(L) Fairy Tail Manga Discussion Thread

[Krono]

Originally Posted by Ermes Marana

I hated Cana KO'ing Lucy and leaving her to be killed, with still no explanation. "sorry for betraying you Lucy." Yeah, but WHY did you do it? There is still absolutely no explanation since Lucy was on her team.

It should be obvious as to why Cana knocked out Lucy. Namely that Lucy would not agree to go running off to find Mavis's grave for an exam that was suspended, when they're in the middle of battling Grimmoire Heart and their friends are in danger. Trying to argue Lucy into it would just risk Gray returning, or worse, them being found by enemies.

I hated Erza being reduced to sex appeal against Azuma, and Azuma letting her win because he was obsessed with her.

...

She didn't use sex appeal against Azuma. The thought came up as a joke and was immediately rejected. Nor was Azuma obsessed with her, nor did he let her win. He was obsessed with fighting strong people which is why he didn't drain her powers like he was everyone else. He lost because blasting her with the island's power took a tremendous amount of strain and left him temporarily unable to move, and when it failed to harm her the second time, he was completely open to her counter attack.

I don't hate the time skip (yet) because we haven't seen what happened to the world in that time. Maybe it was necessary for future enemies to gain power. Granted, it could have been handled better (don't make the rest of the guild lose all their spirit the moment Natsu isn't there to hold their hand, and show us some of the changes in the world BEFORE everyone comes back immediately) but it's Mashima, you have to expect bad writing.

They didn't lose all their spirit the moment Natsu wasn't there. They lost the top 20% of their guild, including everyone in charge of running it. That was a crippling blow that they haven't been able to recover from, and as things got worse, and the guild grew weaker and poorer, their spirits fell as well.

[TrueElements]

Faily tail! Redeem yourself! Kill the old man! Thats all I want now.
Also for Laxus to return as a main character,,,

[ellifeedn]

When was Laxus a main character?

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by Krono

The problem is that these aren't even minor characters. All the major and minor characters were on the island. They're background characters, that were never intended to be more than one dimensional, the only characters that are flatter than them are the ones that got a profile but no lines and/or appearances.

He can develop them, but it would take quite a while, and in the mean time, they just simply can't effectively carry the story themselves for any real length of time.

Some of them had bits of development. Remember the first "arc" of the entire series, right after Lucy joins up? About Macao and Romeo? Some of the rest have had bits of development here and there, like with Reedus and the time he took Lucy off to protect her during the Phantom Pain arc?

For those who are wondering just how many characters in this series have received development, they should take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ail_characters

And even that doesn't describe everything we know about them. Mashima has done quite a number. Even if we just focus on the ones on the island, that's still a considerable number to have developed over the course of this series.

In fact, one of my pet peeves about series is the "loads and loads of characters" problem that crops (one reason I began to dislike Negima). And I'd say Mashima is coming quite close to that. Too many characters, and it's hard to keep track sometimes. Fortunately, unlike Negima's whole cast of 15 year old girls, the cast of FT are quite varied in looks, abilities, and personalities, which makes it easier to tell them apart.

I will say, it might have been nice to see a few chapters focusing on these lesser members, and them overcoming some odds and accomplishing some things, before the main cast came back. But we'll see what happens. Still plenty of time in the series to spotlight some of them (and I presume Romeo is going to get in on the action here soon, and thus some more development).

[Simonsy]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Some of them had bits of development. Remember the first "arc" of the entire series, right after Lucy joins up? About Macao and Romeo? Some of the rest have had bits of development here and there, like with Reedus and the time he took Lucy off to protect her during the Phantom Pain arc?

For those who are wondering just how many characters in this series have received development, they should take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ail_characters

And even that doesn't describe everything we know about them. Mashima has done quite a number. Even if we just focus on the ones on the island, that's still a considerable number to have developed over the course of this series.

In fact, one of my pet peeves about series is the "loads and loads of characters" problem that crops (one reason I began to dislike Negima). And I'd say Mashima is coming quite close to that. Too many characters, and it's hard to keep track sometimes. Fortunately, unlike Negima's whole cast of 15 year old girls, the cast of FT are quite varied in looks, abilities, and personalities, which makes it easier to tell them apart.

