- #42
Yeah the animators made some NaLi scenes, in the old anime, but in the manga Natsu has a closer relationship with Lucy, if there's going to be a love between the two (Natsu and Lucy), I don't know.
To be honest I don´t care and I see neither a love interest in both of them from Natsu´s side. Actually I already know which pairings will certainly be canon because of several hints in the manga.
Laxus+Mira
Jellal+Erza
Juvia+Gray
Levy+Gajeel
Elfman+Ever
If you disagree with any I gladly explain why I make those predictions and with some of them Hiro is trolling around but knowing him as a writer for over 10 years it´s quite obvious that he´s going for them. Hiro is also way more open minded than Kishi in that regard he was a delinquent during his youth and has drawn hentai for a friend. He´s not embarrased to write love stories. Ellie and Haru was decently written.
I can imagine Hiro ending the story without hooking up Natsu with any girl but make him just go on a mission with Lucy and Happy as friends.
No Mashima didn't try to imitate to whole love triangle stuff, if he did he would've made Lisanna more relevant, which he didn't, Natsu himself goes on more missions with Happy and Lucy than her, if Mashima wanted to make some love drama, he would've do it. Not sure, but read somewhere, that Lisanna was brought back just because the editor liked her, that's pretty much it.
That actually is confirmed to be a rumor by Nalu shippers who want some excuse to make their ship certain. Hiro has said on multiple occasions that Fairy Tail is meant to be a happy series, klling off Lissana would be contradictory to that statement. The exact wording of your Editor stament was, that the Anime director believed that she Lissana was still alive and that´s why he gave her more relevance in the flashback and compare her with Lucy (pairing trolling). But canon is that Lissana wants him and Happy as a family she wishes to be his bride, Natsu in typical shounen cliche is delusional to that proposal. There are other false rumors that Hiro wanted to end the series during the phantom lord arc, which makes even less sense since we didn´t even knew about Igneel and his whereabouts alot of promised stuff wasn´t revisited yet
As for the love triangle thing I´m pretty certain that he does want to imitate Kishi´s storytelling, it is very obvious who his inspirational sources are, especially Dragon Ball,and recently the whole Gray Uchiha jokes that came up make it safe to say that he at least has read some of Naruto. Also the similarities between One Piece were pretty apparent even back in Rave. For example how every Darkbring provides you with one power similar to Devil fruits, then again this all may backtrack to a 80´s or 90´s videogame where both authors took that inspiration from so Idk.
I´m not acusing anyone of ripoff here like all the One Piece fantards do. I´m just saying the similarities are there. As for him doing more with Lissana. She´s a side character and Hinata to be honest had way more screentime and memorable momments even in part one. But you must keep in mind Lissana was introduced back into the story around 200 chapters ago. Hinatas real time to shine came around chapter 430 before that she had one inspirational speech for Naruto before he fought Neju and he cheered her on during the chunin exams. Everything else was pretty irellevant similar to Lissana.
It´s not unlikely for Lissana to not have shone yet.
Again with Lucy, maybe you personally don't like her (assuming ofc), and that's fine, but she's very "realistic", she's not as strong as Erza, but she still tries her best in her fights, even she admits it several times when they go on missions and stuff (example Oracion Seis, Grande Magic Games), that Juvia or Gajeel would be a better choice than her, she knows she's not strong, but she still tries her best.
No I´m certainly not a Lucy fan, but for example I do not like Ussop too much either so, there you go, anyway Lucy is just a boring character in my book, especially the whole comedy revolving around her isn´t funny for me. I like some of Fairy Tails jokes but Lucy tends to be always nude humor which has just become stale at this point.
But like I said to each his own, she´s not a bad character, she´s actually one of the most developed ones, like Ussop but that doesn´t mean that I must like her.To be frank Lucy is at her best when she does nothing related to Fairy Tail her backstory and relationship with her spirits is way better written than anything she does with Natsu Gray or Erza
