(L) Fairy Tail Manga Discussion Thread

[MAX_COLA_POWER!]

More like this makes Third Gen DSs over-foddered>v>, HA!>V<. Sorry, I just hate Sting, and Rogue not so much.

[vansonbee]

Second Gen > First Gen > Third Gen > Wendy

[DarkSkiper]

Originally Posted by MAX_COLA_POWER!

More like this makes Third Gen DSs over-foddered>v>, HA!>V<. Sorry, I just hate Sting, and Rogue not so much.

Well, it's all Stings fault, so no surprise you hate him...

But poor Gray, I doubt he is worthy of being Natsu's rival anymore and Gajeel stole that position from him... My god! Gajeel is trying to steal the show so that's why Natsu got rid of him!!!

[MechR]

Originally Posted by Krono

This ain't sports,

It's the Grand Magic Games. The Wizard Olympics. It's sports.

second origin ain't drugs,

It's a last-minute quickie gimme to cover their asses. And it's their biggest permanent powerup to date! That's just bad writing, thematically and otherwise.

and the value of hard work has never been a theme of Fairy Tail. There's no moral that's being corrupted.

It's an unwritten rule of shounen manga to at least pretend to promote hard work, even if the subtext often undermines it.

It's ridiculous that people complain so vehemantly about second origin and Natsu's team "not training" when the results are identical to having trained, and the only reason they didn't train was a contrived plot wherein Lucy's spirits tricked them into the Spirit World, and didn't tell them about the time difference until after they were ready to leave, despite the fact that they knew Lucy and company intended to be spending that time training.

Putting aside the difference between a self-made man and a lottery winner, the 3-month timeskip was indeed contrived, but also funny and interesting, since the team would be going into the tournament with no improvement. I was looking forward to watching them struggle for some hard-earned victories (either that or a long string of determinator asspulls, this being Mashima).

OH WAIT NEVERMIND, FREE POWERUPS! Let's cancel out bad writing with more bad writing, and make a hash of some themes in the process!

And now it's basically confirmed that things would have been more interesting without the whole "we need training" detour. It just turned a potentially nail-biting fight into an embarrassing cakewalk. The world was given 7 years to catch up, only for FT to jump right over them again with a simple powerup, making the whole venture, if not pointless, at least a huge waste of storytelling potential.

And if we're going to be comparing things to doping, Laxus, Sting, and Rogue's DS lacrima come much closer. Yet for some reason we don't hear people discounting Laxus's performance on the grounds that he used DS magic that he wouldn't have otherwise had. Or that according to Ivan, Laxus's constitution was weak without the lacrima.

Sting and Rogue earned their powerups by (supposedly) killing their dragons for them. Luxus arguably gets a pass because of his childhood handicap, and because it's ancient history, not something he accepted at the last minute just to win a vanity contest.

Actually, I have always found it interesting that second-gen "fake" DS's have no drawbacks, and are even stronger than first-gens from what we've seen. I keep expecting a first-gen advantage to be introduced, but it hasn't happened yet.

[Rahan]

Originally Posted by DarkSkiper

Well, it's all Stings fault, so no surprise you hate him...

But poor Gray, I doubt he is worthy of being Natsu's rival anymore and Gajeel stole that position from him... My god! Gajeel is trying to steal the show so that's why Natsu got rid of him!!!

Gray improved just as much as Gajeel ...
Those 2 chapters just proved Gajeel didn't become more important than he used to be despite the manga focusing on the DS since all he did was tanking some attacks. And his part of the arc may be over.

You are overestimating Sting and Rogue by much. I reckon all Fairy Tail S class ninjas could beat them. The best S class candidates (Natsu, Gray, Gajeel) would too. Jura and Yagura would flatten them.

[felix]

That begs the question, how did they earn the title if not though combat in the last 7 years?

[Kafriel]

And now it's basically confirmed that things would have been more interesting without the whole "we need training" detour. It just turned a potentially nail-biting fight into an embarrassing cakewalk. The world was given 7 years to catch up, only for FT to jump right over them again with a simple powerup, making the whole venture, if not pointless, at least a huge waste of storytelling potential.

I think you overlooked the last thing in this chapter, FT won by a single point. It's not like they waltzed in and wtfpwned everyone...Gray lost bad, Natsu and Gajeel sucked at chariot, Lucy got owned by Minerva, Wendy lost to Shelia and Elfman barely won against Bacchus.