I will say, it might have been nice to see a few chapters focusing on these lesser members, and them overcoming some odds and accomplishing some things, before the main cast came back. But we'll see what happens. Still plenty of time in the series to spotlight some of them (and I presume Romeo is going to get in on the action here soon, and thus some more development).

Kind of a tricky thing you are saying. Its like you want to get more character depth for everyone, yet in same sense you don't because there are too many characters.

My input on this. Take a look at the spread that shows the Fairy Tail members re-entering after the break. Look how many of them were at the S-Class trials and didn't age. There is a crap load of them and they are getting good depth to them. I don't think I want to waste time learning more about Jet, Droy, Macou or others. We have enough to distinguish them, no need to make them a part of the main cast.

Think of bleach. Would you like it if the rest of Ichigo's friends in class started developing powers and join the battles? I wouldn't be against it IF the rest of soul society didn't come along. But we have the 5-6 humans and then the 30 soul society members. Anyone else adding is just painful

[Randrak42]

Originally Posted by Krono

It should be obvious as to why Cana knocked out Lucy. Namely that Lucy would not agree to go running off to find Mavis's grave for an exam that was suspended, when they're in the middle of battling Grimmoire Heart and their friends are in danger. Trying to argue Lucy into it would just risk Gray returning, or worse, them being found by enemies.

So it was a MUCH BETTER idea to knock her out and leave her to be found by enemies by herself. Now I see why Cana was only seen drinking, she lacked the brain power to do anything other than "Lift beer mug, swallow, repeat"
Really now, I went back to read that chapter and while Lucy, Cana and Gray did agree to split up to find the rest of the 7 kin, she also paired up with Lucy out of her will. If her plan was to find the grave all along then she could have asked Lucy the clue and left alone or suggest splitting up with Lucy or SOMETHING. Plus...why in the hell would they continue the exam while under attack by an enemy guild?
Personally what she did was no better than what Luxus did, but on a smaller scale. She left a fellow friend and guild member unconscious while the island was being attack by powerful enemy mages...it's like slapping her with some handcuffs and hanging her from a tall pole with a large sign "Hey I'm weak and defenseless" AND she basically put her own wishes above the rest of the guild's safety by not helping them fight the enemy.

But hey! It's all good cause she had that little redemption moment when she found what she was looking for. That solves everything! I mean Luxus wasn't kicked out of FT cause he had a similar redemption moment after the fig...oh wait he was exiled? But he felt sorry for what he did! Doesn't that fix everything in FT world? Oh just for Cana? Oh yea cause she still needed the big reveal "I am your daughter" thing right? Oh dangit why couldn't Luxus be Mira's unknown son? Screw it being physically impossible, atleast he could still use the big reveal and stay in the guild.
Explain to me why FT peeps still trust the bitch when she clearly puts her selfish wishes above everyone's lives...Oh yea...the great power of friendship forgives everything...

FT works allot with the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP-SHIP-SHIP-SHIP (echo makes everything glorious) so wouldn't Cana's betrayal be like a cancer in their power!
Oh I get it! That's why it took 7 years for the Fairy Sphere to release them! Cause Cana's a bitch and made the Sphere malfunction.
That's my theory and no one can deny it!

Excuse the "I hate Cana" rant but really...I hate Cana

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

For those who are wondering just how many characters in this series have received development, they should take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ail_characters

I never really liked that page. Many people who edited it didn't know what priorities to set for the characters and their roles in the story (there was a time where an insignificant member of Eisenwald who didn't even appear for two chapters got his own subsection while his own guild wasn't even mentioned once, just because he proved to be a challenging opponent for Gray, of all people, who still wiped the floor with him), so a revamp of the article was pushed for. If you ask me, it's still a work in progress. But I digress.

[Kuroi Hadou]

Originally Posted by immblueversion

I never really liked that page. Many people who edited it didn't know what priorities to set for the characters and their roles in the story.

Then edit it yourself and fix what you perceive the problem to be.

