[Discussion] The Tenrou Island Arc Started The Downfall of Fairy Tail

[Mr Scruffington]

From my perspective, every arc up until Tenrou Island was either decent or outstanding. Some of my favorite arcs were the Phantom Lord, Tower of Heaven, and the Edolas arc. However, I felt that while there was a lot of good elements in the Tenrou Island arc, for me overall it was a very bad arc and Fairy Tail has not quite been at the level it was before that. This is my take/explanation on what was wrong with the Tenrou Island arc, as well as other parts of the series, and hopefully we can have some discussion on this.

Warning: There will be plenty of spoilers ahead for anyone who is not up to date with the series.


Part I: Lisanna's Insignificance and Missed Opportunity

The arc started off with Lisanna's return to Fairy Tail. Lisanna was a character that could have had a big impact on Natsu's character and the overall story, yet upon returning to Fairy Tail since the Tenrou Island arc, has done nothing for his overall character or the story in general. Since Lisanna's comeback, she has played little to no role in the story, and has been treated like she's just as important as Max or anyone else. She is pushed to the background and Natsu doesn't appear to care any more about her than the rest of his Guild as he views them all equally as his friends. There could have been a constantly developing relationship with her and Natsu, as well as a developing relationship between Natsu and Lucy, and Lucy/Lisanna could have some friction and have some serious development. But nope, Mashima doesn't do that. Instead, both are dumped into the friendzone and treated no more importantly than the other. This is another very weak development that started in the Tenrou Island arc and has not really been improved upon.

Part II: Gildarts' Message and Another Failed Natsu Character Development

Gildarts fighting Natsu was also another big wasted opportunity. Gildarts told Natsu that "fear allows you to know your weakness." and talked about how it's okay to back down from your enemies and even run away. Does Natsu ever do this? NOPE. It's like he's taking Gildarts' words in the weirdest context possible. For instance, when he fights Zancrow, Zancrow obviously is superior as he is a God Slayer whereas Natsu is only a Dragon Slayer. Natsu appears afraid, but he doesn't back down or runaway. Instead, he charges straight in to fight Zancrow, empties his magic to eat the God Flames, and wins. Also, against Hades, Natsu and the rest of the Guild is clearly out of magical power, and he starts talking about Gildarts. But again, he doesn't appear to have learned anything from Gildarts and charges straight at Hades. This was another part that could have developed Natsu's character. Had he backed down from Zancrow or Hades and said "you know what, I'm not strong enough right now. We should retreat. I'll get stronger so this doesn't happen again" that would have been HUGE for his character and made his personality and work ethic evolve.

Part III: The Tenrou Tree and The Completely Nullified Sense of Danger

The Tenrou Tree took away so much of the hype in this arc. In fact, the only real purpose it served was to hype up Erza vs Azuma's fight by raising the stakes. When it was revealed that the Tenrou Tree prevents any members of Fairy Tail from dying, that completely negated all the fights that had occurred before the tree went down. There was never any danger for Natsu vs Zancrow, Loki vs Capricorn, etc. etc. because there was no way they would have died since the tree was still up. It made the fights feel very pointless and took a lot of way from them in hindsight. It was like they were fake, in essence.

Part IV: The Ridiculous Hades Fight

Now don't get me wrong, but the Hades fight was actually great at some parts. Fairy Tail going all out on Hades at the start was awesome, Laxus' return was crazy (though he should have fought for longer), and Hades constantly getting back up despite getting hit with Natsu's Lighting Flame Dragon Roar was straight up cool. However, some parts of this fight made absolutely zero sense. For one, Natsu is only supposed to be able to eat flames. So how is he eating lightning? This violates the logic that Hiro Mashima had established earlier in the series, and yet everyone seems to accept it. So what if he suffers some side effects from eating it? He still shouldn't be able to according to the logic the series had established from the beginning. In addition, Hades having the Devil's Heart on his ship is one of the biggest dumbass moves any character could make. "Alright, I'm a Dark Guild Master, one of the strongest mages in Magnolia right now. So I'm going to take on Fairy Tail 1v5 right here on my ship. Oh by the way, if you could not go downstairs and take out that big heart which is actually the source of all my power and will cause me to lose, that would be great." It felt like a very stupid way to end the fight.

