

-The shopkeeper tells them that they can't go to Green Pit because of fighting fish.

-We are then introduced to CP-0, or CP-aigis 0, it's supposed to be even stronger than CP9.

-Then there's Zoro and the fairy who stole his sword. Zoro manages to finally grab his sword but falls down the roof of a building.

-Kinemon apparently got lost and was ambushed by people who seem to recognize him as Kinemon of the Foxfire. They order Kinemon to come with them or otherwise something will happen to Kanjurou.

-Then there's Sanji, who takes out a sniper targeting him / Violet.

-Finally we get to see the team which is guarding the Sunny including Momonosuke, Chopaemon, Brooke and court lady Nami.

-There's a sudden voice coming from the men's room.

-Scene then changes tot the Corrida Colosseum and we see a shadow of Bartolomeo, who took down Vice Admiral Capman down.

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Naruto Chapter 627: Ultimate Battle Ahead!

Comments:
I'm excited. It was a good chapter and a good build up for what's about to come: Four hokages combined, Sasuke, Orochimaru, this will be a great sight for us to see in the chapters to come. I really hope that Kishimoto manages to deliver all that he has built up with all the huge characters who are about to emerge in the form of the ultimate battle.

So, it was pretty expected that Sasuke turned out to take his brothers 'ideology' of protecting the village instead of blaming people who he was cooperating with against Uchiha clan. I gotta be honest and say that there's really not much to write about, since it was just an build up chapter (good one though).

What I still don't really get is Madara's "turn of evil", I wonder whether Kishimoto really decides to clarify it to the readers, which would mean that there could be some turn of events waiting for us.

Recap of Naruto Chapter 627: Sasuke's Answer

-So the flashback has ended and it's time for Sasukes decision / answer

-It seems that Sasuke has come to a conclusion that his brother died protecting Hashiramas will, which means that Sasuke will oppose Madara.

-Tobirama mentions of Kagami Uchiha, who in his opinion resembles Uchiha Itachi. Kagamis son was Shisui Uchiha, who was Itachis friend.

-Sarutobi says that he wasn't able to continue the second's work properly and for that reason he let Danzou handle the darkness of the village. We know how that turned out.

-They ask Sasuke what he's going to do and it seems he goes through all that happened through his head. He says that he is going to the battlefield and protect the Konoha Village.

-They go outside and prepare for the ultimate clash.

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Fairy Tail Chapter 326: Dragons Coming Through Eclipse Gate?

Comments:
Pretty good chapter this time.
Believe it or not, but I'm a bit happy that Natsu got beaten up and not defeating Rogue with the power of friendship. Maybe it shows that Mashima hasn't gone too overboard with it. (even though he already has :). This chapter offered a couple of interesting points, which require some parsing:

First Rogues white shadow dragon mode was pretty cool, I liked the idea and design. He obviously got it by killing Sting, but somehow I would have liked that to be left in the shadows and let the readers deduce that themselves, even though it's a bit obvious. I recently watched a video where a very wise man said pretty well, that a good movie doesn't explain it's message, but rather shows it leaving the interpretation up to the watcher.

From Rogue, where he can actually become a shadow made me have some sort of an epiphany where Natsus and other Dragon Slayers where they could become the element that they represent, pretty much like Logias in One Piece.

Then we get to the good stuff which is the Eclipse Gate. I think that the dragons are in fact in another dimension and are going to come through the gate, this would explain their sudden disappearance. This is where the plot goes a little bit more complicated, but it may look a bit like this:

The first timeline: This is where the dragons appear, people are killed and Lucy escapes to the past: as she herself said, in her time she didn't close the gates.

The second timeline: It seems to me that Future Lucy and Future Rogue possibly came from different timelines + Rogue came several years later. This is where Rogue in fact wants the dragons to invade the land for one reason or another

The current timeline is where Lucy somehow senses that the dragosn are going to come through the gates and wants it to be closed. I wonder though how people are going to react to her as she said just moments earlier that she wouldn't do that.

This is pretty much how I see this plotline and it makes somewhat sense, however I recalled in the middle of writing this the moment at  where we are shown the scene of chapter 101 where Igneel and Grandine meet and talk about Wendy and most likely Natsu. This contradicts pretty much with this theory, but maybe it has some truth in it so I'll leave it like that.

Recap of Fairy Tail 326: Natsu vs. Rogue

-The day has changed to July 7th, which is the same day as when the dragons disappeared

- Eclipse Gate is about to open.

-At where Natsu and Rogue are, Rogue says that Lucy will definitely close the gate.

-Natsu activates Lightning Fire Dragon mode.

-Rogue, however actiavtes white shadow dragon mode, he is possessing the properties of both light and darkness.

-Rogue then damages Natsu with White shadow dragon rough silk. He then says that it's the power he stole by killing Sting.

-He is about to deal finishing blow to Natsu, but Ultear comes and interrupts him.

-Meanwhile, the gate is opening, but then Lucy senses something and says that they have to close the door.

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One Piece Chapter 704: Final Four Participants

Comments:
Once again a great one. At the beginning of the chapter we are introduced to a lot of people who seem somewhat 'fodder', no one really stands out and I believe that's how Oda wanted it to be. I do understand that there's somewhat a need for some of the participants to be introduced and he decided to leave the important ones to the latter part of the chapter. It seems that Bellamy is alive after all and seems to be in the service of Doflamingo after all.

Pirate Prince Cavendish is the first "important" participant introduced in this chapter. It was a truly funny moment when Luffy mistakenly said his real name causing a shock in the other participants. Also we got some backstory on Cavendish and I really find it pretty nice to hear about him - it's pretty awesome that he has been three years in the new world without any kind of an ability.

Then Gladiator Rebecca is introduced, once again an obviously important character for this arc / tournament. She and Luffy talk about Kyros and it seems that there's an interesting mystery there lying in wait for us and I couldn't help but to see that if he was the champion 20 years ago, he could have been around when Gold Roger was still roaming the seas.

And finally we see Jesus Burgess after a long time, it seems that the 4 participants for the finals are Burgess, Lucy, Cavendish and Rebecca. Seeing Burgess raises a question: is Blackbeard around? Can't wait for next week - damn you Oda.

Recap of One Piece 704: The statue of Kyros and Lucy

-The people in the waiting room are wondering what just happened. Someone comes and says to Luffy that he's out of the game because of the ruckus he caused.

-He then gets interrupted by Country of Flowers Gang: The Chinjao Family, Don Chinjao, Boo and Sai.

-We are getting introduced to more gladiators, Assassins from neighbouring country: The Funk Brothers: Bobby Funk and Kerry Funk.

-Next are Prodence Kingdom King "The Fighting King" Elisabello the 2nd (second) and Prodence Kingdom Tactician Dagama.

-War Criminal from the battle of Dias, Neck Spring Slayman

-Former bounty hunters from the government bombing incident, Abdola and Jet.

-The Fake Massacre Adventurist, The Ruler Ohlumbus

-Donquixote Family Endorsement, Savage Pirate worth over 100 million "Hyena Bellamy"

-Pirate Prince Cavendish, Crazy Rookie Bartolomeo are supposed to be participating too.

-Luffy or rather Gladiator Lucy puts on a cool armor, holding a shield and a sword: he really looks like an old man

-The Beautiful Pirates Captain Cavendish is introduced "formally"

-Luffy mistakenly says his real name, everyone gets shocked and then they realize his "mistake", truly a funny moment.

-Gladiator Rebecca is introduced, they are talking about Kyros with Luffy.

-There's some ruckus at the arena, first block has been finished and the finalist seems to be Blackbeard pirates' Jesus Burgess.

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