Rick vs Fairy Tail

 

Introduction:

 

A few months ago, I decided to read the entirety of Fairy Tail. It was something I had always planned to do but never got around to doing. I have heard from a lot of people about how bad it is, yet it is one of the most popular manga in existence, selling millions of copies and a very passionate fanbase.

It's kinda like how Bleach was percieved before the TYBW anime premiered now that I think about it.

Technically, I've watched an episode before reading, but I kinda stopped. There really wasn't anything wrong with it, I thought, it was a standard Shonen Battle Manga.

But I've come to realize that I don't really mind standard Shonen Battle Manga.

So, in honor of Fairy Tail's 20th anniversary, I decided to read it for myself to see if it's as bad as the internet says it is, or if there's a good reason why it's so popular.

Note: There will be spoilers.

Expectations:

Motion sickness is a terrible thing

 

Coming into this manga, I already have some preconceptions: From watching Death Battle and looking her up, I knew I was going to like Erza for being awesome, for example. I was also expecting tons of good fights and of course, I knew that there was going to be fanservice a plenty.

While I like fanservice, I mainly just wanted to see the fights…

Impressions:

 

Jellal in his natural state

 

Reading Fairy Tail, I was amazed at how fast paced it really was. Pretty much every arc last about a 1/3 of the length of any arc in most battle shonen, particularly One Piece. Like, at the same chapter count the first time skip happened, One Piece was still in Skypiea. I think this is a plus because Mashima doesn't put in flashbacks everywhere and mostly introduces 3 characters max until the Grand Magic Games or Alvarez arcs.

Sadly, I feel like this is also a detriment. There are a few plots that don't get as much screentime as they should. For example, Kagura's own brother was killed by Jellal, and she as 0 screentime with him, WTF?

Note: I'm going to be making comparisons to the Big 3(Bleach, Naruto, One Piece) a lot, because FT gets lumped in with them despite not being Shonen Jump.

One other thing I was amazed by was how the women were handled. A lot of the complaints towards FT usually involved the fanservice but what nobody ever talks about is that the women in the series seem to have an equal amount of screentime, relevance, and awesome fight scenes compared to the men. Even Lucy feels more useful than even Nami.

To make a comparison: In Bleach, which I consider to have better written women than the other 2, Rukia doesn't have a whole lot of solo wins, tending to job most of her fights(Guess that's why she's into Renji).

Even better, take a look at the Tower of Heaven arc. I compared this arc to Ennis Lobby a lot because they're quite similar, at least superficially: Both involve a female character's past coming to haunt them, both involve said character being captured, and both involved that character feeling suicidal. However, Ennis Lobby had Robin incapacitated for most of the arc, she cried her way through it, and didn't do much of anything until the last part. Tower of Heaven had Erza break out in a chapter, fight a boss and then tried to take Jellal with her with the cannon. Said cannon is as about as useful as the Buster Call, now that I think about it…

You might say that Ennis Lobby is better written… but ToH has its star woman actually doing something. If Kubo or Oda were writing it, Erza wouldn't be doing anything at all! If Mashima were writing Ennis Lobby, I don't think Robin would be captured for very long.

For all the complaints towards the fanservice, its female characters actually feel like people and doing something meaningful. One Reddit post I found said something interesting: "I'd rather have a well-written stripper over a poorly-written nun." I think that describes Fairy Tail well. It's got tons of fanservice, sometimes a bit too much, especially in the second half, but its female characters are fun to watch and actually live to being badasses. A lot of other shonen*, in contrast, tend to have female characters that seem cool, but don't do much of anything, even Bleach.

In short, my favorite characters in this show are basically the women. Wendy because of her growth into a stronger, more active person(She's also moe and I want to protect her), Lucy because she feels like the main character over Natsu, and Erza?

Well, I want to talk a bit about Erza. I love her, and I love Jerza, but Erza's fights are controversial… but I have to wonder if they aren't biased because Erza's got tits. A lot of the complaints I've seen involve her fights because she pulls shit out of her ass. I disagree, those fights kicked ass. I mean, Erza does shit other main protags have done! Fight without her senses? Kenshin did it. Destroy a meteor with most of her bones broken? Goku defeated Piccolo like that twice! Without a moe cleric! Hell, even pulling new armors out of her ass… bruh, you wouldn't survive Fist of the North Star. That shit has a move specifically designed to kill a large fat man. And a move that requires someone from an opposing school to use!

