(L) Fairy Tail Manga Discussion Thread

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by dniv

I'm just going to use the fan-romanization instead of the direct katakana

"Jellal" isn't a fan romanization. It's his official English name provided by Hiro Mashima himself, and used in the Del Rey, Kodansha, and Funimation translations. Then again, the FT Wiki prefers to use fan translations over official names not said to be given by Mashima whenever it can, even if the fan translations are..."Keith".

[ImperialFlameGod8190]

Talking about the chapter im heavily disappointed in it because honestly that was corny even by FT standards

[Tempest35]

Originally Posted by dniv

-snip-

It's not about giving Jellal a chance - it's not about him being 'redeemable'. He will always be someone that I dislike - no matter what happens. Whether Mashima done goofed when making Jellal into a Woobie or not, I dunno but he's dead to me. I loved the fact that Natsu wanted to tear him a new one as soon as he heard that Jellal was around. And then Erza goes 'all forgiving' on him for all of the crap that he did not only to her but how many other lives were lost too... love is the most unfair thing in the world.

This is why I say it's a personal thing since I absolutely adore Ultear despite her being the reason for Jellal's start of darkness among other equally heinous crimes. And she pretty much gets off scott free from it all - hell, if it wasn't for Hades, she'd made a very convincing 'Big Bad' on her own. It's not about who's ethically 'good' or who's 'bad' - it's 'do you like the character?' Cuz not everyone loves the 'good' characters, despite them being 'good'.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by immblueversion

"Jellal" isn't a fan romanization. It's his official English name provided by Hiro Mashima himself, and used in the Del Rey, Kodansha, and Funimation translations. Then again, the FT Wiki prefers to use fan translations over official names not said to be given by Mashima whenever it can, even if the fan translations are..."Keith".

By fan romanization, I mean how the fanbase looked at the romanizations Mashima provided and turned them into English words as opposed to how the English Dub made them into other "things" that I shall not speak of. I was trying to refer to the translations by Mashima that the fanbase endorses which most of us like. (I'm not talking about the Wiki BTW.)

Originally Posted by Tempest35

It's not about giving Jellal a chance - it's not about him being 'redeemable'. He will always be someone that I dislike - no matter what happens. Whether Mashima done goofed when making Jellal into a Woobie or not, I dunno but he's dead to me. I loved the fact that Natsu wanted to tear him a new one as soon as he heard that Jellal was around. And then Erza goes 'all forgiving' on him for all of the crap that he did not only to her but how many other lives were lost too... love is the most unfair thing in the world.

This is why I say it's a personal thing since I absolutely adore Ultear despite her being the reason for Jellal's start of darkness among other equally heinous crimes. And she pretty much gets off scott free from it all - hell, if it wasn't for Hades, she'd made a very convincing 'Big Bad' on her own. It's not about who's ethically 'good' or who's 'bad' - it's 'do you like the character?' Cuz not everyone loves the 'good' characters, despite them being 'good'.

I get what you mean. Initial impressions are hard to shake lol. And also, I know how it is with certain things, I suppose, lol. (I also like Ultear's character btw.)

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by dniv

Anyway, the way I see/saw things is that 1. Erza was referring to the fact that Jellal (I'm just going to use the fan-romanization instead of the direct katakana) was evil because he had changed completely after the incident and was now doing seemingly bad things. 2. Jellal didn't have an alter-ego. He just had a magic-created clone of himself that shared information between the two of them. (I actually thought that this was a cool idea...) 3. Erza wasn't referring to one of the clones being evil while the other one wasn't evil. That was just a figure of speech... Jellal is nice sometimes and insane/evil other times. This is clearly explaining that when he is possessed he is a jerk and is at least a decent/nice guy the rest of the time. 4. She is shocked to find out that Jellal is evil because she expected that the good side of him is still there somewhere and that he would never be so morally corrupted...

Eh i feel like your making a lot of assumptions about what Erza thought that don't really add up. Honestly, i just don't think he was all that well planned out; like Mashima had one idea but then had a better idea later on and changed course while forgetting about certainly minor details. He wouldn't be the first Manga author to make a mistake like that. Kubo, Kishi, toriyama, i feel have all done this... Even Oda has his share of lapses. With stories so long that they take YEARS to tell, its just hard for Writers to plan out every detail, and since these series are written on a week by week basis, the writers have the freedom to change course if they want too... and when they do change course, it can be hard to remember every detail they had written over the years to avoid potential plotholes. However, sometimes changing course CAN be a good thing; for instance i recall the author of harry potter saying that she wished she changed course instead of sticking to some of her original ideas because they didn't work out as well as she originally thought they would. It can be a tough balance.