Part V: Unexplained Plot Holes

When Meredy was running away with Zeref from Juvia, those three and Zancrow were all in the same area. Zeref uses his killing wave or whatever and Zancrow dies. But Meredy and Juvia only get knocked unconscious. How does this even happen? This makes absolutely no sense. Even if you argued that Juvia was saved from dying by the Tenrou Tree, you don't have any argument for Meredy. This one has no explanation. Next, there is another plot hole pertaining to the Tenrou Tree: The Gildarts and Bluenote fight (which should have certainly lasted longer since this was the first time we saw Gildarts get into a real fight). Gildarts and Bluenote are fighting on par against each other while the tree is up. However, when the Tenrou Tree goes down, Gildarts is losing to Bluenote. The Tenrou Tree goes back up, and Gildarts is suddenly stronger than Bluenote. He's able to overpower him with ONE PUNCH. No, that's not how it works. The Tenrou Tree's energy brings them back up to PAR. It doesn't suddenly put Gildarts above Bluenote.

Part VI: Makarov's Lost Potential

Acnologia comes in and attacks Fairy Tail at Tenrou Island. This was actually one of the cooler scenes of the series. I love Acnologia. After some convincing, Gildarts gets Fairy Tail to run away, but Acnologia stops them from running. Makarov then says that he is willing to risk his life delaying Acnologia so that his guild can escape Tenrou Island. Had Natsu learned anything from Gildarts' message in his fight against him, he would have realized that he couldn't beat a dragon and would run away. Yet he didn't, and Fairy Tail came running back to help Makarov. This part gets some huge negatives for me. If there was any chance to advance the plot, and any chance for Makarov to have died in the Fairy Tail series, it would have been right here against Acnologia. Think about it. Makarov saves Fairy Tail at the cost of his own life. Everyone looks back on him as a hero and reflects on his loss back at the guild. They evolve as characters. They learn to cope with the loss of someone close to them, and develop as characters. But Makarov didn't die, and in X791 he's back up as Fairy Tail's Guild Master once again. The plot hasn't gone anywhere and neither has Fairy Tail. Lots of potential was lost here.

Part VII: The Timeskip and Ultear's Magic

The seven year timeskip after Acnologia's decimation of Fairy Tail still has not fully been explained and feels very, very cheesy. Mavis Vermilion says that the "Friendship Bonds" with Fairy Tail activated the Fairy Sphere, which protected them from Acnologia. In my opinion, this is horribly cheesy and suggests that friendship is some tangible thing that can somehow be converted into magic. It doesn't make much sense to me, but it is what it is. However, the biggest problem I have is...why seven years? Why couldn't the Fairy Sphere have been deactivated the next day? There is no clear explanation for this. Everyone just seems to accept that seven years are suddenly gone. I want answers, and I don't think I'll be getting any. Moving away from the timeskip problem, let's talk about Ultear's Time Ark magic. Her ability is to apparently manipulate non-sentient things. Yet after the seven year timeskip, she uses her Time Ark magic on the Fairy Tail guild members in order to get them to their Second Origin levels. This is a blatant contradiction of her abilities and Hiro Mashima is once again trolling by breaking the rules he himself established.