Now imagine what it would have been like it FT participated as they were from 7 years ago - a constant losing streak, only breakable by either draws or asspull victories, because if people are doubting Natsu's power now, it would have been FAR worse to have him win (by any means) a 1v2 against DF users.

[HiddenMessage]

IMO roach-stomping on just the 2 SB DS is not enough. I can't wait for beating to the entire SB team on the last day of the tourney when its 5 vs 5.

[MechR]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

I think you overlooked the last thing in this chapter, FT won by a single point. It's not like they waltzed in and wtfpwned everyone...Gray lost bad, Natsu and Gajeel sucked at chariot, Lucy got owned by Minerva, Wendy lost to Shelia and Elfman barely won against Bacchus.

Now imagine what it would have been like it FT participated as they were from 7 years ago - a constant losing streak, only breakable by either draws or asspull victories, because if people are doubting Natsu's power now, it would have been FAR worse to have him win (by any means) a 1v2 against DF users.

First, I should clarify that my ideal situation would be "Max never got stronger than Natsu." It's fine for the world average to go up in 7 years, but not to the point that a random schmoe in the country's bottom guild can be as strong as Zancrow. That never made sense, so I'd just cut the "we need training" problem down to size right from the start.

With that in mind, the tournament events could have unfolded slightly differently mostly the same and still let FT reasonably keep up. If anything, it was weird how little difference Second Origin made at first: Gray didn't show any notable benefit from it; his event would've gone exactly the same without it. Lucy did well against Flare, but lost anyway due to cheating. Natsu would've performed exactly the same in Chariot without it. (Gazille too, if we let the 3-month trainers keep their training.)

If we let the 3-month trainers keep their training, Elfman would keep his win. Mirajane didn't need even that to win against Jenny.

Pandemonium could've been a proper event instead of Erza sweeping it like a boss. Or she could sweep it anyway, if Gray's theory about her is correct

Wendy vs Shellia could arguably go the same, if the world average didn't go up as much.

Naval Battle could go the same.

Finally, Natsu+Gazille vs Sting+Rogue could be a tougher fight, instead of Gazille being put on a bus and Natsu carrying the day by himself without even using lightning mode.

Edit: Oh, and Natsu impressing everyone by barging into Sabertooth's hotel wouldn't make you think "Little do they know, Dobengal could've kicked his ass if it weren't for that powerup."

[GundamFan]

Originally Posted by Chris38

In other words, what we are seeing is pretty much, the results of the awakening of Natsu's second origin, and not some random power up, due to what has happened to Lucy - in other words he was already stronger then Sting and Rouge combined, from the beginning of the fight, it's just that, he decided to not go all out, from the beginning of the fight, because he wanted to check, how powerful Sting and Rouge actually are, which is a quite significant character development for him, in my opinion at least.

I'm not really seeing any character development Natsu's flew off the handle in fits of Namaka rage twice so far in this story arc first time he went on rampage on the ST guild because of how they treated Yukino and the second time was after ST hurt Lucy he tried to attack ST top 5 members at once. So I think all we're really seeing is that in this particular battle he had a little cool down period between his intial rage and the fight not actual character growth.

Originally Posted by aliasxn

I think what people are really butthurt about is that it was Natsu and not Gajeel. Which I really don't care but I can understand. Natsu will already get the big bad of this arc, it would've been good damage control on Mashima's part to give this one to Gajeel.

It would have been nice if Mashima had given this one to Gajeel however the Gajeel fanboys really should have been expecting this since Lucy got hurt instead of Levy so Natsu and his team mates are the ones close enough to Lucy to want to get revenge solo.

[kitten320]

^It would've been better if the fight still was one on one. Rouge was not among those who hurt Lucy so his match with Gajeel had nothing to do with it.

Natsu could kick Sting's ass and Gajeel could have kicked Rouge's ass. Everyone would be happy since both characters showed their power and got some air time.

But no, author favored the MC. Gajeel got kicked out of the picture all together and Natsu got a double power up which in all honesty doesn't make much sense.

I could buy him beating Sting or Rouge alone, but two at once who are considered to be the best in the city and are using power that Natsu only used once by luck? NO!

That was cheap and dumb! It was a repeat of the same pattern. I know that Natsu is strong and respected, no need to rub it in my face all the time.

Erza actually has same problem. I still can't accept her win over Azuma, it was lame, cheap and over used. Mashima should learn to do some variety in his story.

Besides when will their power up wore off?

