Fairy Tail Manga & Anime Discussion Thread

[The Drunkard Kid]

If Sting and Rogue killed their dragons without any sort of shenanigans involved, I'll eat my hat. Ditto if those dragons are Acnologia class.

You know what Sabretooth reminds me of? The New Fishman Pirates. A bunch of relatively powerful brutes that are built up and do douchy things, but are not even on the scale of the pre-timeskip main cast who steamrolls them on the way to the real plot.

[Dark Soul # 7]

You know what Sabretooth reminds me of? The New Fishman Pirates. A bunch of relatively powerful brutes that are built up and do douchy things, but are not even on the scale of the pre-timeskip main cast who steamrolls them on the way to the real plot.

There are two big differences between these examples though.

In One Piece the New Fishmen Pirates are never really built up as anything special besides a bunch of violent fishmen with grand schemes. They don't have anybody special or truly notorious on their crew for the Strawhats to be worried about. And once it's revealed that they use drugs to power up the average reader can figure out that they're just in the story to get their asses kicked and represent the ultimate futility of revenge.

Sabertooth on the other hand has been presented as the new top of the crop in the Fairy Tail universe. They're supposed to be the most powerful guild with two dragon-slayers that not only combines the strengths of the previous DS-generations but also managed to kill their dragon parents (Acnologia being the only dragon we've seen in action means that we immediately compare this accomplishment to them beating Acnologia). In short, Sabertooth get much more build up than the New Fishmen pirates. So seeing them get their asses handed to them like this is just makes all that build up seem pointless.

Secondly, in One Piece Oda does a good job of showing how the Straw hats have become stronger after the time-skip. The monster trio can now tear through opponents that would've been a challenge for the entire crew before, Chopper, Robin and Brooke can all pull off big new tricks that would've seemed impossible before the time-skip and Franky, Nami and Usopp all have a much more impressive arsenal at their disposal.

Mashima has not pulled off the same stunt. The only characters that have noticeably improved are Lucy and Wendy, the weakest in terms of battle strength but can now fight and be awesome. The heavy hitters like Natsu, Erza etc. Haven't displayed really anything that would make me go "Wow, they've really improved.". So while in One Piece we're impressed with the main casts' new strength and give some cred to Hordy & co for not getting immediately curbstomped in Fairy Tail we're just unimpressed because it just seems like Sabertooth were nominated the strongest guild simply because Fairy Tail's a-listers weren't around to kick their asses.

[Nik Hasta]

S'all about the presentation.

Oda presented the Strawhats taking two years out in specific areas designed to train them to become stronger so they'd be ready for whatever was waiting for them in the New World. We all expected them to be strong enough to compete with whatever they came up against. Expectations were set and met with how they performed.

Conversely, Mashima set it up that the main cast had become grossly weakened and left behind by their seven year absence. They had a month to train but missed their window due to the spirit world and so were given a last minute powerup by Jellal and company that we weren't even sure worked properly. Thus we were all expecting them to have a really hard fight at the tournament because everyone still had seven years of time on them and they'd missed our on the majority of their training.

However, they've proceeded to rock everyone harder and harder with each fight. It doesn't tally with how our expectations were set.

[Robotech Master]

S'all about the presentation.

Oda presented the Strawhats taking two years out in specific areas designed to train them to become stronger so they'd be ready for whatever was waiting for them in the New World. We all expected them to be strong enough to compete with whatever they came up against. Expectations were set and met with how they performed.

Conversely, Mashima set it up that the main cast had become grossly weakened and left behind by their seven year absence. They had a month to train but missed their window due to the spirit world and so were given a last minute powerup by Jellal and company that we weren't even sure worked properly. Thus we were all expecting them to have a really hard fight at the tournament because everyone still had seven years of time on them and they'd missed our on the majority of their training.

However, they've proceeded to rock everyone harder and harder with each fight. It doesn't tally with how our expectations were set.

I don't think my expectations have been that far off from what's gone down. Fairy Tail is still in need of good showings over the next two days if they want to win, so it's not like they were holding onto the lead casually at any point in the tournament. Gajeel and Natsu have, one way or another, obtained a power up. Sting and Rogue, while powerful, have spent the last 7 years building their power from scratch, as opposed to training a previous baseline. They were, as far as we can tell, nobodies 7 years ago, perhaps even very young, and said they looked up to Natsu and Gajeel--not mere respect, but more like children looking up to heroes kinda thing.

And given that they just got this power up, my expectation was clearly grounded in Natsu and Gajeel rick-rolling a casual Sting and Rogue who wouldn't expect that kind of power. Then Sting and Rogue would get serious, and then we'd get to the drama. If they had shown their new powerful ups and Sting and Rogue just trololol'ed them without even resorting to being serious--with transformations waiting in their pockets to boot--then we'd be back in the 'heroes go for a total asspull' corner. At least this way, if they do find a way to activate their own Dragon Force, there's a reasonable, logical expectation that they could win. You know, as opposed to just, randomly developing a container for God Flames...