Part VIII: Natsu Failing to Grow as a Character

This will probably be one of the last points I make about this. After the timeskip, apparently Natsu and the returning members of FT partied for three weeks or something similar in order to make up for lost time. However, let's think back. Remember when Natsu Dragneel used to have a goal? Remember he was supposed to be looking for his foster father Igneel? Throughout the series, what attempts has he made to go look for his father? None. Instead of searching for his father after the timeskip, he decides to party for three weeks with his guild. At some point before the start of the Grand Magic Games he could have gone to look for answers about Igneel, but he doesn't. Even aside from that, he only puts in one or two days of training for the GMG before going off to the Celestial Spirit World for three months. And then he gets a powerup handed to him by Ultear. Instead of working for his strength, he gets it handed to him on a silver platter by Ultear. THIS IS A PROBLEM. If one major point of the seven year timeskip was to create new, stronger enemies for Fairy Tail to face, what is the point if they are getting powerups handed to them? They should have to train harder and struggle against enemies. They should realize that the world around them has changed and they are no longer the strongest. By handing Team Natsu free powerups that they don't have to work for, and having them win every fight in the GMG, using the seven year timeskip as a way to create new powerful enemies is completely nullified.



Anywho, that's about all I have to say about Tenrou Island and post-Tenrou so far. Sorry for the long read, but I wanted to put some effort into this. Thoughts? Comments?

 

[KGB Kakuzu]

You deffinatly made valid points! Especially Magic eating. The lack of developing relations is also kinda annoying...you'd think Gray would settle things with Juvia by now!

While I enjoyed Makarov living...cause I like him...he deffinatly would've advanced the plot by dying!

Deffinatly expected more from the other teams (Sting and Rogue deffinatly)!

I think that the series is still awesome, but there arw deffinatly instances that could have been better done or developed!

I will say one thing he's done pretty well is Erza and Jellal's relationship. It is nicely made clear just how complicated the situation is

 

[Summer]

You realize natsu is not the main character right. the whole guild is considered the main character so focusin on building up just natsu would turn this manga into a naruto spinoff.

 

[Sephy100]

Fairy Tale is one of those manga that was never meant to be deep. Just from the first chapter it was clear that it was just going to be a beat-em up manga. Even Naruto has more backbone to it. Obviously they can't compare to Death Note or Basilisk but it's just a light-hearted manga

 

[Yveltal]

Well you have some valid points sir.

The Lisanna part is VERY true indeed. I was like wow Natsu, Lisanna is back and you barely acknowledge her presence yet in the beginning you were whining like a lil bytch about her death .-.

The whole tenrou thing to me, was just a mess, point blank. It had some good fights but yeah still messy. But i don't remember hearing the part about the tree keeping fairy tail guild members alive.

The Erza v. Asuma was good but come she should lost that one, but then again who am i to doubt Erza :ls: (Mira is still my #1 chick)

For Zeref killing Zancrow, I thought Juvia and Meredy were on the ground...

Natsu........no comment on his character development lol

As for God Slayer males, they suck. Zancrow was the only good one. Orga was some cut, like wow, got knocked out in one hit....
.

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[Mr Scruffington]

While I enjoyed Makarov living...cause I like him...he deffinatly would've advanced the plot by dying!

I like him too. Which is why him dying would have been perfect. Keeping him around just drags out his character. :/

Deffinatly expected more from the other teams (Sting and Rogue deffinatly)!

Haha, if we're going to talk about disappointments in the GMG arc, how about the Lyon vs Kagura fight getting completely skipped? I would have much rather seen that fight than Ichiya's...

I will say one thing he's done pretty well is Erza and Jellal's relationship. It is nicely made clear just how complicated the situation is

Absolutely. Erza and Jellal are easily the best characters in the entire series. They actually grow and mesh really well with each other. Even Lucy has good character development. Natsu...he just doesn't go anywhere.

You realize natsu is not the main character right. the whole guild is considered the main character so focusin on building up just natsu would turn this manga into a naruto spinoff.

Uh...Natsu is most certainly the main male protagonist. Lucy is the main female protagonist. Who is it that fights against every major enemy? Gajeel, Jellal, Laxus, Zero, King Faust, Hades, Sting and Rogue all taken down by Natsu. He's definitely the main character, yet the worst developed character in the entire series.

