Fairy Tail

I haven't read the manga. I've watched around 40 or 50 episodes of the anime.

Erza Scarlet, is my faveourite character in Fairy Tail. No contest. It's not the skimpy outfits. It's the way she fights. Very perceptive and efficient. I guess it helps that she cares about people, even if they sometimes find her awkward.

 

I've read them up 'til the 400th chapters... But it was starting to become incoherent and all so I stopped...

 

My user name's Jellal. I obviously have a lot to say about Fairy Tail. More than I should.

OK, I'm going to rant because Fairy Tail and I have a very passionate relationship. There's going to be a lot of hate listed here a long with all the stuff I love, so skip it if you're the type that can't handle criticism. Or long blocks of text.

lol, STARTING to become incoherent? Fairy Tail is balls to the wall insane sometimes, and not in a good way. I don't know what Hiro Mashima is on but it's definitely making him one productive mangaka. He churns these chapters out at an absolute breakneck pace ... which explains why the story quality has been spastic since day one.

Let's be real here. Fairy Tail had one genuinely great arc, and that was Phantom Lord, which was simple, effective, and only made me wince once, when Erza beat Aria in one hit. Yes, Phantom Lord, which ended like a solid 300+ chapters ago. The other one that came close was Fighting Festival which would've been totally awesome if not for the fact that people tolerate Laxus as a redeemable figure. It's not enough that he got excommunicated from the guild. He should've been behind bars. He was basically holding hostage the lives of everyone in the town. I'm not saying he couldn't get his redemption, but he didn't deserve the level of forgiveness he got for his deeds. Not even remotely. Which brings me to my next point:

The Fairy Tail government is more incompetent than any government I have seen in any other fictional setting I've seen. The illegal Dark Guilds are so prominent that their network is more elaborate and well thought-out than the actual legal magic council. And while the council has the manpower to deal with dark guilds (ten wizard saints and army of rune knights who usually overpower the guilds) they mysteriously disappear/fail to get involved in the conflict with any of the Baram Alliance. Not to mention, just one member of Tartarus wiped out the entirety of the magic council. Dude, that didn't make Tartarus look like a threat—it just confirmed what everyone already figured out, that the magic council is so weak and ineffective that they couldn't stop the furry version of Sanji from One Piece.

If you're still doubting that the magic council is the dumbest thing ever, just look back to the Tower of Heaven arc. OK, so we have Jellal Fernandes, a well known dark magician. The council knows who he is. Maybe they aren't aware of everything he's done but they know he's a bad dude, and dangerous enough that they are willing to use their superweapon, etherion, a magical satellite that shoots nukes, to wipe him and his base out from a distance. Jellal's plot of course is that he wanted them to shoot his base with etherion because he was going to take the energy and convert it to suit his purposes. Ok. Fair.

But then consider this: how Jellal got the magic council to fire etherion. He literally sent a double of himself who looked identical to himself, and claimed to be Jellal's twin brother, to join the magic council and persuade them to fire etherion to kill Jellal. How in the fuck did the wisest magicians in all the land fail to note something suspicious about the Jellal look alike who showed up out of nowhere and claimed to be the twin brother of a notorious dark magician? Couldn't they run a background check on him or something? Nope apparently not. I literally couldn't believe how stupid and poorly written the plot was at that point.

That'd be like if Hitler changed his shirt and told the allies that he was Hitler's twin brother, and wanted to contribute to the war effort to stop Hitler. And everyone just believed him and accepted his tactics and strategies.

Other assorted lesser complaints that need to be said:
*Natsu had almost no character development until the Tartarus arc. He's ... semi decent now.
*Except he beat Bluenote Stinger in one hit.
*Lucy is useless. Yes, she is. This should've been Natsu's story. Hell, it IS Natsu's story. Natsu is the one whooping those bad guys' asses. Lucy is the one beating a mook because her spirits do the fighting for her. In a series where characters tend to use their own magic to overpower their opponents with determination, strength, and ingenuity, Lucy falls absolutely flat. Find another anime to star in, there's no room for a glorified pokemon trainer here.
*Aria. Azuma. Minerva. Kagura. Kyoka. All beaten by Erza in unsatisfying ways. I used to like Erza, but with each victory I've steadily grown to despise Erza.
*Grimoire Heart arc. A great chance for Fairy Tail to lose. But Fairy Tail never loses. Nope.
*Characters change, only to change back to what they were before. Poor, poor Wendy. She had the potential to be probably the coolest character. She's right back to crying and being ineffective these days. I guess Mashima forgot about what she did during the Tartarus arc.
*Mashima thinks that if the plot sucks he can just throw a bunch of big titties at the reader. News flash, that just makes me hate you more. (At least shown an equal amount of abs.)
*Speaking of which, Taurus is probably the most rapey character I have seen in an anime. Nobody wants that shit. Almost all his lines make me feel guilty for watching this show.
*Laxus was enjoyable—as a douchebag. As a stern nice guy, he feels like a cardboard cutout. Surely there could've been a way for him to return in a semi-realistic manner, perhaps not as the genocidal "only the strong survive" maniac he was before, but still as the mean frat boy.
*Red-Haired Shanks, what are you doing in Fairy Tail? Luffy needs you. Go back to One Piece.
*Lisanna Strauss.
*The Grand Magic Games. At this point it was Fairy Tail wanking itself. Surprised I finished it. Listen, Fairy Tail cheated. They cheated time and time again. Mavis cheated by giving Cana Fairy Glitter. Natsu and the others cheated by unlocking Second Origin instead of training. They were totally unsympathetic. I enjoyed seeing Flare and Minerva beating the snot out of Lucy. Finally, THERE was some justice for tainting the word "nakama."
*Juvia. I want to love you, Juvia. You were cool at the start. Be more than Mrs. "Gray-sama."
*Jiemma is shitty beyond belief. I almost died when they showed he got 'resurrected' and was promptly beaten in the next chapter. 'OMG run, he's stronger than the 9 Demon Gates.' THIS right here is why 'show, don't tell' is sometimes actually a good idea.