[The Drunkard Kid]

It should also be noted that FT isn't the pre-timeskip Strawhats in my analogy. They're the pre-timeskip Whitebeard Pirates, with a Wizard Saint and multiple people approaching that level, with four Dragon Slayers (one of whom Erza claimed was even stronger than her in terms of raw power). Guys that faced most of the strongest things that FT-verse had to offer and kept on trucking. Sting and Rouge's best feats are that they defeated a dark guild by themselves (Mistgun managing to take out ALL of Phantom's subsidiary guilds while simultaneously gathering the magic stolen from Makarov) and allegedly killed their dragons of unknown strength off screen, and that latter one is somewhat implied to be part of their dragons' plans by Igneel's comments.

Seriously, no one except the announcers and the audience is really put off by Sabretooth's reputation, while FT keeps dropping everyone's jaws as they remember what kind of monsters they were to begin with.

[Pong]

You know, all I would ask for is for sting and/or Rouge to get one good showing before this fight. Just one would be plenty. You know stomp someone of notice in their base forms or something. Just to show that they are in fact credible threats, to justify their reputation. This would then make Natsu and Gazille really badass when they overpower them. and it would show that they had indeed powered up so we don't just have to take Makarov words for it.

As it is, it's just another episode in the endless "Fairy Tail strong because nakama, bad guys weak because jerks." cycle.

[MKTerra]

Have I mentioned the anime's filler arc feels darker and more convoluted than the usual FT arc? Like Zentopia's prison having someone periodically screaming in the background.

Maybe that's just one the guard's jobs

[The Drunkard Kid]

On the one hand, Sting had some really good speed and power showings right now. OTOH, his motivation is stupid (and there's probably no real way he was strong enough to kill an Acnologia level being - or likely any actual dragon - at that age cleanly, so I'm calling preemptive shenanigans on that claim) so I want to see Natsu demolish him even more now, and I'm further convinced that Sabretooth is just a sideshow for the real villains of the arc. Maybe they'll clean up their act and become decent characters later, but right now just stomp on them and get on to the real plot, Fairy Tail.

Also, Natsu and Gajeel were hilarious at the end of the chapter. "Waait a minute."

[Pong]

Yeeeeeeeeah, I'm not buying Natsu new analytical abilities for a second.

But really at this point I don't really care.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Hmm. Mixed feelings about this chapter.

On the one side Rogue finally gets to show off some really impressive fire power and stat boost while Natsu and Gajeel get good durability feats. Coreography is good and the humerous exchange between Natsu and Gajeel is actually funny.

On the flip side I think that they shrugg off the beating a bit too easily and while Natsu is pretty cool at the end of the chapter I will cry major foul if he doesn't get majorly trouced by Sting and Rogue next chapter.

Yeeeeeeeeah, I'm not buying Natsu new analytical abilities for a second.

I like to think that he's just talking shit to sound tough.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Eh, he just named the basic aspects of hand to hand combat, and Natsu's always been shown as a skilled and agile fighter with tons of high end experience by this point and often thinks up clever tricks to work around his enemies powers. He now just put what he does into words.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

Eh, he just named the basic aspects of hand to hand combat, and Natsu's always been shown as a skilled and agile fighter with tons of high end experience by this point and often thinks up clever tricks to work around his enemies powers. He now just put what he does into words.

Pretty much this. That Natsu only seems to fight fairly strong wizards, I can buy it.

[Robotech Master]

The weird thing is that this is kind of a reversal of the usual thing: as if Sting is the protagonist whose flashback reveals his need to win and prove himself, and who shows off what his newest power up has given him only to have the villain get up and egg him on.

[Dark Soul # 7]

The weird thing is that this is kind of a reversal of the usual thing: as if Sting is the protagonist whose flashback reveals his need to win and prove himself, and who shows off what his newest power up has given him only to have the villain get up and egg him on.

That's... true. And one can see the previous chapter the same way what with how it started out with Natsu and Gajeel dominating Sting and Rogue like villains usually beat up on good guys at first. I wonder if this'll continue throughout the fight.

In anime news the scale of the situation just went up somewhat massively. Seriously, that thing is ridiculously big.

I like how they revealed the identities of the two Oracion Seis members. The first was pretty funny and logical and the second was very dramatic. I've got less respect for Byro now though as he should totally understand that following the orders of the guys that just summoned up a gigantic freaking fish-boat thing that makes the sky darken with red clouds is a bad move.

And even though they got their asses kicked Al and Bisca at least got to fight. Al can use TK to weild several guns now! Cool.

[MKTerra]

And even though they got their asses kicked Al and Bisca at least got to fight. Al can use TK to weild several guns now! Cool.

Now if only he could stop shooting himself. (Stop shooting himself.)

Interestingly, Midnight's teleport switcheroo seems to use Reflector in two places at once. (Plus I have no idea how Reflector results in teleportation unless there's some space-time-twisting loophole involved.)