Disappointment is around the corner for anyone that reads the manga Fairy tail; it’s an absolutely dreadful manga devoid of many elements that make Shonen good. There is little promise to be found in this manga, it’s character, plot and sagas are all bottom of the barrel and fail to conjure any feeling of accomplishment, save wasting time or, apathy at best. Reading this manga was a chore as oppose to a treat a true sign that it should avoided. It was hard coming up with all the reasons why this manga is utter disappointment (I needed a list to remember them all), but hopefully I can mention enough reasons for you to stay away from reading it (please take my word for this or you’ll regret it).
The most forgivable element of this work is the art, though even it is a sign to stay away from this story. The artwork in this work lacks anything that captures the eye at all, backgrounds in this work are simple and one-dimensional or non-existence making them nothing especially interesting nor are they the worst I have seem though. Character design is even worse then the background is, this is because many of the male character look almost identical. This problem isn’t too confusing because you can tell the difference in characters in their clothing, however this is clearly sign of bad design and of cut corner (this is only one of many of such signs). The worst feature of character design is the expressive ability of the character or rather the lack their of. Character’s abilities to express are at best at the very bare bones and at times even difficult to discern. In hopes of covering this flaw the artwork of a slightly zany nature, however it looks a lot like poorly mimicked form of something found in One Piece leaving you with a flat feeling after reading. This is only one of the many places this series steals from it’s superior counter part and shows it’s inability to create something original.
The art could be passable for me if this work provided a good story behind it, however the story is even worse then the art it’s self making this all the more painful to read. The story revolves around a skimpily dressed girl named Lucy who is brought into a group of outcaste mages in a powerful guild known as Fairy Tail. The other main character a fire mage raised by dragons who supposedly full of potential (wow big surprise here *groan*) named Natsu is the other main and later is typically the most important character of the story. The objectives of most stories revolve around doing missions for the guild or protecting the guild from attacks all while avoid the wrath of the mage council, a sinister group of mages based in order whose leaders whose identities remain mostly in the shadows. This should sound familiar to you if you’ve read One Piece or Naruto, far too similar in fact. It takes from One Piece the idea about an outcaste group of misfits and it’s attitudes revolving an evil authority. The mission segment (down the ranking system) occurs in a similar fashion as Naruto and the magic is almost identical to the Charka system in Naruto. Not only though does this manga barrow (or steal depending on how you look at it), but it’s pacing is a terrible mess. It tries far too hard to be funny in a style like One Piece, it usually ends up falls on it’s face with the jokes however making it feel crusty and out of place. The action never has any sort of suspense, it’s always seems to cycle into a formula of a hero fights rival enemy or henchman and always wins without suspense. It is not only clear the hero will win each of his or her battles, but also it is also so obvious that it can’t even make you believe the hero has any chance of serious injury or defeat. Also, unlike many other shonen manga’s like Runouni Kenshin it is obvious that the objective of the manga is to get these fights with bad dialogue and poorly thought out plot, always quickly boiling down to lets fight the baddies similar to Dragon Ball Z.
The worst offense of this work has to be the shoddy and unoriginal characterization, which is almost completely stolen from other works. Natsu is the most obvious of these characters; he is almost a complete mirror of Monkey D. Luffy. His smile, his vest, catch phrases and, oblivious and brave nature all mirror Luffy own personality in a pale way. His gun ho and impatient nature mimics the personality shown by Naruto. This is only one example of the copycat attitude. Lucy mimics the early Sakura, in the sense that she seems useless for the most part when the male characters are around in an outright fight and is the assists the teams instead. She however lack any sort of good resemblance to other manga females and she is created mostly for comedy or as to help in tasks with her zodiac summoning, much like the role of Kagome does in Inuyasha. Typically though she simply an excuse for a pin up model and a possible romance (and maybe even a Mary Sue for female readers) for Natsu, she really contributes little to the story beyond set up except for generic assistive jobs. I could go on and on describing how Grey a ice mage mimics the early Sasuke before leaving the leaf village, how Makarov the guild master steals from Luffy and Jiraiya and how typically and uninteresting Erza authoritative character is in detail, but it would be long and I think I have made my point Each character has only a few important personality traits beyond a few quirks, each character both good and evil typically have similar traits to one or another making character uninteresting and predictable without many surprises (whenever I was surprised it was a bad thing in almost all cases).
I’ve heard many reviews saying that this work is passable or okay for what it is. I see this work though as unacceptably unoriginality, poor in story and pathetic in characterization. It angers me a great deal when reviews give the excuse the problems in this manga, sighting that because the work is for young males as though this makes lower quality of work. A good Shonen manga should be enjoyable and contain a story and characters that appeal to all genders and to all ages that it is appropriate to target. This ability to appeal to the masses is what makes manga’s like Naruto, Bleach and One Piece so successful and I think it is unjust not to hold a work like Fair Rail to such a standard. So do yourself a favor and if you want a zany and fun adventure manga pick up some One Piece.
I’ve read many of Tezuka’s US releases that have many genera’s, but none of them are quiet like the manga Dororo. This manga is a samurai shonen manga like no other and goes even one set further in imagination and oddity then any other Tezuka work I have read before it. The plot includes some of the story writing design ever, while still remaining simple and easy to follow. Even for a Tezuka manga known in Japan as the “God of comics,” this work shines out as one of his greatest and is almost unbelievably strange and effective. This manga is so good that it makes Inuyasha look like child’s play and is a most read for its fans. This is one book you can easily judge by its cover, which prepares you for what lies within it.
I loved Poncho Sanchez’s album Chile Con Soul, but still it can’t be compared to the album Out of Sight. This album still blows me away every time I listen to it and is truly greatest the Sanchez album I have listened to. Every little element is almost built to perfection and feels naturally soulful. However, what really makes this one of the greatest Latin jazz and funk albums of all time has to be the guest musicians. The combination of theses greats plus Sanchez at the top of his game makes this one amazing album.