Really it feels like there are a number of places(not just with Jerral) throughout fairy tail where it feels like Mashima changed course. I feel like Lisanna coming back was just a gigantic asspull riddled with plotholes; I suspect that Mashima didn't actually plan her return but instead brought her back after seeing the positive fan reaction to her character in the anime. And then there is Raven Tail; they got so much build up and yet got what felt like a very anti-climatic send off... definitely feels like he had bigger plans for them, but got bored with them and just wanted to get them out of the way... Heck even the seven year timeskip seemed pretty pointless; it seems like the only thing the timeskip accomplished was allowing fairy tail to act like underdogs for one arc.

5. With Mystogan... I mean... he was a really cool character... and I thought that the idea of Edolas wasn't a bad one... after all, Mystogan isn't Jellal. He saved Wendy, not Jellal... they're different characters... It'd be like saying Edolas Lucy and Lucy are the same character when they clearly aren't... I also don't get why it's Jellal's fault that Mystogan isn't cool. That's like saying that because Jellal isn't cool and Mystogan is Jellal from another world, Mystogan can't be cool, and it makes Jellal even less cool... however, Mystogan from another world != Jellal and Mystogan is cool anyway.

What made Mystogan so cool was the mystique of his character. Fans wre drawn to him because of what we didn't know about him... thing is when the main draw is a mystery, then you better make sure that the answer to that mystery is worth the wait. If you don't like the solution to the mystery story, then that's just gonna ruin the whole story. Mystogan being ANOTHER Jerral was NOT worth the wait... Hence why i called it "Disappointing".

Heck, Mystogan being looking like Jerral didn't even really add anything to his character. He could have been any other edolas double and his story would have been more or less the same... the only exception being that he wouldn't get tied down to Jerral's baggage. Actually thinking about it, one idea that popped into my head is that it might have been pretty awesome if he had instead been an Exceed. That would tie him to Happy, a character we LIKE, and make us think that he is actually someone how connected to his origins; which we would find out when we got to Edolas.

6. Jellal is clearly an original character that Mashima really liked. I feel like it's kind of unfair to get angry if he wants to include said character in the story. I realize that it's to some degree akin to a pet character, but to be honest I thought he was actually decently well done. He was one of the only early characters in this series that actually had any moral ambiguity. I also think that everything or at least a lot involving Jellal was planned from the beginning because it seemed to me that a lot of key elements of the story all stemmed from similar places: i.e. Edolas, Etherion, the council, and Zeref. It seems to me like Jellal's role was at least significantly planned and what bothers me about apparent reader reactions to it is that every time there's a justifiable reason explaining why he could come back and end up doing something useful, the readers are like: we hated him before so even if he comes back and has a chance to hate his character, we don't want that to happen anyway, and so he shouldn't have a chance to come back and redeem himself. I mean if you're taking one of the author's favorite characters and preventing him from writing him back in... that's a bit harsh to any author...

Mashima has a right to write whatever story and feature whatever characters he wants... We however are under no obligation to LIKE what he writes. Heck when it comes to art the best thing you can ever do for an artist is be willing to tell them honestly how you feel about their work.

Really one might compare Jerral with Sasuke of Naruto. Sasuke is also a favorite character of the author and he too garners A LOT of hate from the fanbase. Author's need to be careful about playing favorites because doing so can make them blind to the character's problems and in turn have a negative impact on their writing.

7. I understand that he's now tainted for readers because of how he was handled, but I still think that he's more redeemable than other characters I've seen who have been redeemed and who are far less redeemable than he is (and which have been pulled off successfully). Also, I will bring up the fair point that you're probably always going to hate it if you look at every arc involving him as an explanation justifying or covering up the nonsense of before versus new arcs involving him as just further character development for him... So I recommend at least giving that a try... If you think of stuff as making excuses instead of as presenting pre-planned ideas then of course you'd feel differently about it... that's my two cents * 50 = $1 about that anyway...

