"A battle of the giant monsters!? Is it the end of the world!?"
Chapters: 165-199, Episodes: 76-95
Short Summary
A sudden storm spell sucks up the town of Magnolia into the sky, leaving behind Wendy, Carla, Natsu and Happy. Having been informed by Mystogan that it, along with their friends and guild, have been taken to an alternate world known as Edolas, the four head in with the hopes of saving their friends.Main Summary
This arc provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Mashima was trying to have the heroes use the world's artificial magic weapons to get through but gave up along the way as it was too complicated.
- Adaptation Expansion: The anime version includes scenes not in the manga such as more screen time with the Edolas Fairy Tail, how Gajeel got to Edolas and his meeting his alternate counterpart, Happy and Carla's invasion of the castle, and how Gray and Erza were freed from the Lacrima.
- Alliance of Alternates: Earth-land Fairy Tail and Edolas Fairy Tail fighting the Edolas Royal Army.
- Amusement Park of Doom: During the fight against Hughes, who uses his magic to attack the heroes with the park's attractions.
- And I Must Scream: The entire Fairy Tail guild is trapped in crystal and will be converted into magic itself.
- Apocalypse How: Extalia suffers a "Planetary/Physical Annihilation" when Mystogan uses the Reverse Anima to suck up all of Edolas's magic power, causing the kingdom to lose its floating power and crash.
- Art Imitates Art: The background scenery of Edolas, especially in episode 78, draws heavy inspiration from the album covers of Roger Dean.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever / Humongous Mecha: Dorma Anim, Faust's mechanical dragon.
- Big Bad: Faust is the main antagonist of this arc.
- Big Damn Heroes: Happy and Carla rescue Lucy from being executed by Knightwalker.
- Bittersweet Ending: Faust is defeated and Mystogan becomes the rightful king, Magnolia has been restored, Lisanna finally returns to Earth-land, and the Exceeds begin searching for their children that were born on Earth-land. But due to Edolas' magic disappearing and Extalia's destruction, not only does Edolas have to survive without magic, but the Exceeds will never return home again.
- Brought Down to Normal:
- The heroes initially can't use their magic when they get to Edolas, forcing them to try and use the world's weaponry only to instantly flub it when they try to take on a batch of Edolas guards. Lucy is able to use her magic after Mystogan gives Lucy an X-Ball, specialized balls that allow Earthlanders to use their magic in Edolas. Later, Gray would give an X-Ball to Natsu and Wendy after Gajeel gave them to him when he and Erza got freed from the Lacrima.
- The whole kingdom of Edolas becomes this at the end of the arc when the Anima is reversed and all the magic is sucked away.
- But Now I Must Go: The Fairy Tail members from Earth-land (including Lisanna) leave Edolas thanks to Mystogan using the Reverse Anima to suck up Edolas's magic power.
- Calling the Old Woman Out: Though Carla's unaware of her relationship with, Carla unhesitatingly condemns Chagot to her face on sending the Exceed with the Dragon Slayer-killing mission.
- Cats Are Magic: The Exceed are viewed as gods in Edolas. Subverted, they are not really as powerful as they seem and hide behind the legend of their god-like abilities.
- Cats Are Mean: The Exceed come off this way at first.
- Cats Are Superior: The Exceed think very little of human beings at first.
- Cat Fight: This is what the last fight between both Erzas descends to, as they both had broken their weapons against each other, suffered major league Clothing Damage, and were reduced to punching and grappling each other.
- The Cavalry: Edolas's Fairy Tail helps their allies defeat Faust.
- Colony Drop: Caused and ultimately averted when Faust drains so much magic from the already magically scarce lands of Edolas it causes every floating island in the sky to come crashing down. Extalia, which is gigantic, poses the threat of wiping out both kingdoms, forcing everyone to fight to stop the island from plummeting.
- Deus ex Machina: The Ex-Balls which allow the heroes to use their magic.
- Empire with a Dark Secret: Most of the kingdom probably don't know that the lacrima comes from actual living beings.
- End of an Age: Faust's defeat at the hands of Fairy Tail marks the end of his reign.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Coco doesn't take kindly to Pantherlily being killed by Faust's Dragon Chain Cannon along with the other Exceeds, which is what makes her turn on him.