Fairy Tale is one of those manga that was never meant to be deep. Just from the first chapter it was clear that it was just going to be a beat-em up manga. Even Naruto has more backbone to it. Obviously they can't compare to Death Note or Basilisk but it's just a light-hearted manga

Is that supposed to be a justification for some of the poor writing in the series? Saying that "it wasn't meant to be deep" doesn't excuse all of the plot holes, poor character development of Natsu, lackluster fights, etc.

The Lisanna part is VERY true indeed. I was like wow Natsu, Lisanna is back and you barely acknowledge her presence yet in the beginning you were whining like a lil bytch about her death .-.

Yeah, Lisanna had so much buildup and Hiro Mashima did nothing with her. It was really disappointing. :/

Thanks for the "valid points" comments btw.

 

[CrimsonFire]

Of course I agree 100% here because I already thought the same thing on most of this. To me Fairy Tail did not start falling until after the tower of heaven arc.

Here how I see the problems with Fairy Tail. I'll try to keep this short:

1.Fairy Tail does not have a main focus plot. This alone is one of Fairy Tail's biggest problems because we do not know what the story is truly about, sure Fairy Tail does have a "plots", but Fairy Tail's plot is scattered. Fairy Tail did not have a main story line up to now it's more of everyone in FT had an affiliation toward the plot itself.

2.Lack of character development. To me most of the characters in FT do not stand out with the exception of Erza, Laxus, Gajeel, and maybe Jellal. Natsu who is the main male protagonist of the series does not change or grows as character threw the entire Fairy Tail story line. Natsu does have goal to meet ingeel again, but what the heck happen to it? Natsu has hardly attempt to try find ingeel threw the story and when Lisanna return Natsu barely knows she there lol. Natsu remains same as he was in the beginning of the series. Lucy the female protagonist of the series does not develop well, every arc in a nutshell ether Lucy is crying or getting saved. Lucy loses the majority of her fights and Lucy does not get enough growth in combat. Besides fan service what positives does Lucy have really? Not just Natsu and Lucy the fairy tail guild need better development.

3.Friendship. Yes I know Fairy Tail is about friendship, but the problem with it is the abuse of using friendship as a power boost constantly and not using the friendship theme properly. What I mean by friendship theme properly I am talking about not using friendship more plot point, not testing friendship in serious matters, and not using friendship in death or near death situations.

 

[TheHokage]

Hmm I agree to some extent on this mostly with the Lisanna bit Hiro seemed to just forget about her a develop Lucy (Possibly the worst main character ever)

However what you said about Natsu I find a little unfair most manga characters are like that Naruto's barely changed since part 1 either has Luffy I'd find it bad writing if Natsu turned around and completely changed his character now, also the time skip was 7 years however fairy tail was locked in time for 7 years so naturally Natsu didn't grow anymore than what he was before entering the island, and now the reason he's not looking for Igneel is because he wants to become a better wizard then meet him also he wants to payback the other fairy tail members who weren't stuck in time.

 

[Mr Scruffington]

However what you said about Natsu I find a little unfair most manga characters are like that Naruto's barely changed since part 1 either has Luffy I'd find it bad writing if Natsu turned around and completely changed his character now

Not true at all. Let's compare Natsu to Naruto.

Naruto has a goal: to become Hokage. How does he achieve that? He trains. He learns new techniques from Jiraiya and Kakashi, as well as inventing new jutsu for himself like the Rasenshuriken. By training harder to achieve his goal, he grows as a character. What does Natsu do? Jack shit. He doesn't go out looking for Igneel. Instead, he prioritizes being the best guild in Fiore over looking for his father. That is proof that he does not have his priorities straight, and he makes no efforts to achieve his goal.

Personality-wise? Naruto had to cope with the loss of his best friend. He was torn up between keeping his promise to Sakura of saving Sasuke, and his love for Sakura as well. He also resolves to kill his best friend if it means saving Konoha. In addition, he has to deal with the loss of his teacher and his village getting destroyed. Nagato's teaches Naruto about his philosophy of pain. There's all of these things that evolve Naruto as a character throughout the series. Which is why in my opinion, he's a great character. Natsu Dragneel on the other hand...doesn't do any of that. He doesn't grow through training...he just gets friendship powerups in the middle of fights. He's still goofy, he still runs into fights...he just hasn't grown. As I explained, his fight with Gildarts was a big opportunity, as was Lisanna's comeback, and those were both utterly wasted.

