This arc looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the teams interact and what kind of teamwork they come up with. I had to laugh at Levy rewriting the rune so only she and Gajeel could pass through.
I agree with Handsome Rob that we should keep an eye on Mest; in addition to what he said on the previous page, while everyone else was freaking out about being stuck on the ship and making flashy exits, he and Wendy just quietly disappeared without drawing attention to themselves. Boring, but Practical, maybe?
Also, Wendy is powerful, but physically pretty weak, being quite a bit younger than the others. So unless Mest is a Jerkass, which he doesn't seem to be, he must be fairly confident of his ability to protect her.
edited 2nd Oct '10 6:54:52 PM by JackInqu
@Still Waters: The Rule of Funny is equally in favor of Gajeel and Levy getting the quiet route, because Gajeel is participating mostly to get to show off.
I can think of several possibilities.
1) Natsu or Gray, to pit him up against a known quantity so we can judge him as really strong. The flaw with this would be that it would prevent them from progressing, which I suppose makes Gray more likely. Alternatively, the fight could have an unusual win condition, like "get past Gildarts." Gajeel might work too, but I think Mashima is obligated to give Levy a chance to shine in this arc and that's mutually exclusive with hyping up Gildarts.
2) Elfman or Juvia, because frankly they're not very important. In this case we probably wouldn't even see the fight, just the aftermath. If it's Elfman this also makes it easier to avoid having to come up with a way for Evergreen's eyes to not instantly win. Juvia is less likely because we'd kind of want to see Lisanna do something important after being revived.
3) Mest, to hype him up even more. This is the least likely because both he and Gildarts are unknown so it'd be a weird fight to set up. Also, I'm not sure why Mest would need to be that competent unless he turns out to be a villain.
Overall, I'd say the most likely are Gray or Elfman.
I'm guessing that Elfman will go up against Gildartz. Gildartz needs to be shown as powerful, so he should win. Juvia has Lisanna with her, and we need to see more of Lisanna. Gray and Natsu can't lose yet, especially Natsu. Mest is presumably going to be important. Fried and Cana are taken. That just leaves Levi, and if she lost now that would take Gajeel out of the arc.
So yeah, Elfman or Gray. Gray could lose because he's roughly equal to Natsu and it would show that Gildartz is badass.
edited 4th Oct '10 6:12:22 PM by Arha
Well, I think we can all agree that Elfman's probably not going to make through this round; but I would like to remind you all that regardless of who faces Gildartz and how well they do against him, somebody's going to have to go down in the other battle.
So I guess the next most likely candidate is Grey, yeah.
Question: What chapter did Gajeel hijack the stage and sing a song of friendship? Or was that only in the anime?
Regarding when Mest and Wendy left the ship, you can see them in crowd in the third panel of this page.
After that, nothing until Lucy and Kana notice they're gone.
edited 7th Oct '10 5:37:30 PM by JackInqu
Partly inspired by a recent revelation about the Espada in Bleach: Do the Oracion Seis have a Seven Deadly Sins motif?
- Pride: Brain
- Wrath: Zero
- Sloth: Midnight
- Greed: Hoteye
- Gluttony: Cobra?
- Lust: Angel?
- Envy: Racer?
...Well then. For the moment, I am not going to say anything about this chapter other than this: nobody predicted this outcome.
Next chapter should be interesting, though.
edited 9th Oct '10 10:24:32 AM by Belian
Yu hav nat sein bod speeling unntil know. (cacke four undersandig tis)the cake is a lie!Yeah, That fight was a little disappointing. I understand that Mashima probably didn't want to spend that much time on it, but still.
Also, Mashima gets props for managing to surprise us all with the Gildartz vs. Natsu thing. Dare I hope that Natsu's actually going to get knocked out of the competition here?
Fried throwing the fight is not something I agree with, because it actually makes Lucy and Cana look weak (they are, but even more than they are). But it seems like he felt he owed them for previous grievances, so there's no use complaining. Plus Lucy has plenty of legitimate victories. As for Natsu, he got more than he bargained for, but when you think about it, him being excited makes sense. If he can beat Gildartz, it will be a much better measure of how strong he has became than even beating Erza ( who I recall has admitted that Natsu might beat her one day). And there's no better measure of Gildartz's strenghth then........ Hold up. How exactly do we know that's really Gildartz? We know Mirajane can change he appearance to people as well can't she. Or even Elfman and Lissanna. With three shape changers in the contest, we can't really trust our eyes at all.
There's some food for thought.
One Strip! One Strip!Five posts. Anyway, that's an interesting idea. I'm thinking that there will be an interruption of some sort instead, though. Gildartz actually losing would be disappointing. Then again, the test is presumably going to get messed up anyway. Might not really matter if Natsu loses, he can still be involved after that.
Hadn't thought of Mirajane pretending to be Gildartz. That actually makes the most sense. Failing that though, I could see Natsu simply losing. There's no particular reason he has to advance in this test, and indeed he could still participate in the arc once it's interrupted. Him actually winning against Gildartz, while technically possible, would be terrible. At this point Gildartz's strength is merely an Informed Ability, so using him to make Natsu look strong is completely useless, narratively. I strongly, strongly disagree that Gildartz losing to Natsu would make a better choice than Erza in any sense at all. We're simply not at that point in the story yet.
Well, from Natsu's point of view, fighting Gildartz is a good thing. It's like expecting to win a million dollars, and getting a billion instead. Obviously, he can't for the reasons stated. We have to see what Gildartz can really do.
What happens next is up in the air. Maybe Natsu will get WTFPWNED, maybe it will be one of the siblings in disguise, or maybe something no-one expected. We'll just have to wait and see.
One Strip! One Strip!Relating to the theory that Natsu's opponent is actually Mirajane in disguise, I wonder if that's why her area had question mark next to "Battle." Maybe her area is less about winning a straight up fight and more about being able to Spot the Thread. With so many different types of magic that enable someone to change their appearance, being able to spot the discrepancies in a shapeshifter would be an important skill to have.
edited 10th Oct '10 4:29:05 PM by JackInqu

Yeah, Gemini's going to be a huge help here to counter Fried, and I can't help but think that Bixlow will give Cana a good chance to finally show off.