- Evil Old Folks: Faust and Byro.
- Failed Attempt at Scaring: Wendy tries to help out Natsu with his plan to take the blame for all the magic disappearing from Edolas by pretending to be one of his demon underlings who are suppose to scare the people. Unfortunately for Wendy her attempts at trying to scare an Edolas citizen fails as in spite of her best attempts the citizen is unfazed by Wendy which results in Gajeel sneaking up behind Wendy in order to scare said citizen while making it look like Wendy did it.
- Faux Affably Evil: Faust and Knightwalker.
- Final Solution: Faust's plan to kill off the Exceeds.
- Foreshadowing: Dorma Anim is stated to have dragon-like armor that makes it impervious to all magic, but the Dragon Slayer trio can harm it just fine. Turns out that real dragons are just as Nigh-Invulnerable.
- From Bad to Worse: Natsu and his friends are captured by Faust and his minions, with Lucy being sentenced to die. Carla's mission to hunt down the dragon slayers is changed to having them captured. Then, Happy and Carla escape from the pursuing Exceeds, only for Faust to instigate an Enemy Civil War. Then, he uses the lacrima made from the Exceeds to ram it into Extalia and achieve his attempts to bestow magic onto Edolas. And all of this happens several chapters before the battle with the Dorma Anim.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Subverted. The Exceed Queen, Chagot, has a sound judgment and only comes off this way so the humans won't attack her kind.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: The Edolas Fairy Tail come to fight off the kingdom's army to save their Earth-land counterparts.
- Heel–Face Turn: Coco when Faust puts Pantherlily in danger. When she protests, he uses his magic to fry her legs. Likewise Pantherlily joins the heroes later on.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Happy goes through a brief one when Carla gives him an Armor-Piercing Question about who he really is before Magnolia gets sucked up into Edolas.
- Carla goes into a major one when she discovers that she has inadvertently accomplished her Dragon Slayer-killing operation. Fortunately, she snaps out of it when Happy gives an "up yours" to the Exceed and when Marl has a heart-to-heart talk with her.
- Human Resources: The Fairy Tail guild and the Exceed are being harnessed for Edolas' magical power.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Despite all the talk about the Exceed being monsters, King Faust and his people are the main antagonists of the arc.
- I Choose to Stay: This was Lisanna's initial decision as she didn't want to upset her Edolas siblings (who mistook her for their Lisanna who really died). But with the reversal of the magic in Edolas, it rendered this moot. Though her Edolas's siblings already knew she wasn't their sibling and give her a heartfelt goodbye as she heads back to Earth-land.
- Identical Stranger: All Edolas counterparts of Earthland characters are this. This trope also gets Played With during the Edolas arc as Lucy Ashley (Edolas) and Erza Nightwalker (Edolas) cut their hair to avoid confusion, Ichiya is an Exceed, and all characters' Edolas counterparts' appearances (Wendy) or personalities are different (except for Mirajane).
- Important Haircut: Knightwalker does this after being defeated once by Erza so her troops can tell them apart.
- Irony: Carla posing as a princess to get the Edolas army to back off. Then it turns out she's the daughter of Chagot, which means she really is a princess.
- Kick the Dog: Well more like "kick the cats." The king's troops are planning to kill the Exceed.
- Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: Lucy takes off her high heels out of exhaustion while imprisoned and is yanked out of her cell without them. She walks around barefoot until she finds the wardrobe changing booth, which gives her new footwear with her new clothes (though she chooses to pose barefoot while trying to be seductive).
- Luke, I Am Your Father:
- Queen Chagot is Carla's mother though Chagot holds off on telling her this.
- Same thing with Lucky and Marl, who are Happy's parents.
- The Magic Goes Away: Mystogan does this by reversing Anima, feeling Edolas has gotten too greedy and overly reliant with magic and it's the only way he'll be able to save his friends. While the kingdom fears what'll happen to them without magic, Mystogan assures them that they can survive without it.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": When the Exceeds realize that Faust is hurling the lacrima crystal at Extalia, all they can do is watch on in shock.
