Hiro Mashima's manga, are intense and make for pretty great viewing.

Since the Grand Magic Games began, Fairy Tail, which has become the underdog during the seven years its strongest were slumbering on the island, has had a decidedly antagonistic relationship with the guilds Raven Tail and Saber Tooth. The one is a (former?) dark guild founded by Master Makarov's son Ivan, while the other has risen to take Fairy Tail's place as the strongest guild in Fiore with two dragon slayers of its own, and Saber Tooth has no interest in allowing the Fairies to get back on top. As viewers, we can see that at least one of those guilds is cheating and that the other is, at the very least, incredibly unscrupulous. That's borne out by the opening events of this set, when Yukino, who lost her one-on-one match, is booted from the Saber Tooth guild. While the humiliation factor has been dialed down from the manga, it's still a horrifying event, and it has two direct results: Fairy Tail is infuriated with Saber Tooth's ruthless attitude towards its , and we see that one of the dragon slayers, Rogue, appears to be aware that his guild is in the wrong. We see him looking vaguely uncomfortable up until his battle with Gajeel and Natsu in the arena, and it would seem to foreshadow a moral code that perhaps differs from his guildmates'.

In fact, we have reason to question if Saber Tooth's current roster of wizards has any sort of scruples at all – with Yukino out, the wizard Minerva takes her place in the Games, and, simply put, she's a bitch. (Anastasia Munoz deserves a mention for helping to make her thoroughly unlikable with some great voice work.) She enjoys winning to the point where it becomes less about being the best and more about forcing others to acknowledge that they aren't the best, and in her zeal she comes very close to actual murder. This proves a galvanizing factor for Fairy Tail...and also the shady operations going on in the background, as Minerva's actions come close to upending their plans. It's a particularly interesting development if only in that it puts Minerva (and possibly Saber Tooth) in a position where they are even antagonists to the antagonists, as well as solidifying their position as one of pure self-interest with no other motives.

This set of episodes, which really does end in a cliff hanger that should make us all grateful that we don't have to wait a year to find out what happens next, is a mix of tense plot and goofy battles. That combination doesn't always work, although there are enough tidbits of actual plot thrown in to make the sillier bits easier to stomach. The increasing importance placed on Celestial Wizards, like Lucy, makes us start to think that maybe they as a class aren't terribly undervalued by the wizarding world at large – as well as to wonder if Lucy might not be the anti-Zeref somehow, a conclusion that events would seem to be building towards. Of course there are lighter moments as well, and Gundam.

The Grand Magic Games may have a day left, but the real plot driving the arc is starting to overshadow the tournament itself. With hints growing bigger, secret motivations coming into the light, and a couple of very ominous revelations becoming clearer, things are gearing up to give us more important decisions than who the strongest guild in Fiore is. You'll soon understand why the new ending theme introduced in this set sounds so sad as the arc picks up its pace and begins to run headlong towards its conclusion.