I'm saying it right now: Erza's my favorite.

That's not saying I don't like the men. Far from it, Gajeel's growth into a different person both surprised and delighted me. And Gray was a really cool guy!

Speaking of Gray, the thing about the fanservice is that while it's not as much as the women, the men get sexualized a bit too…

And Natsu? He's fine. He works with what he is. I liked him. He does his job and he does it well. I do enjoy his personality as it's my favorite on the shonen personality scale. For reference, this scale goes from 1-10, where 1 is the evil protags like Light, 5 is the jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold like Yusuke, and 10 is the goody two-shoes like Deku. I put Natsu as a 6, maybe a 5 at times. And I love 5s.

I was also surprised with the shipping and how invested I was. I loved seeing Nalu and Jerza get teased a lot. I especially liked Jerza, even if I saw Jellal as about as useful as Tuxedo Mask. Seriously, Jellal, I love you, but you lose so much in front of your girlfriend.

And Zeref gets his own paragraph because he was such a cool villain. His contradicting curse was so interesting and his backstory was so tragic! I kinda compared him to what Edward Elric might become if Al ever died. I like Fairy Tail and even I thought he was too good for it.

I think it's starting to become obvious that I liked this show, with the characters being fun and interesting and the battles were exciting. I got what I wanted anyway. But one more thing to touch before I get to the title of this essay:

I found an interesting tweet that I wish I kept that said that he felt like the Fairy Tail guild was more of a family than the Straw Hats. And another video said he felt so much more at home with Fairy Tail than the others. I… can't say I disagree. There's a sense of comradery that you don't really get anywhere else.

 

So… what's with the title?

Two Men and a Baby

 

Fairy Tail is a deconstruction, but not intentionally.

Before I tell you why I think this, I want to digress a little and give you a scenario and have you guess what the game I'm talking about is.

There's a Final Fantasy game that's incredibly linear for much of the game, involves crystals, and doesn't become open-ended with tons of sidequests until near the end. Which game am I talking about.

If you said XIII, wrong, I just described FF6. The thing about XIII isn't that it's linear, is that it's functionally the same as every other FF: Most games in the franchise have at most one path to go one until near the end. Its just that XIII stripped the illusion of a large world and showed the games for what they really are: Linear experiences.

And this is why I think Fairy Tail gets so much flak compared other shonens that do the same thing. Oda, Kubo, and Kishimoto all attempt to hide the flaws of a lot of battle shonen under pacing. Bad pacing, basically. But like its main character, Fairy Tail doesn't slow down and those flaws become apparent.

Ass pull powerups? Fairy Tail does have its cast beat the villains just after the beatdown. Usually in a single hit. I don't mind it necessarily, but it has caused issues. However, all shonen does this to an extent. Sanji randomly being able to light his foot on fire despite not being a devil fruit user, Luffy surviving getting stabbed in the sternum and then waking up seemingly one day later to beat up Crocodile… it's just that FT just skips to the hero winning instead of letting them have a breather.

Quick redemptions? Power of Friendship? Every shonen manga does this to some extent. Naruto freaking gives everybody biju power and his thoughts of his friends help him beat Sasuke. Its just that FT doesn't really hide and its out in the open about it.

(I do agree that sometimes the speeches can be cheesy, though they mostly come from Erza.)

Fanservice? Honestly, just look at the Yoruichi episode of TYBW…

Overall, FT's problem isn't that it has these things, it's that it never hides it. And yet? I commend it for it. Its pacing is probably better than most shonens!

Conclusion:

Fairty Tail, while not perfect, was an enjoyable experience. It had cool fight scenes, the characters were fun, and the art was pretty good, way better than people give it credit for. I liked Fairy Tail a lot more than people made me think I would.

Next time, I finish my read through of Takahashi's work with Maison Ikkoku.

*When I refer to Shonen, I'm referring to battle shonen for the sake of simplicity. Shonen is a demographic, not a genre, remember that!

The End