@ARTEMlS:
So whereas Acno gets a better motivation than 'just because', it basically the very same as ever when Mashima wants to sledgehammer some kind of empathy into us - a random little child we have absolutely no emotional connection to.
And yay, 'friend'kidama!!!
Apparently, the kid ties into the Dragon Cry movie that came out a few months ago; it seems dumb to make what's apparently a crucial part of Acnologia's backstory nonsense to anyone who hasn't seen a tie-in movie, but Acnologia seems like the type of character who doesn't need much backstory to begin with (he's not meant to be sympathetic).
Still, I found it an interesting parallel with Natsu - both of them had everything taken away from them by dragons (in Natsu's case, that includes his life), but while Acnologia saw them as beasts to be slaughtered as a result, Natsu views them as being similar to people - some are good and some are bad, and you can't paint the entire species with the same brush.
This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I really liked this chapter. All of the main cast played a huge role in fighting Acnologia's two forms, with Gray building the boat to incapacitate Acnologia, Erza knocking him onto it (since he's been repeatedly demonstrated to be vulnerable to physical attacks), Lucy using Fairy Sphere to seal Acnologia's dragon form away, and Wendy powering up Natsu so that he can defeat Acnologia's human form.
We got some solid emotional moments with Chelia, a wide variety of characters participated in the defeat of Acnologia (between Kagura, Oracion Seis, and Sabertooth luring Acnologia into the trap, Lyon and Juvia helping Gray, Mirajane helping Erza, Levy and Freed helping Lucy, and the other six Dragon Slayers helping Natsu), and the abilities being used to defeat Acnologia make sense, building on what's already been established instead of being something like "Natsu eats the elements of the other Dragon Slayers somehow and becomes a Lightning Fire Light Shadow Iron Poison Wind Dragon Slayer!"