EDIT: Sorry Red boy but I'm still an ultimate Green Queen
P.S. My bad, won't swear again

[Casshern]

Natsu was just stronger and more experienced from the start, and Mashima intentionally overhyped Sting and Rogue. The clues were when Sting would shit bricks each time FT showed their strength in the other contests. If they fought Erza she would have ruined their lives. FT were the strongest 7 years ago and they still are.

[n0m@n]

Some people are saying it was cheap that Natsu won. But Natsu experiences and gets stronger from his defeats. Natsu already lost dozen of times in the story, so it wont be weird for him to get an overwhelming victory at least once.
Erza on other hand has never lost yet.... Now that is cheap.

[kitten320]

Natsu lost? When? Every big guy was defeated by him.
Gajeel, Laxus, Cobra, Zero, Hades, Jellal... each one!

While Gajeel lost to a chicken!

I'm not Gajeel fan but he and Juvia got mistreated a lot once they joined FT. Most of the times it is hard to say that they used to be feared because of how easily they get pushed around lately.

This fight was probably the only worthy one for Gajeel in like ever.

Even Gray had lost yet Erza and Natsu are walking killing machines who steal all the spotlight. Mirajane who got her powers back is still being pushed to the side for most of the time.

Mashime could've at least bothered to teach Lucy some martial art tricks so she would not be useless for most of the time.

[ImperialFlameGod8190]

@kitten the problem is Natsu was overmatched and then something happened and he one this was his first true win from start to finish but yea Gajeel and Juvia really get the crappy end especially Gajeel he hasnt won a fight since he joined FT in the manga.

[GundamFan]

Originally Posted by kitten320

^It would've been better if the fight still was one on one. Rouge was not among those who hurt Lucy so his match with Gajeel had nothing to do with it.

Natsu could kick Sting's ass and Gajeel could have kicked Rouge's ass. Everyone would be happy since both characters showed their power and got some air time.

But no, author favored the MC. Gajeel got kicked out of the picture all together and Natsu got a double power up which in all honesty doesn't make much sense.

You know Gajeel actaully was allowed to do pretty well I half expected Rouge take him out in single shot in chapter 294 and was down right shocked that the first shot after DF was activated didn't do Gajeel in. Did Natsu out shine Gajeel of course but really Gajeel did look fairly impressive and he could have very easily been used as cannon fodder to further establish the 3rd generation DS power.

Originally Posted by kitten320

Natsu lost? When? Every big guy was defeated by him.
Gajeel, Laxus, Cobra, Zero, Hades, Jellal... each one!

To be fair most of those fights had some sort of interfernce and Natsu didn't come out looking nearly as great you like to act and also the Hades fight was more of a group battle and against Laxus Natsu was getting thrown around like a rag doll until Gajeel stepped in.

While Gajeel lost to a chicken!

Natsu was eaten by that Owl guy who Gray beat and got frozen in a block of ice he was unable to melt which is pretty pathic for a fire mage.

[n0m@n]

Originally Posted by kitten320

Natsu lost? When? Every big guy was defeated by him.
Gajeel, Laxus, Cobra, Zero, Hades, Jellal... each one!

Natsu lost against the owl guy.
Natsu lost against Zero in their first encounter along with Gray and Lucy.
Natsu lost against Gildarts.
And he often gets thrown around by Laxus and Erza, though it's not a serious fight but more of a joke.

Anyway, Natsu has indeed lost before.

[ImperialFlameGod8190]

dont forget he was stopped by the block guy in the Tower of Heaven also Natsu has won big fights but he also hasnt done anything major on power alone what made this impressive was he did it on power. O also does anybody else think the person who was crying was Yukino the ST girl who got kicked out and was ST's version of Lucy

[MAX_COLA_POWER!]

I wish it was the weekend again because we all enjoyed the beatdown given to Sting and Rogue and we didn't question how or why, we just enjoyed it-v-;;.

[Krono]

Originally Posted by DarkSkiper

To be fair, Laxus's constitution was weak when he was a kid, so now he is powerful even without it... Just look at Cobra, Sting and Rouge did the lacrima make them same level as Laxus? not really. Laxus didn't settle on the power the lacrima gave him and he only made it his foundation on which he risen to his current level.
But I can't deny that it really does look like doping.