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by Kuroi Hadou

Then edit it yourself and fix what you perceive the problem to be.

I do. I would know, I was the one who revamped the whole damn page. Feel free to make of that as you will.

[Kuroi Hadou]

Originally Posted by immblueversion

Feel free to make of that as you will.

Good. I would hate to think you were another one of those people who bitch and moan about the inaccuracies of something on a Wiki page when they can just go and fix it in the time it takes to complain.

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by Simonsy

Kind of a tricky thing you are saying. Its like you want to get more character depth for everyone, yet in same sense you don't because there are too many characters.

It *is* tricky, and I full well acknowledge that. So that's why I think the current number of developed characters is okay, and thus why I don't have as much of a problem as others that the main gang came back so quick.

And to re-iterate... I don't have problems with loads of characters, when they are sufficiently differentiated from each other, and aren't all 15 year old girls or sword-wielding captains and Lieutenants. Variety is the spice of life. And I'll part of the problem is the number of villains, too; Bleach had to give each hero their own villain to duel, while FT tends to have less villains.

Also, FT focuses on just a few heroes at a time, making it easier to keep track of people. Series like Negima and Bleach pretty much try to account for everyone almost all of the time.

So it's not just the number of characters, but what the focus is and how they are dealt with. And I should make the note that this is just where my likes and dislikes lie; obviously, everyone else has their own perfectly valid feelings towards series (I have to add this disclaimer because someone always gets upset when I try to elucidate my opinion).

Originally Posted by immblueversion

I never really liked that page. Many people who edited it didn't know what priorities to set for the characters and their roles in the story (there was a time where an insignificant member of Eisenwald who didn't even appear for two chapters got his own subsection while his own guild wasn't even mentioned once, just because he proved to be a challenging opponent for Gray, of all people, who still wiped the floor with him), so a revamp of the article was pushed for. If you ask me, it's still a work in progress. But I digress.

No, it's not perfect; but I was just using it as an illustration to show just how many characters have been developed thus far. If anything, the wiki doesn't list all the information about all the characters (such as Reedus's feelings), so the truth is that there is much, much more than that.

[Slayerx]

eh can't really think of what to say... so much disappointment over how this timeskip has been handled... two chapters is all it took for everyone to suddenly come on back. no time to really let it sink in or focus on someone else for a change... we get a 7 year time skip and we are back to the status qou in just a couple of chapters

Originally Posted by Kaijo

It *is* tricky, and I full well acknowledge that. So that's why I think the current number of developed characters is okay, and thus why I don't have as much of a problem as others that the main gang came back so quick.

And to re-iterate... I don't have problems with loads of characters, when they are sufficiently differentiated from each other, and aren't all 15 year old girls or sword-wielding captains and Lieutenants. Variety is the spice of life. And I'll part of the problem is the number of villains, too; Bleach had to give each hero their own villain to duel, while FT tends to have less villains.

Also, FT focuses on just a few heroes at a time, making it easier to keep track of people. Series like Negima and Bleach pretty much try to account for everyone almost all of the time.

So it's not just the number of characters, but what the focus is and how they are dealt with. And I should make the note that this is just where my likes and dislikes lie; obviously, everyone else has their own perfectly valid feelings towards series (I have to add this disclaimer because someone always gets upset when I try to elucidate my opinion).

I feel like Fairy tail's problem with characters is that they are too in love with Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and Erza; with wendy and Gajeel making there way to be included since their addition. Fairy tail has had 8 major arcs and nearly all of them have placed them in center stage... Other characters get added on to usually take up a secondary spotlight, and occasionally we get a few third-stingers to have slightly more presence than simple background...

Thing is though, with as many as 8 major arcs, there is actually A LOT of time for some other characters to get some more focus. Give Ezra and gray a break and you free up 2 more spaces for some of the other characters to get some significant panel time and get some good exposure. Fairy tail has become rather boring because we get the same characters fighting their battles and almost always ending with the power of friendship... give those other characters some time and it might feel a whole lot less fomulaic. Hell we don't even need only the strong characters; as we've seen one piece, even weaker characters can still make for a good fight... so instead just S and A mages maybe we could give some significant time to the B and C mages


Problem with bleach and their many characters is that they try to give them ALL screen time in each arc... this in turns leads to EPIC long arcs that never end. But Fairy tail does not have this problem seeing as they instead of many small arcs and thus have a chance to just swap out characters... develop some charaters one arc, give them a breka and then develop others.