Now for the things that I like:
*Natsu finds a way to end a fight in a satisfying manner 9 times out of 10.
*Gray Fullbuster (for the most part.) I love his nudity. Yes I am very shameful.
*Ultear Milkovich (for the most part.) The end of her tale was actually really well written.
*Some plot elements which are clever—the "who kills Frocsch?" mystery was cool because it stopped being relevant for so long, and I guessed that the answer would come out the day before I read chapter 425. Also, I think we can all agree Mystogan was 100% a badass reveal in terms of his origins and what his powers were.
*Mashima is a talented artist, usually. Some designs feel rushed now and again but generally speaking I think it's got one of the most appealing and stylish character designs.
*There is no music in the world better than the soundtrack for Fairy Tail's anime. Go listen.
*Zancrow.
*The english dub.
*ZANCROW IN THE ENGLISH DUB.
*Lyra's song. Actually, this is what got me into Fairy Tail to begin with. It made me tear up.
*Meeeeeeeeennnnnnnn!!!!
*Fairy Tail used to have good filler episodes. Love the 'changeling' and 'love potion' episodes.
*The Mard Geer... Duking it out with the Celestial Spirit King. Fighting 3 dragon slayers at once. Dragon force couldn't beat him. Natsu couldn't beat him. Now THAT was refreshing.
*Sugarboy.
*Hiro Mashima, if you couldn't tell, is better at naming characters than anyone in existence.

Weirdest moment of Fairy Tail:
*Silver Fullbuster's role in the plot. OK. This really should go into the 'hate' section, but it was so weird that it deserves its own section. I was hyped for Silver and his connection to Grey. Silver froze that village on a whim, stopped an army of giants dead in their tracks, and froze a dragon's soul, all in one attack. And seemingly one without much effort. But then it's not really clear what Silver is trying to do for the rest of the Tartaros arc. He just shrouds himself in mystery. Then he lies about his backstory and motivation at least twice in consecutive chapters. By the time he's told the truth and died, the plot had turned on its head so much that I felt like I was going to throw up instead of cry for about 20 seconds. Then my fists clenched up in anger, steadily realizing how stupid this whole situation was if Silver Fullbuster had been acting of his own accord, and how bad it makes Tartaros look. I'm supposed to believe Tartarus taught this man devil slaying magic when they clearly knew he was driven to get his revenge against Tartarus? Yet they gave him such a high position and got him so close to Mard Geer? Dude. Silver's magic is what killed Mard Geer. Letting Silver join is why Tartarus lost. This could have been prevented if you realized, 'yeah, giving a top position and OP power that we're all weak to, to the man whose family we basically killed and left for dead, might be a bad idea.'

SO. That's what I think of Fairy Tail. Nobody I know likes to talk about it, so I had a lot to say about it here. I stopped watching the anime after Grimoire Heart ended, but I read the manga from there to the current release. I'm going to keep with it up until the end. I'm hooked, for better or for worse. Probably for worse. But to me it's like potato chips. Salty. I want more.

 

I'm a big fan of Fairy Tail and Natsu is my 2nd all time favorite anime character and my favorite Fairy Tail character. Lucy is 8 on my all time list and probably 2nd for Fairy tail favorites. Also I major ship for this show is Nalu but I also like Jerza Gruvia anf Gale. Nali is okay but Nalu needs to be end game. As for the anime it seems to going fine for me right now. I am more of an anime watcher than manga reader so I don't read Fairy Tail but I watch it.

 

I am basically with Jellal on this one. So much stupidity and bad plot points and I usually don't enjoy this kind of manga at all, but something makes me keep reading.

What pisses me off the most is that he sometimes just outright plagiarizes shit. Remember in the grand magic games? The part with the town and the doppelgangers and the task to try and find the real versions of the other contestants? Yeah, that's Assassin's Creed's multiplayer mode. Letter for fucking letter. Plagiarizing shows exactly how shitty the author is at coming up with plot.