So yeah, Natsu is not on the same level as Naruto or anyone else in shonen series.

also the time skip was 7 years however fairy tail was locked in time for 7 years so naturally Natsu didn't grow anymore than what he was before entering the island,

And again, instead of training or fighting against people in the tournament and at THAT point realizing he's not as strong as everyone else, he gets a free powerup from Ultear and fails to grow as a character.

and now the reason he's not looking for Igneel is because he wants to become a better wizard then meet him

Why? Couldn't Igneel make him a better wizard? Why does Natsu seem to put winning a tournament ahead of finding his missing father? If that's his goal, he should make an effort to achieve it.

 

[Awesome G]

I can understand what you're talking about but Tenrou arc still had some good fights eg. Erza vs Azuma

 

[TheHokage]

Not true at all. Let's compare Natsu to Naruto.

Naruto has a goal: to become Hokage. How does he achieve that? He trains. He learns new techniques from Jiraiya and Kakashi, as well as inventing new jutsu for himself like the Rasenshuriken. By training harder to achieve his goal, he grows as a character. What does Natsu do? Jack shit. He doesn't go out looking for Igneel. Instead, he prioritizes being the best guild in Fiore over looking for his father. That is proof that he does not have his priorities straight, and he makes no efforts to achieve his goal.

Personality-wise? Naruto had to cope with the loss of his best friend. He was torn up between keeping his promise to Sakura of saving Sasuke, and his love for Sakura as well. He also resolves to kill his best friend if it means saving Konoha. In addition, he has to deal with the loss of his teacher and his village getting destroyed. Nagato's teaches Naruto about his philosophy of pain. There's all of these things that evolve Naruto as a character throughout the series. Which is why in my opinion, he's a great character. Natsu Dragneel on the other hand...doesn't do any of that. He doesn't grow through training...he just gets friendship powerups in the middle of fights. He's still goofy, he still runs into fights...he just hasn't grown. As I explained, his fight with Gildarts was a big opportunity, as was Lisanna's comeback, and those were both utterly wasted.

So yeah, Natsu is not on the same level as Naruto or anyone else in shonen series.



And again, instead of training or fighting against people in the tournament and at THAT point realizing he's not as strong as everyone else, he gets a free powerup from Ultear and fails to grow as a character.



Why? Couldn't Igneel make him a better wizard? Why does Natsu seem to put winning a tournament ahead of finding his missing father? If that's his goal, he should make an effort to achieve it.

Dude it would be boring to see Natsu just searching for Igneel since it would take the spotlight of other characters since the story isn't about Natsu finding Igneel it's his goal but at this point in time it's impossible since he doesn't have a clue where he is.

As I said he competed in this competition for the people who were left behind 7 years ago and wanted to thank them for putting up with everyone calling them stupid and weak while still keeping Fairy tail alive.

Also a lot of people find chapters after chapters of people training boring same with how Sasuke from Naruto doesn't train but gets power ups after power ups.

You say his fight with Gildarts was a big opportunity how was it? Gildarts taught him that sometimes it was okay to back down from a fight and if you read it properly Natsu did learn from Gildarts since he told Natsu that fear wasn't evil it helps you find your weakness and during the battle with Hades it was clearly shown Natsu took this lesson to heart...while with the backing down from a fight what did you expect Natsu to just give up and let the dark guild destroy Fairy tail get real.

So stop hating a character that has similarities to many from other manga, also if you think I'm being bias my favorite character isn't Natsu it's Laxus.