Do we know that Laxus is now powerful even without it? He still has it in him, it's never been removed. He could be horribly asthmatic and unable to fight without it. Also since the intent was presumably to replace his frail human constitution, with a robust dragon constitution, it should always be active like Natsu and Gajeel's dragon's constitutions. Indeed, Laxus himself revealed he had DS powers as an answer to Gajeel's question of how Laxus had tanked the combo they'd just landed on him, so we know it's active even when there aren't an obvious signs. So Laxus always has magic going that's attempting to make him as strong and as fast as a lightning dragon. How much of his physical feats are due to that? If he didn't have the DS lacrima, could he have still tanked Natsu and Gajeel's combo? If he didn't have the lightning roar to catch them by surprise and paralyze them with, could he have still regained the upper hand?

The bottom line is that if you're going to be blasting people for having power they didn't train to obtain, you can't exempt Laxus just because he was originally given it for health reasons. He still has it, and it still enables him to do things he wouldn't without it.

Originally Posted by MechR

It's the Grand Magic Games. The Wizard Olympics. It's sports.

They're wizard, not athletes. The games don't care if their power comes from their training, or from some artifact like Erza Knightwalker's spear that they found on a recent mission, something they bought in a store, or some dangerous ritual to give them a new power, like second origin. All of those things are normal possible power sources for a wizard. Heck, while you're at it, you might as well discount all of Pantherlily's future feats because he stole his current sword, and instantly became more powerful with it.

It's a last-minute quickie gimme to cover their asses. And it's their biggest permanent powerup to date! That's just bad writing, thematically and otherwise.

It's a "last-minute quickie gimme" that replaced three months training that they would have gotten otherwise. You can argue that the whole sequence of events is bad writing, but that doesn't change that it's ridiculous to whine about the outcome, and wish they'd gotten the training instead, when the outcome would be the same either way.

It's an unwritten rule of shounen manga to at least pretend to promote hard work, even if the subtext often undermines it.

So now we're inventing imaginary rules that this breaks?

Putting aside the difference between a self-made man and a lottery winner, the 3-month timeskip was indeed contrived, but also funny and interesting, since the team would be going into the tournament with no improvement. I was looking forward to watching them struggle for some hard-earned victories (either that or a long string of determinator asspulls, this being Mashima).

OH WAIT NEVERMIND, FREE POWERUPS! Let's cancel out bad writing with more bad writing, and make a hash of some themes in the process!

The sudden loss of training time was clearly never intended to be a serious problem for them. It was introduced at the end of one chapter, and solved by the end of the next chapter. You're treating a problem that was introduced, and dealt with, within 20 pages, like something that was a massive long running problem that was suddenly solved just as the tournament started.

Sting and Rogue earned their powerups by (supposedly) killing their dragons for them. Luxus arguably gets a pass because of his childhood handicap, and because it's ancient history, not something he accepted at the last minute just to win a vanity contest.

We have no idea where Sting and Rogue got their lacrima. For all we know, Gemma was the buyer Ivan was hoping to sell Laxus's lacrima to, and Gemma was the one that bought Sting and Rogue's lacrima and implanted them to make his guild stronger. As for Laxus, as long as you're trying to pretend they're athletes, I'm pretty sure sports organizations don't give a pass on performance enhancing drugs on the grounds that they're needed for medical reasons. It's not "ancient history" it's something he still has.

Actually, I have always found it interesting that second-gen "fake" DS's have no drawbacks, and are even stronger than first-gens from what we've seen. I keep expecting a first-gen advantage to be introduced, but it hasn't happened yet.

The second generation DS's are stronger, because they're stronger mages period. Cobra and Laxus could stomp Natsu for the same reason that Natsu was able to stomp Sting and Rogue, just flat out being stronger. The entire "generation" thing is essentially meaningless as to what their actual power is.

Originally Posted by MechR

First, I should clarify that my ideal situation would be "Max never got stronger than Natsu." It's fine for the world average to go up in 7 years, but not to the point that a random schmoe in the country's bottom guild can be as strong as Zancrow. That never made sense, so I'd just cut the "we need training" problem down to size right from the start.

Max never did get stronger than Natsu, he'd only almost reached Natsu's level. Nor was the point of that fight that the average level in the world had risen to the point where the average person like Max was as strong as Natsu. The average level of the world has gone up, but not nearly by that much. The point was that there would be a new generation of people on Natsu's level, and that people that had been on Natsu's level would now be stronger. And "the country's bottom guild" is entirely meaningless. It's been made clear that Fairy Tail wasn't at the bottom because they were genuinely weak. They were at the bottom because their second stringers had bad luck in the tournament the first few times, and gave it up even though they became strong afterwards.

