Why Fairy Tail is the best battle shounen (warning: contains opinions)

WARNING: -Blog entry contains a lot of text. No tl:dr will be provided. -Blog entry contains opinions. Those allergic to opinions may now leave. -Blog entry contains spoilers for the anime Fairy Tail. Those who are interested in watching Fairy Tail may want to consider finishing watching the anime first before proceeding to the rest of the blog entry. HISTORY: The battle shounen genre. It was what got me into anime in the first place. Starting with Dragon Ball Z back in the 90s, when it first aired on TV in the west. It brought inspiration to me and my friends to improve my drawing skills and create my own characters and stories. I loved it, from the fact it had a continuous storyline instead of being episodic like western cartoons, to the ever-increasing power of the characters, to the kind of art style I'd never seen before. Featuring long, epic battles between powerful warriors, capable of blowing up planets with energy attacks. As a kid, what was not to love about it? Despite the slow pacing of the series, it kept me coming back for more every week. Years later, around my 18th. My friend introduced me to a new series, called Naruto, something about ninjas. It looked awesome, and once I started watching it I quickly got obsessed with it. It had cool characters (notably Kakashi), great stories to tell (Land of Waves arc was amazing), great battles (Rock Lee vs. Gaara still one of the best ever). But it fell apart at some point. The pacing slowed down. Fillers started happening. An awesome character (Sasuke) left his friends behind for good. At that point I just gave up on it. I went back to the manga years later, reading up to some point after Pain's defeat, but it failed to grab me as it did before. I hated the designs of the characters after the timeskip. The story turned into a cluster**** of stuff happening I could no longer bother to follow. Naruto had died for me. Shortly after I'd given up on Naruto, Bleach came along. A series about shinigami: sword-wielding, demon-slaying death gods. Its protagonist, Ichigo, was older and cooler than the original Naruto. I loved the setting and the concept. It started off so strong with the bond between Ichigo and Rukia. Then Ichigo got transferred to Soul Society, where the real story began. Its pacing was a little slow, but just like Naruto, it had plenty of cool characters and interesting battles. Unfortunately, just like Naruto, the pacing went from bad to worse. Fillers took over and ultimately killed the series for me. Waiting an entire week just to get 20 minutes of nothing wasn't worth it any longer. I did try coming back to it later, but even the battles, which are supposed to be the highlights of a series like this, were unbearably slow. How could this have happened? Several years later I stumbled across One Piece. It looked goofy, but I'd heard great things about it. From the first few episodes I fell in love with it. The search for the ultimate treasure and to become the King of Pirates sounded awesome. It had a few great introduction arcs, covering the recruitment of some of the core characters of the series... yet, it fell into the same traps as the previous series. Its pacing slowed down to a craw,l and episodes of nothingness awaited me. Such a ****ing shame. At this point I was convinced I'd never touch a long running battle shounen series again. I'd been betrayed too many times. There was no way I would ever find something I could actually like. Or so I thought... MY INTRODUCTION MY FAIRY TAIL: ...Until Fairy Tail came along. But, before I get to the main meat of this blog post, first some history. I remember talking with my friend on Skype earlier this year. My friend showing a picture of Fairy Tail's protagonist, Natsu, and how weird he looked with his pink hair. I remember I just made fun of it. I knew Fairy Tail was just another long running shounen series. People on My Anime List seem to hate it, too. Less popular than the three big ones, it would never be worth trying out. That's what I thought back then, less than a year ago. Later that year I was watching Log Horizon, and noticed how cool the OST for that series is. I got a little addicted to it and had it continuously playing on repeat on Youtube. One time I was reading through the comments section out of boredom, and saw some people mentioning Fairy Tail, and how that series' OST reminded them of Log Horizon's (not to mention that it was also done by the same guy). Naturally, I just had to check it out. First song I found in the search results (Fairy Glitter), and I had instantly fallen in love with it. In fact, it was even better than Log Horizon's OST. How could this be? My interest in Fairy Tail had suddenly sky-rocketed. I did some research; according to some of the top reviews at that time, Fairy Tail was considered bottom-tier garbage with all three of them rating it a solid one out of ten. I couldn't believe it. An anime with an OST this great, deserving of a score that low? I refused to