[Manga] Fairy Tail - Page 29

I know the manga industry is incredibly tough and even people that have massive hits often struggle to get a new manga going after that. I read Rave Master when it was new and I found it to be extremly shonen. It was as if it was just shonen to be shonen and not to tell a story. Maybe I'm a romantic but the ones that tend to become really popular is the ones that are made from people that have a really good story to tell, and they struggle to find an outlet for it. So they make shonen after shonen after shonen and nothing gets picked up, or it gets picked up for 3 months and then gets cancled. Then they get that huge break like One-Piece, Naruto or Bleach and they can tell the story they want to tell. Even in a series that feels so watered down and so horribly overstaying its welcome like Bleach, if I read the first chapters and arcs I can feel the love, dedication and effort that was put into them.

Fairy Tail is the exact opposite of that, it's just calculated shonen. No life. No love. No dedication. (and by that I mean to the story, I am aware how ridiculously hard these guys work and how much dedication to their work they need to have).
It's as if Hiro Mashima went: I have this great story that I want to tell but I'm not going to tell that story because I am just going to make that story so fuckng shonen that nobody could ever say anything other than "This is the most shonen thing I ever read".

Maybe it's not his fault, maybe he pitched Fairy Tail a billion times and it just got rejected for not being mainstream enough, so he compromised his own story, or maybe this is just a calculated shonen with no real story in it from the start. I havn't talked to the man so I don't know.

I was around when Fairy Tail launched, and I don't know if people remembered but this is how it was pitched. "Fairy Tail isn't your average shonen story, it will have a female lead and male lead. The focus will not be about the struggles of one boy, but the struggles of a whole group, a guild." Now I'm not dumb, I know that this is a shonen battle manga, the female lead will but demoted to a side character and the male lead will play a big role. BUT this is the most extreme case of that I've ever seen, and for something that was hyped up as something "different" this was just a massive dissapointment from the get go.

So, after that wall of text lets get started.

Natsu is probably the worst character in a battle manga ever, there is nothing about him that is redeeming. Here comes the calculated part of just making a shonen. Natsu is a mix och Luffys looks (thye could be twins), Ichigos lack of personality and Sasukes habit of never having any kind of personal growth. There is no depth to the character at all cause it's just a carbon copy of what works in shonen.

Put him side by side to the 3 big leads of shonen. Naruto, Ichigo and Luffy. As much as he is just a complete clone of Luffy. All those three characters experience growth in their personality, Ichigo much less so than the other two but seeing as his personality is that of plank to begin with that is quite an achivement.

So the main character suck. I can work myself around that. Ichigo sucked, I still liked the first arcs of Bleach. Ganta is annoying as hell but i still like Deadman Wonderland and Yugi is awful and I still watched every single episode of Yu-gi-oh growing up.

So lets introduce the ditzy female lead. She sucks, she is just a plot device made for fan service and to move the story along. She will never acomplish anything worth mentioning. She gets some character growth over time but nobody is ever going to care cause she will stay useless through out the run of the series.
I can live with that. Bleach doesn't have any strong female character in it, infact every single female in Bleach is completly incompetent. One-Piece doesn't have any strong female characters what so ever, BUT this is shonen I have not forgotten that. It's supposed to be a sausage fest. But it's still nice to see that one series that being Naruto manages to give you 2 strong female characters that are not just complete deadweight. (By strong I don't mean powerful).

That brings me to my next hate object Erza. Fuck Erza. Erza is supposed to be "The strong female character". She is introduced to be a force to be reconned with, and I get excited. I'm like "wow, maybe this series has some hope to get a charcter I can like out of it!" but no. Becuase the problem with Erza in her normal state she is just a man with no penis.
There is no indication that she is female. That again is fine, some characters put no ephasis on their gender.

But what isn't fine is the fact that every single time he tries to bring out her female side, it's like its a handicap. It's as if every character in the series would pity her for being female, as if she was wheelchair bound. OH NO MY OESTROGEN IS ACTING UP, MUST NOT TURN INTO A HELPLESS CHILD. Oh noes to late, she turned female she is out for this arc cause that makes her useless.

Now this Is allready very very very very long, so I will jus try to round off from here on with why I hate the story.

Every single major decision is repealed to be more shonen. He introduces something new and then pulls it back because it's not shonen enough. It's as if he is reaching out to the reader and saying "This is what I wanted to do, but you won't buy my shit if I do so, I won't". Every time someone might get their time to shine it's fucking ruined by the fact that he has to have Natsu do it. He can not once, not fucking once move of the shonen beaten in path and have someone else save Natsu. It ALWAYS has to be Natsu. And that is bullshit. One of the strongest Akatsuki members are beaten by Sakura, Orichimaru one of the main villains of the series is killed of by Sasuke. In One-piece yea it's just Luffy doing everything on his own but at least the fights are entertaining and the crew gets entertaining fights aswell. In Bleach people get their time to shine a perfect example of this is Tosen vs Hisagi a pretty minor character but he gets several chapters to shine in. (Infact it's the only good fight in Bleach for about 4 years).

But no, I was fucking hyped for Laxus comming in and saving the day and getting the guild from Makarov. I was like "FINALLY, he does something that requires some balls". But no. That didn't happen. Laxus gave his powers to Natsu and natsu saved the day again, because he is Jesus. And did Laxus get the guild? Fuck no, not one but 2 fucking cop outs with a new guild master and NONE of them fucking sticked. It's stil Makarov. Change is so god damn scary.

7 year timeskip. Lol frozen in time bubble. change is scary.

But you know what I really hate about Fairy Tail? Us. Becuase if he had made all those decisions that he repeals the chapter after. If he had made Erza a strong character, if he had made the guild the focus of the series instead of Natsu. If he gave Laxus the guild and if he made everyone age 7 years the manga would probably tank and get cancled and that is why I hate this manga. Becuase it shows that what the public want isn't unique, engrossing and fantastic adventures. We just want to read One-piece again with the exact same formula, nothing needs to change, just make a one-piece copy and you got yourself a hit.

That was why I stopped reading comicbooks, and stopped watching American animation cause it was all so stale, with no risks and nothing of worth left in it. And Fairy Tail is the beginging of the end for me, if this is how series will get popular in the future I see myself stop reading mainstream shonen.
"But stop reading shonen then, there are plenty of "unique" manga out there that isn't as formulaeic"

The thing is I don't want to. I love mainstream shonen because it followed a formula to a degree but they still left in the things for the authors to shock you with.

The female lead kills one of the strongest guys in the world (Naruto). The Villain that gets to kill the bad guy (Naruto), The psycopath that turns out to be both good and evil (DW), The perfect jesus like charcter that loses his borther and implodes on himself (OP), a villain being quite clearly a pedo but still being fucking awesome (HxH) and having minor characters get chapters to shine in (Bleach). (I could bring in a billion other shonen examples but this post is fucking miles long by this point so I tried to make all examples (or most of them at least) about the big three.