I always remembered hearing about how hiro mashima copied other mangas so I want to list some of the things he copied. The most obvious is gildarts being shanks from one piece. Everyone says they went to the same school so they're drawing styles are similar... That's not really a good enough reason. If kakashi randomly appeared in bleach people would go nuts. Anyways I remember a thread about a character that looked like shikamaru and used shadow magic. I'll look for a link to it. Natsu sort of resembles luffy and I've heard that lucy resembles nami.
But after reading the last few chapters I realized something was off with this jackel character. I finally figured it out. He's pretty much deidara. He uses explosive magic and has the same sort of personality. (He's always talking) and he even blows himself up as a last resort effort. The hairstyle is similar. (Bangs over one eye) I don't know maybe it's just me but I feel like he copies some characters. Lemme know if you guys have any more!
You said FT copies hard, but that's the only thing you said. I'm still waiting for those supposed copies as if you now actually talk about this crap above, you should be ashamed. Gildarts? Kageyama? Lucy? Jackal? Especially these last two indicate you don't even know anymore what you are saying. Appearance wise Deidara and Jackal look nothing alike. Personality wise they aren't any special particularities either (apparently, following your logic, Deidara is the only character in existence with a big mouth and every other character got ripped off from him) and blowing stuff up is an ability that's also very common. In Rave Master, Hiro's previous series, there was a guy who had the ability to blow stuff up by pinpointing coordinates. Suiciders aren't rare either, remember Vegeta?
Both Hiro and Kishimoto admitted that they based Naruto and Natsu on Goku and I don't know if Oda ever said it, but you can be sure Luffy was based on Goku likewise. Hiro said himself that his generation simply grew up with Dragonball and that the Goku became the archetypical hero for lots of future series. This show how far the influence of Dragonball reached, but that doesn't make it ripping.
Do you know what you did? You lodged into your brain the idea that FT is copying massively and started interpreting everything just so that it would suit that idea and voilà, you had your 'proof'. Your Jackal = Deidare example clearly shows that as if you look it from a neutral, objective point of view, there aren't any similarities between the two other then very common ones that lots of characters have.
There have been people who have been discussing that Hiro and Oda are copying each other. 'Lucy' in OP, a dragon, a tournament, 'fairies'. If anything the Lucy thing seems more a reference (though following your logic, it's 'copying') to master Roshi of Dragonball as 'Lucy' and 'Roshi' are pronounced the same in Japanese and in Dragonball Master Roshi once disguised himself to participate in a martial arts tournament + Lucy is disguised as an old man. Though in the end if it was truly to represent Master Roshi, it would be out of respect and not 'ripping off' or 'copying'. Dragons and tournaments are everywhere in manga series.
And people use that to claim OP and FT are copying each other. It's just to cry for.
I remember the first time I saw Naruto I thought he was a shitty SSJ ripoff lol.
OT: Yeah I remember when I decided to watch FT, and I saw that Shikamaru ripoff. It was just baffling to me that he ripped off the design AND powers of Shikamaru. Like isn't that plagiarism?
They would laugh at you in your face if you actually would say that in Japan. Do you think Kishi was the first person ever to write about a shadow ability? Do you think Kageyama and Shikamaru are the only ones? Kageyama wasn't even an important character, just someone who appeared in one of the oldest FT arcs and then you are commenting that he got ripped off? This is laughable.
Your supposed 'rip-offs' and 'copies' are jokes. It makes me almost want to weep because of that there are people so childish they to go to this extent just to have a reason to bash a series.
Do you know what you are doing? It's only a step lower than this: "oh no, there are actually women in FT! Blasphemy, OP also has females, HIRO RIPPED OFF FROM OP! OMGOMGOMG someone report him!". That's the domain you currently belong as you are nitpicking on things that are so freaking common and global only a shallow and biased person is going to complain about it for the sake of complaining. Even more so when there's a series like Gintama, who made parodying existing series their favorite pastime.