accept it, and had to check it out for myself. My expectations were absolutely rock bottom, I expected to hate this anime right off the bat. ...and I was not wrong. It sucked. I watched the first few episodes, and while I thought it had some charm, it felt cheap and didn't have that much going for it outside of its OST. At the same time, it wasn't so bad that it couldn't hold my attention. I had nothing else to watch at the time, and so I slowly went through the first bunch of episodes, watching 0 to 2 episodes a day, and only if I had nothing else to do. Then, slowly I began to actually like it. It somehow got better after about episode 20. I started to watch a little more, and by the time I got to episode 35 I was starting to get hooked on it. When I'd reached up to episode 50, I couldn't believe myself... I actually loved Fairy Tail. How was this possible? This supposedly garbage anime that everyone seems to make fun of and gets showered with one-rating reviews with people hating on it. Why was I liking Fairy Tail? Was it just a 'lucky' streak of episodes that happened to not suck...? I wasn't even on 1/3rd yet, it could still go anywhere. I remembered how I'd been betrayed by previous battle shounen, and so I remained skeptical. I expected a massive drop in quality at any moment... except, that never came. Sure, it had its slower episodes, and there had been a some fillers here and there that weren't the best ever, but I had a total blast finishing the series up to its total of 175 episodes. In fact, I'm left wanting more Fairy Tail. I had been turned from completely indifferent about it to a fanboy. I found myself rocking to the music that played during the battle scenes. I cheered on the characters during tough moments. I smiled for their victories. WHY FAIRY TAIL ****ING ROCKS What makes Fairy Tail so good? It's simple, and comes down to this one, most important thing: PACING. Stuff actually happens in Fairy Tail. You aren't watching two guys stare at each other for episodes on end, waiting for them to do something. You don't get people's backstories and flashbacks take up entire episodes, interrupting the action. You don't get characters explaining every little thing they do in combat. You don't have characters shouting for the duration of an entire episode for a single power up or transformation. In Fairy Tail, STUFF ACTUALLY HAPPENS. Battles are rounded up within single episodes, maybe two or three for the big boss battles, but that's it. When characters attack, they just attack without explaining what the **** they're doing. You see what's going on, and in the few cases an explanation is needed, it's given with a single line of dialogue, barely interrupting the flow of combat. Flashbacks are kept short and to the point. And that is just the battles. Outside of battles, stuff happens in every single episode. Every episode advances the plot somehow, or otherwise provides you with cool or funny character interactions that are actually fun to watch. Even the fillers (which it actually has much less of than anime such as Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and Bleach) are fun, and don't just feel like the animators were bored out of their skull and created the most mindnumbingly dumb and stupid **** just to fill up 20 minutes of screen time. The fillers are actually creative and fun *GASP* I didn't know such a thing was even possible. Thanks to its pacing, the arcs are actually interesting to watch. Since every episode has something happening, big storylines generally get rounded up within a reasonable amount of episodes. The characters aren't stuck in a lifetime's worth of filler episodes covering a single ****ing storyline that moves on at a pace slower than that of a glacier during the ice age. In Fairy Tail, stuff actually happens, it gets its **** together and covers its big story events within a reasonable timeframe. Unlike Naruto and One Piece who promise you epic stuff (becoming the hokage and finding the ultimate treasure) and then derailing the entire series for an entire century and then taking up another century of even getting close to that point. Fairy Tail promises you a simple tale of friendship and adventure. And that's what you get right from the ****ing start. That's exactly what you keep on getting, every single episode. It doesn't promise you awesome stuff, then take it away, and make you wait 30 years to see what happens. It actually gives you what you came for right from the very beginning, and never takes that away from you. WHY FAIRY TAIL DOES NOT SUCK Popular arguments I frequently see being made by people hating on Fairy Tail, and why they are wrong: WRONG. I don't what you've been watching, but it sure as hell ain't Fairy Tail. One of the cool things about Fairy Tail is actually how the side characters remain useful throughout the series. Even the weaker characters, such as Lucy, get their moments to shine. They get their own battles to fight, their own struggles and obstacles to overcome. Many of the main fights are actually won through