- #58
This chapter was okay I guess. I still hate how bad this last arc was, with all the non-sense bullshit.
At least it's going to end next week. I doubt many people could enjoy more of it, since Hiro dislikes his own work at this point.
Fairy Tail Chapter 544 Discussion
- Thread starter Azel06
- Start date
This chapter was okay I guess. I still hate how bad this last arc was, with all the non-sense bullshit.
At least it's going to end next week. I doubt many people could enjoy more of it, since Hiro dislikes his own work at this point.
- #59
Jak said:
Jacksnapp said:
Rammedy said:
It hit the bottom. The only thing i wonder is: which was worse FT or Bleach?
At least the canon pairings in the epilogue of FT will make sense and not be as ridiculous as Bleach (or Naruto for that matter) Not as much Bleach as Naruto. Aside from the Shikamaru and Temari, none of the end couples in Naruto made any sense (and I'm even including the big ones too like Naruto/Hinata and the worst fucking couple Sasuke/Sakura). At least Ichigo and Orihime somewhat made sense. Though I personally didn't like Renji and Rukia. I just hated what happened to Rukia overall. She became such a useless side character and if she had ended up with someone, it would have made way more sense that it would have been Ichigo considering how close they were. Renji and Rukia never showed that closeness even though they knew each other forever.
I totally agree with you; both about Bleach and Naruto. Really, you couldn't have put it into better words~
It's true, Naruto's couples (except Temari and Shikamaru) had no buildup whatsoever and I find the reduction of the stronger female characters to stereotypical loyal obedient housewives ridiculous (Sakura should've become hospital director, follow Tsunade's steps or really anything besides being a housewife eagerly awaiting her estranged husband that visits probably once in a decade at home), the pairings themselves seemed to come straight out of a western fanfiction (Ino and Sai?) or were totally random (as much as I like Chocho, where did that pairing even come from? )
Even if they try to legitimize the strange relationship between Naruto and Hinata by pasting her into an altered version of Naruto's childhood in the movies etc., the fact remains that Hinata was just his creepy stalker for most of the series and while she did develop as a character, right up until the end of the series, Naruto was constantly bragging about his love for Sakura.
I wouldn't have minded an open ending without pairs but to have Sakura and Sasuke get together was just awful, they're really the worst couple
(not to mention what a toxic relationship they have)
Bleach was decidedly better.
I feel as though Kubo had always planned for Orihime and Ichigo to eventually get together (right from the start; have you read the one-shot? ) but the problem is that the relationship Ichigo and Rukia had, ended up being much closer, romantic (and sexual, seeing how differently Ichigo reacted to both girl's bodies physically) and therefore feeling much more natural (& canon lol) than the actual resolution of the love triangle provided.
While I understand that Renji was in love with her, I never registered any romantic attraction from Rukia to him, they were childhood friends and although he might've wanted more, Rukia never seemed to care about him that way. I actually would've preferred her to have a stronger leadership position in Soul Society and no relationship at all since her being with Renji felt out of character.
It's almost as though both Ichigo and Rukia had to settle with a "consolation prize" since the person they actually loved wasn't available somehow.
I'm also a little bitter that Kubo repeated the whole Isshin - Masaki - Ryuken thing with Ishida, Orihime and Ichigo.
I'm guessing that Kubo just wanted to stick to his original intent with the pairings (which is a real pity) instead of going with the flow of how the character relationships developed.
Personally I would've liked to see Orihime and Ishida get together (also to mark a difference from their parents); while naturally Ichigo and Rukia should've been a couple.
TLDR
As bad as Fairy Tail is, the canon couples were pretty much confirmed throughout the work and we don't have to fear Erza suddenly being together with Gray in the epilogue or Lucy being pregnant with Elfman's child
So putting aside the fact that Shounen Manga barely ever have well written romance in it because it´s relegated to the backround with obligatory child expos to showcase the couples, your preferences are highly unpopular and the shipping fandoms are much more toxic than any of the fictional relationships represented.
Imo the bad depictions can solely blamed on Akira Toriyama as well as Rumiko Takahashi and their legacies for the Medium of Anime and Manga. Nonetheless most of their writing always was and is comedic in nature and far less damaging than any of the modern stereotypes they either created or popularized.
Vegeta and Inuyasha are poster boys for terrible rolemodels and in the case of Inuyasha all his predecessors and successors incluided.