See when it comes to "reddemption" what Jerral needs to do for readers is not redeem himself for his past bad actions, but redeem himself of his own poor character. A much more daunting task. For many readers Jerral is simply an unappealing character, simply performing good deeds and making up for his past villainous actions won't make him appealing. Its very difficult to say what he would have to do to become appealing, because what gives a character appeal is pretty vague.

Both Heroes and Villains can be appealing... I feel that a character becomes unappealing when they are either bland/dull/boring, or when they become annoying and irritating; and i feel both apply to Jerral. As a villain he was rather annoying to deal with, and as a good guy he's not really annoying anymore, but he's not really anything all that special either; he just comes off as kind of dull... i just have no reason to like him. He's heavily weighted down by the taint of how he was handled in the past; Basically Jerral would have to do something REALLY amazingly awesome for him to make up for his baggage.

Originally Posted by Tempest35

This is why I say it's a personal thing since I absolutely adore Ultear despite her being the reason for Jellal's start of darkness among other equally heinous crimes. And she pretty much gets off scott free from it all - hell, if it wasn't for Hades, she'd made a very convincing 'Big Bad' on her own. It's not about who's ethically 'good' or who's 'bad' - it's 'do you like the character?' Cuz not everyone loves the 'good' characters, despite them being 'good'.

Ya i actually don't have much problem with Ultear either and she has even LESS excuses for the things she's done. Just because a villain does terrible things doesn't mean they can't be appealing as a villain. Afterall some of the most memorable characters in fiction are villains.


[edit] swapped out the word "likeable", for "appealing"... it just feels like a more appropriate term to use.

[Ggb81]

Originally Posted by dniv

I only started following Fairy Tail within the past year or so, so I think the fact that I didn't have to wait through that arc may have affected things for me?

I also got into the series a little over a year ago, and I agree that reading it all as one block rather than waiting chapter after chapter affected my view of certain characters. Personally, I liked Jellal as Siegrain right off the bat, and... just.. sort of... kept liking him... I thought it was cool that Mystogan was Edolas Prince Jellal (which also makes me wonder about earth Jellal's origins pre-tower of heaven since his dad must be earth-Faust HENCE: mystery not solved/new mystery).

I think generally, people grow tired of all Fairy Tail's heel-face turns and Jellal has had one of the LONGEST turn around processes of any character, he reminds people of the thing they dislike about fairy tail. Personally, I don't mind any of the 180s. Sure, there are of ton of them, and some are implausible, but who cares? It's fairy tail! If you want a manga where bad guys stay bad, read something else. Heel-face turns have been standard Fairy Tail for a long time... Like, since Lyon.

[G147]

Originally Posted by immblueversion

"Jellal" isn't a fan romanization. It's his official English name provided by Hiro Mashima himself, and used in the Del Rey, Kodansha, and Funimation translations. Then again, the FT Wiki prefers to use fan translations over official names not said to be given by Mashima whenever it can, even if the fan translations are..."Keith".

Actually FT Wiki uses what their personal translator, ChaosKnight, says rather than fan translation.

[Krono]

Originally Posted by G147

Actually FT Wiki uses what their personal translator, ChaosKnight, says rather than fan translation.

Which, by definition is still a fan translation.

[Nvis]

Why are FT chapters taking longer to translate? We usually get them released Friday morning.

Did Mangastream drop it?

[_Misfit]

^ it's been Monday releases for a few weeks now. Japan is trying to combat piracy by delaying the magazine shipments, so now FT chapter translations come out on Monday.

[G147]

Originally Posted by Krono

Which, by definition is still a fan translation.

If you ask me, there is no such thing as an accurate official or fan translation in this world. Some words when translated makes no sense in other languages. And there are also cases where fans translation are more accurate than official ones. So trying to say fan translation is inaccurate or official translation is better or more accurate is just something people or companies use to make themselves sounds nice only. What is required is only knowledge of the languages aside from that fan or official translation, it's all the same.

[_Misfit]

Just saw next week's chapter title on Mangastream: "Fire Dragon's Steel Fist"

So are we swapping Sting and Rogue for Natsu and Gajeel vs. the Mard Geer? If so, then poor Sabertooth Dragon Slayers. You guys have been exposed as scrubs once again...

I guess that makes it a little better for me if Natsu doesn't fight him alone.

