That's no moon... it's a purple moon!
Chapters: 24-46, Episodes: 11-20
Short Summary
Natsu steals a S-Class job request from the guild's top floor (an act forbidden in their rules) in the hopes of becoming an S-Class wizard, and drags Happy, Lucy, and Gray into the fiasco. The mission sends the group to an island where a mysterious plague transforms its residents humans into monsters under the light of the moon. As they investigate, Gray finds that this situation has ties to his past.Main Summary
Galuna Island Arc has the following tropes:
- All for Nothing: Comically done with Lucy's pit trap. Not only does it not catch her intended targets, but the villains decide to attack the village by air.
- Anti-Magic: Yuka's specialty.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Angelica, Sherry's pet rat.
- More importantly, Deliora.
- Big Bad: Lyon Vastia.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Erza may be right that Natsu and the others could face punishment for taking the S-Class mission without Makarov's explicit permission, but Gray correctly points out that Fairy Tail expects a lot more than her strictness towards the rules and leaving the innocent islanders to die.
- Brick Joke: Lucy has Virgo create a pit in front of the village's gate with the aim of trapping Lyon's minions, only for Natsu to fall in it. Then, after the main trouble becomes resolved and everyone returns to the (restored) village - only for Erza to suddenly fall down the pit as well.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Despite being demons, the islanders are revealed to be quite friendly when they get their memories back.
- Foreshadowing: Natsu notices Zalty smells like a woman. As it turns out, he is Ultear in disguise.
- Harmless Freezing: Natsu gets a sphere of ice frozen around him. Other than some impaired movement, he's fine. Subverted with Deliora, who is dead after having been frozen for years.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ur, who turned herself into ice to stop Deliora in Gray's flashback.
- Honor Before Reason: Erza when she arrives on the island to bring the bunch home for their violation of Fairy Tail's rules. She has to be talked into helping the others.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The effects of the Moon Drip on the villagers.
- Love Freak: Sherry.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Gray's plot to exact revenge on Deliora in his youth not only leads to Ur freezing herself to stop the demon, but it also inflames Lyon's anger with Gray.
- Noodle Incident: When the group finally returns home, Erza reminds them that they are still going to be punished, and Gray and Natsu freak out because they might be punished with "that", something that clearly traumatized them. Unfortunately, nobody will tell Lucy what "that" is.
- The Reveal: Threefold:
- The ice over Deliora is Gray's and Lyon's teacher, Ur, who used the spell Ice Shell as a last ditch effort to defeat monsters.
- The islanders aren't humans cursed to be demons. They're demons who can turn to human form and just lost their memory due to the effects of the Moon Drip.
- Ur's daughter, Ultear, thought dead is still alive.
- Revenge Before Reason: Gray's mindset when he was little, which led to tragic consequences.
- Samus Is a Girl: Zalty, who turns to out to be Ultear, one of the Magic Council members using Glamour to make herself look like a man.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Gray to Erza when she tries to cowtow him into coming back to Fairy Tail.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Deliora, who was sealed inside within a huge block of ice made from Ur's body.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: After all's said and done, Deliora is unfrozen... but crumbles upon release since he had died after being frozen for so long.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Because Natsu stole an S-Class job request against Makarov's direct orders, Erza has no choice but to try getting him, along with Lucy, Happy and Gray, to return to the guild.
- Trap Door: Lucy has the idea to build one of the covered pit variety. Nobody thinks it'll work, and then it does on the wrong people. Repeatedly.
- Weird Moon: A purple colored one. Subverted in that it was magic crystallizing like a dome over the island and the tint of it made the moon look as such.