Mind you one of the two intended to blow up the planet of his future wife and exterminated entire races, while the first thing Inuyasha did upon introduction was to lash out against his future wife to kill her. Imagine both couples telling their children how they´ve met each other. However both characters can somewhat be excused through their alien or demonic heritage.
What´s actually more surprising is the overwhelming support those guys receive till this day especially from the female demographic.
Boys wanna be like them and girls want them. So whose to blame in the long run? The authors who wrote them that way to sometimes fullfill utilitarian purposes, like writing Trunks into the story, or the audiences who latched on to those characters way beyond what´s healthy, despite their "awful" personalities?
Nonetheless they are definately preferable over the boring modern archetype of the devoid of personality dickhead who gets all the girls to love him because reasons.
Thanks Love Hina for that, you piece of shit work.
But to get back to argument at hand I looked up on the most popular Manga of all time to make some comparisions between the ones I´ve read.
One Piece: Outside of miniscule suddle hints never depicted any romance for it´s main characters. Depsite that, it established a rabid fanbase of shippers, that´ll verbally rip your throat out if, you oppose their favorites.
Few sidecharacters had okayish developed relationships,Kyros & Scarlet to name one, but they were short lived or rushed. The series isn´t short on terible role models either. Like one of the main characters parents who left his family in the pursuit of adventure and despite that is hold up on a pedestal by his family for leaving them, including his wife that died of sickness , who left a borderline orphaned child behind because of said decision.
Dragon Ball: The Granddady itself like discussed above created the archetype of the terrible fatherfigure/ husband that seems to be prevalent in Shounen manga.
Mind you the two guys in question, Goku & Vegeta, that are accused of said things are the fanfavorites of the series and the fanbases have good excuses for them.
Last but not least their Alien heritage.
Bleach: Like in One Piece romance was relegated to the sidecharacters too, like Ichigo´s parents, possibly Matsumoto & Gin or Nenel´s parents we only saw in a flashback. The series didn´t have any romantic interactions with any of it´s main characters, but confirmed a one sided long lasting romantic interest through Orihime very early into the series, that spun itself throghout the story and was approved by basicly every other character that learned about it who wasn´t in competition. The sole competing character being Nelial. Who was a member of different species, that lives in another dimension! This however, didn´t stop, any delusional, wishful people, from creating fake ships on the level of Naruto/Sasuke Yaoi fanfiction, that far exceeded it in prevalence and toxicity. Namely the Ichirukia fanshippers, who solely build their foundation on the consistent friendly interactions of the two most important main characters of the story, just because they were the most prominent ones. The real llife equivalent, to this train of thoguh, would be teenagers trying to force two platonic friends into a sexual relationship on the sole basis of them
A: Looking cute together &
B:Working well together on their job.
This is dumb, immature and can only come from people that didn´t have a single relationship in their lives, but can´t expect much from people who burn their Bleach volumes they paid good money for. as vengeance for their delusions not coming true.
Naruto: Now to the most controversial of the bunch at least in resent history, who fanned the flames of pairing wars, whose nuclear holocausts ended the lives of millions. Discharging during it´s finale in a massive blackout of deleted fanfiction, burned Manga volumes, rage induced pagelong essays consisting of denial and anger, internet petitions to change the ending and the most despicable of all deaththreats to the author because he didn´t fullfill their delusional wishes.
To which the authors response was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVhREu15bI
Because
While the response of the opposing side was :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1UWPagjNaA
Because "We told you so!".
Mind you the oldest still available video from the so called "Youtube Anime community" is about exactly that debate. Tells you how overly invested people got over this topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3eiN0kMPf8
And as far as plans or foreshadowing go. There was actually alot in Naruto, at least for the main couples and I gladly link you to any website or tumblerpage that collected all of their "moments" existant or not. It´s just been always suddle. Kishimoto was very indecesive in showing his characters interact romantically.
But that´s mainly a failure of the demographic, he´s just among the worst of the bunch, like Dragon Ball or One Piece.
A little comparision with the best at the task:
What purpose does blackening the panel serve?
Some might argue that it´s an artistic decision and there is evidence for that.
But I´d argue that it also serves as cencorship.
My basis for this conjecture? The author has done this again, twice!
This time witht he main couple.
Now let´s take a look how a director who mainly worked on Shoujo and rom coms depicted a similar scene.
World of difference isn´t it?
