Apr 21, 2019
At first glance, Fairy Tail (FT) seems like your average shounen manga with the classic hot-headed protagonist. I'm not against Shounen manga/anime and I've even enjoyed some like Bleach, Naruto, Hunter x Hunter etc. But thinking that Fairy Tail would be as good as any of those was a major mistake on my part.
To start off with it, I'd say there's nothing wrong with the idea of having a guild of mages but it's the way that the idea is carried forward that ruins everything. Initially, I found FT intriguing but shortly after I lost the interest. Guess why? It's because of the repeated storyline
...
and arcs. It's always about how some random villain shows up and messes with Fairy Tail in one way or another and how the characters fight against the said villain and win not because of their own strength, but because of the power of friendship. When the same thing happens over and over the show is no longer interesting since it becomes somewhat predictable.
Hiro Mashima also fails to give the characters a proper character development. It feels as though deep down inside, everyone in the guild is the same person since they all act the same way. Different people think differently but he's generalised the characters' thought processes way too much. Of course, there are some characters with a unique personality like Gajeel and Laxus but he never used this to his advantage and let them blend in with the crowd. I think Gray was the only one who had a serious character development but the ending pretty much ruined that since he went back to being the same guy as before.
Another problem with FT is the fanservice. Where do I start with this one? Lucy, in particular, exists for the fanservice. You don't have many chapters that DON'T include Gray unintentionally losing his clothes, Lucy wearing something skimpy or random guildmates walking around barely dressed.
Then, there's the Bad-guy-turns-good trope that you have to look out for. Jellal, Gajeel, Laxus, Ultear, Lyon, Juvia, Meredy etc were all once villains but turned out as heroes instead. Look, there's nothing wrong with this trope but that is only when it's used sparingly. Mashima used it so much that I started expecting every villain, including Zeref, to rectify themselves and become best buddies with the heroes. Zeref is one of the most interesting characters in the story mostly because this trope doesn't apply to him. Personally speaking, he was one of the few characters I was actually rooting for.
The characters were not that great, as I already mentioned and the ships were worse. I was particularly against Gruvia and you can guess why. The romance between Gray and Juvia was poorly done since it remained one-sided for a really long time and even after that, it felt a little forced. It might have been acceptable if Juvia did something other than obsessing over Gray from time to time. Yes, she's a decent fighter and she had the potential for an interesting personality but her infatuation with Gray made her talk about nothing else and that was starting to get irritating. As for Gajeel and Levy, I wasn't a fan of it either. Levy's attitude changed too drastically after she met Gajeel and she ignored her two best friends Jet and Droy and went after Gajeel instead. This is definitely not Juvia level obsession so I wasn't too against it.
In other words, FT was predictable because the story arcs were all too similar and the characters were boring. It had the potential to actually turn out as a manga worth reading, but that didn't happen because of the way Mashima went on with the story.
It's not all bad, though. The art was decent and it got better as the series progressed. Despite all the faults in FT, the fight scenes were good even though the outcomes were usually predictable.
You should definitely consider reading FT if you like fanservice, the bad-guy-turns-good trope, one-dimensional characters, fights in which the heroes win because of the power of friendship and a story in which not a single protagonist dies regardless of the situation. If you don't like any of these, don't bother reading FT.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
