Manga/Fairy Tail

This is a fairly long video and he spends the entire time ragging on the chapter, and Fairy Tail in general, but while he's doing so he also brings up some problems I didn't think about and that I don't think have been mentioned here. I also just think it's a pretty funny video.

edited 20th Jun '17 4:29:39 PM by LSBK

How come Mashima just never gave these relationships some development like Gray just gradually liking Juvia?

Is it all just to repeat the same gag over & over again until the ending comes?

Because, repetition is funny in Japan.

To be fair, that's true of most manga. Mass media in general is bad about developing relationships well.

Indeed but wouldn't there be some sort of gradual development in most cases.

Like looking at it from the beginning has Gray's relationship with Juvia progressed in any way, no matter how minor?

edited 20th Jun '17 4:38:39 PM by slimcoder

Well, there was the whole Silver and Keyes thing.

At most he let her live with him.

Then he ditched her for most of a year and she repeated the same stalker jokes over and over.

It's mostly because it's a Shonen, so romance takes a backseat to action.

I wouldn't mind it if Gray didn't end up falling for Juvia in the end, but everything just points to that happening all at once. Its not like it would have been hard either.

That's probably it; when Hiro isn't throwing the guy in the ship into the girls' breasts for the hundredth time, it can hamper the story.

"You can't murder my boyfriend just because he killed your older brother! Of course, I'm not going to even attempt to explain to you that he was Brainwashed and Crazy, just don't touch him!"

"I'll suppose I'll have to strip down and rub bare chests with you in the middle of a war" (Apparently, stripping is actually useful for spreading body heat, but still).

"Wait Natsu! Stop fighting so I can try to reason with my dangerously bipolar boyfriend and give him Fairy Heart on a silver platter!"

I'll note that Elfman X Evergreen just kinda stopped.

Elfman/Evergreen was random anyway. The two never interacted until the Tenrou arc and beyond that their Ship Tease was constant shouts of "WE'RE NOT MARRIED".

Oh wow. I'd actually forgotten about that one. That was one of the most contrived things I'd ever seen. There were hundreds of ways for them to warm Natsu up, and that's what they chose.

Mashima, you give love....a bad name.

Toriyama at least recognizes he's awful at romance and avoids writing it (even though he really shouldn't put it in in the first place if you ask me).

To Mashima's credit, he never had any of his characters randomly hook up with a genocidal psychopath who'd tried to kill them before with zero explanation to it.

He did have Levy hook up with Gajeel, who beat her and her team-mates bloody though.

Sure, Gajeel has been making more of an attempt to redeem himself than Vegeta did at the time, but still.

I'll give you that though.

Also to Mashima's credit, his pairings aren't as botched as Naruto's.

Depends on which Naruto pairing. Naruto/Hinata? Great. Shikamaru/Temari? Great. Sakura/Sasuke....well, he tried to make it feasible in the gaiden. Ino/Sai? Eh, I can see it. Choji/Karui? The f...

I'll give you Gajeel being a dick in the past, but Vegeta/Bulma is like Erza hooking up with Acnologia later

Key word being 'tried'.

Hey, apologizing for everything he'd done and offering to kill himself is more than Vegeta did at that point.

I don't mind Naruto/Hinata (mostly due to a lack of dislike towards Hinata, despite Kishimoto refusing to actually write their relationship in the manga and regulating it entirely to the anime).

Don't even get me started on Sasuke/Sakura however. I'm not much for either character, so them getting together is like...actually, it's a lot easier to target them when they are together. Two birds with one very large and sharp stone so to speak.

Then again, in most cases, my feelings towards shipping tend to be why does this even exist?

Sasuke/Sakura is the only bad romantic pairing in Naruto. The others only needed their relationship to be better developed beforehand.

That's true. Pairings range from ok (Naruto/Hinata, Shikamaru/Temari) to me being completely indifferent towards (Sai/Ino, Chouji/Karui).

Sasuke and Sakura is just terrible. Like, the only redeemable thing about that is their daughter is actually a decent character.

Pretty much.

Same thing with Fairy Tail. Better development would have save the worse pairings, but it just ins't happening. Especially not within 6 chapters.

Yeah that's pretty much the issue with most relationships, they aren't given any form of development.

I think I'd be more okay with Ichigo/Orihime if Ichigo expressed any form of interest towards her, like any really.

Seriously most of the main-guys in this genre are completely indifferent towards the opposite sex. At least Luffy is a confirmed asexual.

edited 21st Jun '17 1:45:57 PM by slimcoder

I think Oda realizes romance tends not to belong in a shonen setting.

Yeah, that's my problem is that we are supposed to accept these two are together, even when they have no development or real chemistry at all. Also in my opinion Naruhina was my favorite ship, but when it became canon I felt it fell flat because there was no real development and the way the anime handled it was very poorly executed.