Mind you these works come from a culture that is romantically so repressed that public declarations of affection are limited to holding hands. Kissing and even hugs are widely considered to be private.
Again like in Dragon Ball the pairings mainly served utilitarian purposes.
Choji got a wife, because he wanted someone that acceps him for who he is.
Kishimoto even said that he just wrote that in on a whim.
Shikamaru and Temari are pretty undisputed but that´s mainly due to no competition. Should have Ino or any other girl shown any form of affection towards him, the fangirls would be all over that opposite pairing.
Ino and Sai had no development, but made sense since Ino was diet Sakura and Sai was diet Sasuke. None of them are anyones favorite characters.
The purpose of pairings to begin with was the thematic exploration of "the next generation". Something repeatedly brought up in the story.
The fanfavorite pairings despite your disagreement had further thematic weight
to them, because they left the main characters on the opposite end of where their storyarcs initially started. Naruto and Sasuke started alone with no families and ended their story arcs with a family. Wether or not the conclusion was logical is debateable. Mostly because the majority of development happened off screen.
Fairy Tail: Who by far has the most couples out of any Battle Shounen. Something it owes to it´s overabudance of female characters that are mostly just there as eye candy. Don´t lie, you know it´s true !
And it isn´t short on toxic couples either, because this guy had alot of sons besides Trunks.
And in the case of Fairy Tail there were twins:
And mind you as far as abusive relationships go it´s on the individual to decide when the good deeds overweight the bad ones, or what justifies to go from here:
to here:
or how it compares to having been like that:
to become like this
to turn off screen into this:
Or how the guy who ordered this:
deserved this:
To conclude this debate. Romance is never quite realistically written in Battle-Shounen Manga because they are teenage literature that primarly focuses on the struggles of a young boy or girl in a supernatural environment. The majority of it´s audience do not expect or ask for romantic development for it´s characters and the little they have can be considered obligatory legacy reflective of the culture and time period they´ve been created in.
Basicly. If Toriyama didn´t base his story on“Journey to the West“, which is over 2000 years old and includes a marriage between the protagonist and a goddess, a writing convention that´s found in every ancient literature, written by cultures, that didn´t consider all women as property, known to us, there possibly wouldn´t exist the cultural obligation modern authors feel the need to abide too. Despite being uncomfortable around the subject matter because their own sensetivities have developed into a different direction.
Even with all of that. Teenage insecurities coupled with falsefied projection of personal character flaws onto fictional characters is far more dangerous and far more at fault for the negative perception of said fictional works.
It´s not the authors that wrote that badly, it´s the idiots fault that interpreted things into something that never was there to begin with.
- #62
Nobody ever complained about the way Dragon ball ended, and this is basically the same ending.
Unlike Fairy Tail, Dragon Ball had proper pacing and every ability was either established or foreshadowed. Goku never went "HAAHH MY FRIEDNS" and got stronger after getting the shit kicked outa him for 95% of the fight against Majin Buu. We knew what the Spirit Bomb was from the Saiyan arc onwards and Master Kai´s ability to globably communicate was also preexisting. We didn´t knew that Meredy could link her magic throuought the whole continent because friendship, Natsu never was Acnologias equal in any way form or shape until this moment and Acnologia received a tremendous powerup, before Natsu onehit him after losing with the whole of Dragon Slayers assisting him.
A fight has to be equal to be entertaining. Here a perfect example from probably the best action Movie of the resent decade.
Both parties need to have the upper hand during it´s duration, or it´s not fun.
Fairy Tail recycles the same bullshit execution that made the Batman v Superman fight godawful. A onesided beat up can be fun, but it has to remain onesided. Fairy Tail tries to do both at once and fucks it up.
This is one of the most iconic beat ups in Movie history, it´s fun to watch every time. So iconic in fact that the Simpsons made a parody of it.
Now if this was Fairy Fairy Tail Carlo or the thug would stand up and onehit Sonny or Marge with the power of friendship.
This would ruin the flow and turn it into complete garbage.
TLDR: Dragon Ball ending>Fairy Tail ending.
- #63
I'd say that this was way more worse than bleach because Bleach was rushed and had a due date, FT wasn't being rushed so to pull off such a equally unsatisfying BS ending makes it much more worse.
Fairy Tail had it's up moments but mainly it's downs will be remembered and it'll go down as one of the worst mangas of all time especially with the potential it had.
- #64