team effort, not by one on one fights. Sure, while Natsu does deal the final blow to the main bad guys, in many cases he couldn't have done it without the help from others. Not to mention that Natsu actually does lose a few times, and there are characters way stronger than him out there. It's the ****ing theme of the series. Why do you watch something with friendship as its main theme and then complain that it's used to give the protagonists extra power? And how is it different from Goku just screaming louder to gather the power to beat up his enemies? Battle shounens don't make any ****ing sense in the first place, and have a ridiculous concept of power. At least Fairy Tail uses something that people can relate to. I think friendship is a powerful theme, and I love seeing the characters fight for their friends and do everything they can to protect them. And, even if I disliked the whole friendship thing, the battle music and power ups in itself make up for the cheesiness. Of course it's predictable. Why don't you go back to your detective series? I mean, since when have shounen anime not been predictable? Of course we know the protagonists are gonna kick the bad guys' butts. It's as predictable as we know how Naruto will become hokage when the series will finally end, and how Luffy will finally find the One Piece if the series ever comes to an end. Just because something is predictable, doesn't mean it sucks. Sure, if Fairy Tail only has fanservice, then Dragon Ball Z only has muscles. Naruto only has headbands. Bleach only has swords. One Piece only has pirate ships. Great argument you got there. Now, try again? bad things in Fairy Tail Admittedly, Fairy Tail surely isn't perfect. It does come with its flaws. For one, the animation is pretty bad to mediocre throughout the entire series. Very few times I had my mind blown by its visuals, which is a shame for a series that has a whole bunch of awesome battles. Maybe if the art had been amazing I could have excused the cheap animation, but no, the art is nothing to write home about either (the art style, however, is pretty awesome). I guess it's somewhat excusable for a long running series like this. The good thing about Fairy Tail's animation is that it's way more consistent than, say Naruto's. Which had amazing animation during battles, but then was bottom-tier garbage during regular scenes. Fairy Tail spreads out its animation much better, so there are never huge jumps or drops in quality. That one filler arc. Those of you who watched the series know what I'm talking about. It has one semi-long story arc that's pretty much all filler. While it was pretty imaginative, and it's clear the creators cared about delivering something decent, it still fell somewhat flat in my opinion. If you compare it to the rest of the series at least. For a filler it's certainly decent, and I was actually enjoying the last episodes of it. While I've been praising the pacing of Fairy Tail earlier, there are still moments where it all slows down a little, usually at the beginning of new story arcs. Never anywhere as bad as anything Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bleach or One Piece, but still. Luckily, the somewhat slower pacing always gets picked up again at some point, and everything is good again. Pacing issues will always be an issue with long running shows like this, but Fairy Tail handles it better than all the others. It has a pretty slow start. I found the first major arc to be pretty disappointing, considering it's supposed to introduce you to the series. While it does have some interesting backstory on one of the main characters, it suffers from mediocre pacing and not having a good fight happen. It starts getting good with the second arc, and only gets better from that point onward. Yeah, the fanservice does get a little out of hand at times. Nothing to majorly complain about, and certainly not as bad as other anime I've seen, but I think I should still mention it. SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT FAIRY TAIL After all this, I honestly don't understand why people are so negative about Fairy Tail. I... ****. I just don't get it. Sure, it's a little more simplistic than the other three big shounen series, but it has so much going for it. I don't get why Fairy Tail is getting all the hate when it's doing so many things right. It takes all the things I hated about previous long running shounen series I hated and makes it all awesome. It has a god-tier OST, a huge cast of likeable characters, epic showdowns, a fun and fairly lighthearted storyline that always keeps something behind to keep you guessing about what's coming next, many magical and heartwarming moments, female characters that actually kick butt and aren't just there to look pretty or to cheer on the main guy, it has DRAGONS. Just what's not to like? For those who still hate Fairy Tail after reading all this, I'd like to hear your reasoning. (I know this whole entry has me fanboying about Fairy Tail. I don't care at this point. I love this anime, lol.)