 

[ARandomBlackKid]

Naruto has almost had 2x more chapters than Fairy Tail..... You have to expect more character development, also there are not as much main characters in Naruto K11, -Mizukage and co. Raikage and co. Tsuchikage and co. Akatsuki and stuff. This has a ton of people in many guilds and its only 323 chaps. Soon character development will take place obviously also he is still trying to find igneel but he's doing it a diff way he is dealing with probs he has at hand and then he will look when he has an opportunity just calm down..

 

[Mr Scruffington]

Dude it would be boring to see Natsu just searching for Igneel since it would take the spotlight of other characters since the story isn't about Natsu finding Igneel it's his goal but at this point in time it's impossible since he doesn't have a clue where he is.

Again, him searching for Igneel would develop him as a character. It's not impossible to find him because Igneel is still alive, yet he hasn't made any effort to go look for him. And even at that, why couldn't his friends help him search for Igneel as well? By not doing this, he is a terribly flawed character.

As I said he competed in this competition for the people who were left behind 7 years ago and wanted to thank them for putting up with everyone calling them stupid and weak while still keeping Fairy tail alive.

Sigh...and as I said earlier, what's more important? Being the strongest or looking for the foster father who raised you for all this time? He doesn't have his priorities straight.

Also a lot of people find chapters after chapters of people training boring same with how Sasuke from Naruto doesn't train but gets power ups after power ups.

If you want to say that training is boring, then that's alright. That's entirely your opinion. But here's my opinion: the training method helps someone grow as a character. They train to get stronger in order to achieve their goal. It strengthens both them and their goal, and means that every fight they win or every objective they complete is entirely earned and a result of their determination to get better. The random friendship powerup method denies all of this, and doesn't teach Natsu to learn from his mistakes or train in order to get stronger.

Also, Sasuke did train. He trained with Orochimaru for three years during the timeskip.

You say his fight with Gildarts was a big opportunity how was it? Gildarts taught him that sometimes it was okay to back down from a fight and if you read it properly Natsu did learn from Gildarts since he told Natsu that fear wasn't evil it helps you find your weakness and during the battle with Hades it was clearly shown Natsu took this lesson to heart...while with the backing down from a fight what did you expect Natsu to just give up and let the dark guild destroy Fairy tail get real.

How did he take this lesson to heart then? Did he back down from Hades? No, he didn't. Instead he just charges in after Hades with absolutely no magic. That was NOT what Gildarts taught him to do, yet it doesn't matter because this is Natsu and he doesn't learn anything. And when I say that Natsu backing down would have been great for his character, that doesn't mean that Grimoire Heart would have beat Fairy Tail. They could have all fled and survived. There was really no reason for them to have won that fight. I understand that running away may have been a lame ending to the fight, but that's the position that Hiro Mashima put people in with this arc.

So stop hating a character that has similarities to many from other manga, also if you think I'm being bias my favorite character isn't Natsu it's Laxus.

Everyone thinks I'm "hating" when I'm really just looking critically at the Fairy Tail series and weighing the pros and cons. Just because I'm not praising your favorite series doesn't mean I'm "hating" on it. I just don't like it anymore.

 

[Raffnir]

Enjoy it or stop watch it...

 

[Dragonking43]

One thing this is a world where you need money to survive, they end up destroying a lot of stuff so they had to pay for that. How can you search for you're father when you barely have enough money to survive. So will you at least give up the whole "natsu's character isn't developed enough and it would be more developed if he stopped everything to look for his father" thing. He can't, between his, Lucy's, and the rest of the teams expenses to live, he can't afford to. That is using both real world and fairy tail logic.

 

[Dragonking43]

From my perspective, every arc up until Tenrou Island was either decent or outstanding. Some of my favorite arcs were the Phantom Lord, Tower of Heaven, and the Edolas arc. However, I felt that while there was a lot of good elements in the Tenrou Island arc, for me overall it was a very bad arc and Fairy Tail has not quite been at the level it was before that. This is my take/explanation on what was wrong with the Tenrou Island arc, as well as other parts of the series, and hopefully we can have some discussion on this.