With that in mind, the tournament events could have unfolded slightly differently mostly the same and still let FT reasonably keep up. If anything, it was weird how little difference Second Origin made at first: Gray didn't show any notable benefit from it; his event would've gone exactly the same without it. Lucy did well against Flare, but lost anyway due to cheating. Natsu would've performed exactly the same in Chariot without it. (Gazille too, if we let the 3-month trainers keep their training.)

Gray didn't show any benefit because the very nature of the game restricted him from doing anything big. Any AoE attacks on his part would hit a massive number of clones and lose him a massive amount of points. Ice Make doesn't enhance his physical abilities, so simply having more power does not make it easier for him to dodge sneak attacks. And any hit regardless of power would automatically result in him being down, and losing a point. Even so he easily tanked all the blows Narpudding hit him with without being hurt, and Jet and Droy remarked upon the power of the one attack we saw him use.

Lucy would have been curb stomped by Flare if she fought without being powered up. Lucy's spirits get stronger when she gets stronger, and Flare was easily able to go 1v1 versus Taurus and Scorpio. Pre-training and Flare would simply tear through the single spirit Lucy was able to summon at a time.

If we let the 3-month trainers keep their training, Elfman would keep his win. Mirajane didn't need even that to win against Jenny.

Pandemonium could've been a proper event instead of Erza sweeping it like a boss. Or she could sweep it anyway, if Gray's theory about her is correct

Wendy vs Shellia could arguably go the same, if the world average didn't go up as much.

Naval Battle could go the same.

See, the thing is, the world average didn't go up much, the competition at the top just got a bit stiffer.

Finally, Natsu+Gazille vs Sting+Rogue could be a tougher fight, instead of Gazille being put on a bus and Natsu carrying the day by himself without even using lightning mode.

Edit: Oh, and Natsu impressing everyone by barging into Sabertooth's hotel wouldn't make you think "Little do they know, Dobengal could've kicked his ass if it weren't for that powerup."

It wouldn't be a tougher fight, it'd be a curb stomp once Sting and Rogue went Dragon Force. Sting and Rogue are roughly the same age Natsu and Gajeel were when they vanished. Assuming a similar starting point, and similar growth curves, base Sting and Rogue would be about the same level as Natsu and Gajeel pre-training. If their training is removed, Sting and Rogue stomp. If just Gajeel gets training and Natsu doesn't, then we get Gajeel soloing instead of Natsu, which I suspect you'd find acceptable. So, no, Dobengal could not have kicked his ass without the power up, unless he can kick Sting's ass in base, which is unlikely.

The bottom line in all this is that you can't just remove the training, and get the same outcome, only somewhat more difficult to achieve. You have to then change around, and weaken the power level of all the opponents they face to get the same result.

Originally Posted by GundamFan

I'm not really seeing any character development Natsu's flew off the handle in fits of Namaka rage twice so far in this story arc first time he went on rampage on the ST guild because of how they treated Yukino and the second time was after ST hurt Lucy he tried to attack ST top 5 members at once. So I think all we're really seeing is that in this particular battle he had a little cool down period between his intial rage and the fight not actual character growth.

Minerva threatens the best friend of an already pissed of Natsu to get him to back down and leave. Instead of flying into a deeper rage, Natsu calms down and agrees to leave. Does that sound like typical behavior of Natsu from earlier in the series to you?

Originally Posted by kitten320

Natsu lost? When? Every big guy was defeated by him.
Gajeel, Laxus, Cobra, Zero, Hades, Jellal... each one!

A off the top of my head list of times Natsu's lost:

Leon
Aria
Fukurou (owl dude)
Jellal (needed Etherion)
Laxus (needed Gajeel)
Cobra
Zero (needed Jellal)
Faust (needed Gajeel and Wendy)
Gildarts
Ultear
Bluenote
Hades (needed entire team, plus Laxus)

Really, Natsu's been owned plenty of times. It just doesn't make him emo, or make him question his life, or shake his confidence in himself, or serve as the reason for special training. Natsu knows there are people out there stronger than him. He knows that sometimes you win, and sometimes you don't, either because they were stronger, surprised you with something, or so forth. And he generally adheres to "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Within reason of course, it's not like he's challenging Laxus, Erza, and Gildarts on a daily basis.

As for your list of big guys, Gajeel wasn't the strongest enemy in Phantom Lord, that was Jose. Jellal he had to use a desperation measure of eating Etherion that left him sleeping for days afterwards. Laxus he couldn't beat himself and he knows it, Cobra was poised to finish him off before Brain intervened, Zero he again needed help to beat, Hades being dealt the final blow by Natsu does not mean that Natsu beat him, the entire team beat him.