- Mirror Match: Erza Scarlet vs. Erza Knightwalker.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Carla after she unwittingly accomplishes her "mission".
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Carla misconstruing Chagot's bluff as her "mission" and leading her allies into finding Faust gives the latter an excuse for the Dragon Slayers to be captured and ultimately lead to the activation of Code ETD.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: At the end of it all, Edolas is without magic; Chagot's cover of the "mission" to hunt down the Dragon Slayers is dropped; Lisanna rejoins Fairy Tail in Earth-land. As for the Exceeds, they cannot return home due to Extalia's destruction.
- Oh, Crap!: When Carla realizes that she unintentionally led her allies to be captured by Faust's army.
- The Power of Love: Not romantic love, but the love of their people is what convinces the Exceed to save their homeland.
- Production Throwback: Knightwalker's weapon is very similar to Haru's from Rave Master, only it's now a spear instead of a sword.
- The Purge: Faust attempts to kill off the Exceeds first by executing Code ETD, but it doesn't work out thanks to the Exceeds teaming up with Natsu and his friends to fight against Faust.
- Rage Breaking Point: Happy learning from Nichiya and Nadi that Carla's "mission" has inadvertently caused their friends to be captured and watching Carla suffer her Heroic BSoD causes him to furiously give the other Exceeds an "up yours".
- Really Royalty Reveal: Queen Chagot is revealed to be her mother after Faust's defeat, making Carla an Exceed princess. However, Carla's unable to remember what her mother is.
- Riches to Rags: The Exceeds start as a race of revered holy beings that can contain magic in their bodies. Then, after losing Extalia, the civilization is uprooted to Earth-land, where they search for a new settlement.
- Sanity Slippage: Faust and Knightwalker aren't as together as they seem.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Erza calls out her Evil Counterpart on her beliefs.
- Significant Name Shift: After witnessing his Heroic Resolve against the Exceed, Carla no longer refers to Happy as "male cat", but by his name.
- Similar Squad: Edolas Fairy Tail to Earthland Fairy Tail.
- Taken for Granite: Anyone trapped in a magic source.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Played straight when Gajeel brings the newly-freed Erza and Gray up to speed while they're encircled by the city guard. Subverted during Gajeel's fight with Panther Lily; Panther interrupts Happy's cutaway gag cut a massive sword strike and gloats about how confident they must be to chat during battle.
- That Came Out Wrong: Gajeel's statements about making Pantherlily into his cat.
- Tomato Surprise:
- 1) Mystogan is actually the Jellal of Edolas. Not only that but he's the prince of the kingdom.
- 2) Carla's "mission" to destroy the Dragon Slayers isn't real and just a result of a lie of the Exceed queen to protect the Exceed newborns.
- 3) The Lisanna in the Edolas Fairy Tail is actually the Earth-land's Lisanna who got accidentally sucked into one of the Anima portals and ended up in Edolas.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By bluffing about murdering the Dragon Slayers and lying about the Exceed being godly beings and threatening the human kingdom below with destruction to protect her people, Chagot would inadvertently cause Carla to carry out her operation to kill the Dragon Slayers and ultimately lead to Faust declaring an Enemy Civil War against them.
- Unwitting Pawn: The Exceeds don't realize that they're being used by Faust until it's too late.
- War Refugees: The arc ends with the Exceeds being uprooted from Edolas to a new home on Earth-land.
- Watching Troy Burn: At the end of the arc, the Exceeds have to watch Extalia's destruction, just like Chagot predicted.
- Would Hit a Girl: Byro has no problem attacking Lucy.
- Would Hurt a Child: Faust and Byro have no qualms about killing them.
- You Can't Fight Fate: By the end of the arc, Extalia gets destroyed just like Chagot and Carla predicted, but in a different way.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Extalia is destroyed and the magic in Edolas has disappeared, leaving the Exceeds to search for a new home in Earth-land.
- You Monster!: Erza calls out her Evil Counterpart on the horrible things she's done.
- Zerg Rush: All the kings men rely on this tactic. They're later on the receiving end when Fairy Tail comes to the rescue.
- Zero-Approval Gambit: Natsu does this to help Mystogan out and have someone to blame for the loss of magic so the kingdom won't fall from panic.
