Fairy Tail Returning?

Yeah... I started watching it a short while ago (earlier this year I think) after having previously gotten bored after 20 episodes. I wanted to give it a fair chance and I now follow the manga, but I'm honestly not a big fan. It's well-drawn and the characters are fun but besides that it lacks everything that makes a good manga. The story is simple and predictable, major plot changes can happen with absolutely no consequences for the story or the characters and... it's really sexist. I can't like it as much as I'd like to because of gigant boobs or asses in my face. It was subtle in the beginning but it's getting more outrageous with every chapter. I say good riddance to the animé and I'm waiting for a good opportunity to stop reading the manga as well.

 

I'll give you some examples then!

Last week (and this week) they released 3 chapters at once. Here are some first pages/double page spreads:

http://readms.com/read/fairy_tail/338/1970/5

http://readms.com/read/fairy_tail/339/1972/1

http://readms.com/read/fairy_tail/341/1982/1

http://readms.com/read/fairy_tail/343/1984/1

That's 4 out of 6 covers in 2 weeks, not including previous chapters.

 

This may not be entirely the same topic but according to Mangastream there's a suspected fall-out between Mashima-sensei and Oda-sensei (creator of One Piece). I think Mashima is a little bitter at Oda (for giving Luffy the nickname "Lucy" perhaps?) and an interesting comment Mangastream said made me read the latest chapters of FT even though I decided to stop reading it (it was quite painful to do, though).

In the latest chapter we are introduced to a group of treasure hunters where one of them adds "super" to his sentences and another saying "dun dun" all the time. Some comments said this was far-fetched and simply a coincidence but I think not, "super" is obviously a reference to Franky and "dun" is a spoof of the fact that Oda is known to use the sound effect "Don" in every dramatic panel. I would doubt this likeness if it hadn't been for the fact that Guildarts already is a complete rip-off of Shanks.

I kept this in mind while reading the latest One Piece-chapter and it seems that Oda-sensei is a much more mature mangaka for not giving Mashima a retort. Childish behaviour from a professional artist and he just gave me one more reason to stop reading his manga.

Also note that Oda's nickname for Luffy in this arc is more likely a reference to Dragonball's Master Roshi than anything else (Lucy in Japanese is pronounced Ru-shi and his disguise is that of an old man with a long white beard) so I can see no reason for Mashima to even be mad about anything.

 

I hear there used to be a rumour that Mashima once was Oda's assistant because it would explain why there are similarities between these two. Mashima later proved it wrong and said he had never been anyone's assistant. Apparently "Mashima has pretty much been a superstar from the beginning – and from a startlingly young age". This sentence seems to imply that he is a better(?) mangaka than others because he has never served under anyone and started publishing his manga all by himself. I'd rather say it's the opposite and that he hasn't had enough experience, which explains why his story-telling is rubbish. The best way to become a professional is learning from another professional artist. This is the same mistake Cristopher Paulini ran into when he got Eragon published when he was very young and he started writing it when he was between 14-18 (I can't remember exactly which age). I hope he regrets this because Eragon feels like fanfiction more than anything else and I'm guessing he spend so much time on the last book because he had to take the foundation he wrote when he was younger and had to fix it up with a proper ending. I'd hate to be in that position xD Also I bought the last book when it came out but only read 2 chapters, it was too boring.

I got off-topic a little. Again. But in short, becoming a writer is not only natural talent but you have to learn the proper ways or it will sound like fanfiction. Oda got OP published when he was very young as well but he had prior knowledge having worked as an assistant for another mangaka and he managed to properly fix the flaws in his manga with the time-skip. Smart solution, I gained much more respect for him after that. Unlike another mangaka who last week released 12 pages of naked girls.

Source about Mashima supposedly being Oda's assistant: http://web.archive.org/web/201107070813 ... log/?p=129

"Their styles are similar because they both worship Akira Toriyama", I scoff at that. FT is much more similar to OP than that, unless there's a character from Dragonball who looks like both Shanks and Gildarts. Maybe I should watch Dragonball for the sole purpose of finding out if FT is a rip-off of OP or if they both are just very inspired by Dragonball.


This was my 200th post - ranting about manga.