I started reading Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima because my sister is a bit of a fan and the first thing that struck me was how similar the characters (and indeed the plot) are to those in One Piece by Siichiro Oda which has been running now for well over 10 years. Once I got into it I enjoyed it but for a while I just kept thinking "How dare they rip off One Piece?!"
The basic set up is the same- a group of friends on a quest to become the best and make their team the greatest in the world, except instead of pirates it's magicians, and instead of a crew they're in what's called a Guild.
The Guild, called "Fairy Tail" is famous for being destructive and basically full of unruly mages with nowhere else to go, but it's Lucy Heartphilia's dream to join Fairy Tail and nothing's going to stop her, so when she meets a young man who claims to be the guild's famous Salamander (Fire Mage) she ignore's his strange personality and accepts his invitation to a party.
At the same time she meets pink-haired Natsu and his feline companion Happy, a strange pair travelling through the country. Natsu, who gets travel sick easily, befriends Lucy when he goes to meet the Salamander as well. Without spoiling too much, there's a big fight, a big discovery, and it turns out Natsu's actually from Fairy Tail. And he helps Lucy to get into the guild of weirdos and uncontrollably destructive magicians.
The art style of Fairy Tail is good-looking and clean, with good detail and attractive style. It's another one of those mangas that confuses me because although it's told from a girl's point of view, and has a lot of themes that would appeal to girls, the female leads are sexualised to the point of it being cringe-worthy. I have no problem with the occasional scantily clad character going around if it fits with the storyline and style, or even if it's just a bit of fun for the male readers, but the sheer number of times a that the girls in this series get chained up (in actually pretty innocent situations) or have their clothes ripped off in day to day life while squealing and being generally useless gets annoying.
The best female character (in my opinion) is probably armour-wearing Erza, who kicks magical ass with swords, and even she gets a lot of scenes that show her getting dressed. I've been told by some other manga friends online that this is called "fanservice", where there are often down-top shots and up-skirt shots to entertain the hormonal.
Anyway, my complaints about storyline, characters and anti-feminism aside, you'll probably be surprised to know that
I actually do like this series!
It's got a fairly simple, but entertaining storyline fleshed out with some brilliant visual humour and funny character interactions and traits. The back stories to each character seem boring at the start but eventually get more interesting and complex (though perhaps a bit too slowly to get you interested early on) and although I was annoyed when my sister was making me read it (I lost a bet) after the first 50 chapters or so (I'm also fairly stubborn) I really began enjoying myself.
It's maybe never going to be my favourite series (although I'd also like to point out that in recent manga popularity polls it came fourth behind One Piece, Naruto and Bleach and has a massive fan base) but it's fun and interesting, and has a nice underlying friendship theme (like One Piece... ok I'll stop moaning) which is at times lovely and heartwarming.
Although I wouldn't recommend it to those of you who though TWILIGHT had a simpering lead... because honey, you've seen nothing yet.
4 comments:
Soo, I should skip it for fear of ranting about the heroine then?
Am looking forward to reading more FMA soon though.
I rant about the heroine all the time, though she is improving (finally) after 160 chapters xD but yeah you should, if you can't stand to read Twilight this isn't for you :P (Although it doesn't take itself half as seriously) ;)
I am watching the anime and since I have not read One Piece, I can't really compare. As far as Lucy goes, I do hate that she is passive, but I also consider her to be a canvas, a hollowed out set of eyes, through which the audience can observe in a voyeuristic manner minus the bias to come from the characters' motivations. I view Erza, Natsu and that other Ice Dude as the protagonists.
Thanks for that insight, I'd not really thought of it that way and you're probably right. I love the other three (and happy) but I was admittedly quite annoyed by Lucy's manner, even though I admit her uselessness is lessening :)
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