[MechR]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

I think its actually mostly from how HORRIBLY handled his character was. First he was a member of the council who we thought might be secretly evil; then it turns out there are actually TWO jerral's and the other was evil while he was not, This is something even Erza believes even though SHE was the one who said Council Jerral was evil early in the series. But THEN, plot twist, their both evil and are both one and the same and Ezra is SHOCKED to find out council Jerral is evil even though again, she once said he was evil. She is shocked to find out something that just seemed so blindly obvious.

You're misremembering chapter 94. Erza never stopped thinking Siegrain was evil. She just bought that he was an actual separate person. Which is still pretty gullible, granted.

[Tempest35]

You realize that he not only fooled the Wizard Saints but the Magic Council in to thinking that he was actually a real person as well, right? Which he couldn't have kept up that illusion like that all the time though... He had to be at Era at least some of the time as well.

[MechR]

Originally Posted by Tempest35

You realize that he not only fooled the Wizard Saints but the Magic Council in to thinking that he was actually a real person as well, right? Which he couldn't have kept up that illusion like that all the time though... He had to be at Era at least some of the time as well.

I single out Erza because she knew Gerard existed, whereas the others did not. "Wait, I'm his twin brother!" has got to be the flimsiest lie you could blurt out when bumping into your crazy ex.

Honestly, the plot could've afforded her knowing "Siegrain" was a clone, as long as she also knew "Gerard" still held her friends hostage at the Tower, preventing her from making a move.

[Kafriel]

Originally Posted by MechR

You're misremembering chapter 94. Erza never stopped thinking Siegrain was evil. She just bought that he was an actual separate person. Which is still pretty gullible, granted.

She was proved right after seeing Mystogan's face though! Just imagine what was going on in her head at the time

[Tempest35]

I think her reaction to seeing three Jellal's in the first OVA about sums it up.

[chaos_animagic]

Now going back to actual Manga chapter.

I wish I had a dad like Igneel, would have been an awesome dad.

BTW, why does it feel like Igneel is going to break Natsu's promise?... I sense something coming up.



And now for da Jellal discussion...

Erza should get a Jellal harem.

PS: just realized we're on page 666, fun number.

[Crimrui]

Originally Posted by chaos_animagic

I wish I had a dad like Igneel, would have been an awesome dad.

Like being with you in your early childhood days and then disappearing without a trace, never being there when you needed him the most?

On to Jellal discussion...

There is no solid explanation from my part, but it just feels to me that the author is forcing him on us. Jellal was... alright when he was a bad guy. Didn't like him much, but he served his purpose. And honestly he should have stayed dead. Now he is just there... He is trying to do good things to redeem himself but there is nothing to ''redeem'' in my eyes as I just don't care about him. Maybe it's the presentation or how his back-story unfold... And not liking JellalXErza ether.
I didn't had problems with Ultear for some reason. Her 180 change was bull, but I loved her ether way.

Mystogan on the other hand is pretty good in my book. Yeah yeah, same face but the history is different. Wasn't too thrilled when a mysterious and enigmatic character turned out to be another Jellal, but him being one man army, closing anima gates turned out to be pretty badass on it's own level. Wish we saw more of him, like how he earned his S class status. He didn't even had a decent fight ether. Man, what a waste of good character design... And I hated the fact that Jellal disguised himself as Mystogan in the Grand Magic Games arc. It would have been better if real Mystogan came back somehow to return the favor and Makarov somehow pursued him to be in the B team.

And I agree that one can like bad guys as well. I loved Minerva the very first chapter she was introduced. Wicked personality and cool design. Unfortunately, she was showed against never-losing Erza, so with all of her powers she looked less powerful then she already was. And then getting more powerful later on proved useless on the tired Erza as well. Man, great way to make a dump on the character. Seriously, Hiro really hates bad guys. They just can't do shit against Fairy Tail. I feel sorry for them ;_;

Anway, on to this new chapter. Poor Rogue and Sting. They just can't win a fight. Yeah the fight didn't really end, but I really wish they wrecked someone up.

[Tempest35]

One doesn't have to 'kill' a character to show it being serious - it's just the execution of the plot. Mashima's just 'hit-or miss' on this. He can play drama up in non-fighting segments though, I'll give him that. Lucy finding out about her father's death was very good. Comedy he's the best at though.