[Chaos2Frozen]

...On a positively optimistic note, this chapter answers one of my oldest personal questions- What kind of person would name their guild [Fairy Tail]...?

Of course, it had to be a loli.

[Kafriel]

^Obviously a fairy who made a guild out of her tail...

Problem with bleach and their many characters is that they try to give them ALL screen time in each arc...

Imo BLEACH let the secondary cast (Gotei13) take over the main cast (Ichigo&friends), and it just wasn't the same after a while. FT never gets the spotlight off of Natsu, for a main character he sure does his job well~

[Casshern]

I'm glad I don't have to trudge through weeks of insignificant characters getting bullied by nobodies. Developing minor characters is pointless. More importantly, I'm glad I'm not reading a shounen manga with all the main characters (all 4 of them) in their mid-20's.

[Shuuda]

we get a 7 year time skip and we are back to the status qou in just a couple of chapters

Expect that it isn't quite back to the status quo yet.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

Oh I get it! That's why it took 7 years for the Fairy Sphere to release them! Cause Cana's a bitch and made the Sphere malfunction.

Cana's power of friendship doesn't work when there's too much blood in her alcohol system.

[kitten320]

Originally Posted by Casshern

I'm glad I don't have to trudge through weeks of insignificant characters getting bullied by nobodies. Developing minor characters is pointless. More importantly, I'm glad I'm not reading a shounen manga with all the main characters (all 4 of them) in their mid-20's.

They would be around 21 years old, what's wrong in being 21? I don't consider myself to be old

I'm actually fed up with 13 year old characters in mangas who act like they are 25, especially when it involves romance with bunch of sexual action. Are all japanese pedophiles or something?

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

I feel like Fairy tail's problem with characters is that they are too in love with Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and Erza; with wendy and Gajeel making there way to be included since their addition. Fairy tail has had 8 major arcs and nearly all of them have placed them in center stage... Other characters get added on to usually take up a secondary spotlight, and occasionally we get a few third-stingers to have slightly more presence than simple background...

They are the main characters. Every story is generally going to focus on just on a handful of mains; that's why they are called mains. The rest are secondary characters, and by definition, they don't as much focus or screen time. You summed up the problem when you talked about Bleach; once they brought in 13 captains + 13 Lieutenants + other assorted Soul Society characters, it suddenly drowned out Ichigo and his friends (and I wanted to see more of what's-her-name, the martial arts chick).

In any story, there is a balance that needs to be maintained, as you can only focus on so many characters before you start to overwhelm your audience. As a fanfic writer, I run into the same issue when I write my Nanoha fanfiction. I have seen people have trouble at times, keeping track of all the characters I am writing about. It's no easy task. So I think Mashima has done a decent job here; give a little development to side characters like Macao and Reedus from time to time, but keeping the focus on the Mains.

We'll notice that Natsu is the main character and generally has the main fights against the arc villain, but he's not the strongest. But since he's the main, sooner or later, he finds himself against the main bad guy (not always; the cursed island arc, it was more Gray against the main bad).

Originally Posted by kitten320

They would be around 21 years old, what's wrong in being 21? I don't consider myself to be old

I'm actually fed up with 13 year old characters in mangas who act like they are 25, especially when it involves romance with bunch of sexual action. Are all japanese pedophiles or something?

Actually, older. Natsu and Lucy are 17. I think Gray is similar, and Erza a bit older. Mirajane and Elfman would be older still. I think there are cards with stats floating around. Which I kinda like; it's refreshing to see people acting their ages.

As far as romance with a bunch of action for 13 year olds... I'm not quite sure to what you are referring. Protagonists are generally young, in shonen and mahou shoujo, because they are trying to appeal to that age crowd.

[Qpax]

So Fairy Tail's first master was a loli?! Now that's a twist :3