Warning: There will be plenty of spoilers ahead for anyone who is not up to date with the series.


Part I: Lisanna's Insignificance and Missed Opportunity

The arc started off with Lisanna's return to Fairy Tail. Lisanna was a character that could have had a big impact on Natsu's character and the overall story, yet upon returning to Fairy Tail since the Tenrou Island arc, has done nothing for his overall character or the story in general. Since Lisanna's comeback, she has played little to no role in the story, and has been treated like she's just as important as Max or anyone else. She is pushed to the background and Natsu doesn't appear to care any more about her than the rest of his Guild as he views them all equally as his friends. There could have been a constantly developing relationship with her and Natsu, as well as a developing relationship between Natsu and Lucy, and Lucy/Lisanna could have some friction and have some serious development. But nope, Mashima doesn't do that. Instead, both are dumped into the friendzone and treated no more importantly than the other. This is another very weak development that started in the Tenrou Island arc and has not really been improved upon.

Part II: Gildarts' Message and Another Failed Natsu Character Development

Gildarts fighting Natsu was also another big wasted opportunity. Gildarts told Natsu that "fear allows you to know your weakness." and talked about how it's okay to back down from your enemies and even run away. Does Natsu ever do this? NOPE. It's like he's taking Gildarts' words in the weirdest context possible. For instance, when he fights Zancrow, Zancrow obviously is superior as he is a God Slayer whereas Natsu is only a Dragon Slayer. Natsu appears afraid, but he doesn't back down or runaway. Instead, he charges straight in to fight Zancrow, empties his magic to eat the God Flames, and wins. Also, against Hades, Natsu and the rest of the Guild is clearly out of magical power, and he starts talking about Gildarts. But again, he doesn't appear to have learned anything from Gildarts and charges straight at Hades. This was another part that could have developed Natsu's character. Had he backed down from Zancrow or Hades and said "you know what, I'm not strong enough right now. We should retreat. I'll get stronger so this doesn't happen again" that would have been HUGE for his character and made his personality and work ethic evolve.

Part III: The Tenrou Tree and The Completely Nullified Sense of Danger

The Tenrou Tree took away so much of the hype in this arc. In fact, the only real purpose it served was to hype up Erza vs Azuma's fight by raising the stakes. When it was revealed that the Tenrou Tree prevents any members of Fairy Tail from dying, that completely negated all the fights that had occurred before the tree went down. There was never any danger for Natsu vs Zancrow, Loki vs Capricorn, etc. etc. because there was no way they would have died since the tree was still up. It made the fights feel very pointless and took a lot of way from them in hindsight. It was like they were fake, in essence.

Part IV: The Ridiculous Hades Fight

Now don't get me wrong, but the Hades fight was actually great at some parts. Fairy Tail going all out on Hades at the start was awesome, Laxus' return was crazy (though he should have fought for longer), and Hades constantly getting back up despite getting hit with Natsu's Lighting Flame Dragon Roar was straight up cool. However, some parts of this fight made absolutely zero sense. For one, Natsu is only supposed to be able to eat flames. So how is he eating lightning? This violates the logic that Hiro Mashima had established earlier in the series, and yet everyone seems to accept it. So what if he suffers some side effects from eating it? He still shouldn't be able to according to the logic the series had established from the beginning. In addition, Hades having the Devil's Heart on his ship is one of the biggest dumbass moves any character could make. "Alright, I'm a Dark Guild Master, one of the strongest mages in Magnolia right now. So I'm going to take on Fairy Tail 1v5 right here on my ship. Oh by the way, if you could not go downstairs and take out that big heart which is actually the source of all my power and will cause me to lose, that would be great." It felt like a very stupid way to end the fight.

Part V: Unexplained Plot Holes

When Meredy was running away with Zeref from Juvia, those three and Zancrow were all in the same area. Zeref uses his killing wave or whatever and Zancrow dies. But Meredy and Juvia only get knocked unconscious. How does this even happen? This makes absolutely no sense. Even if you argued that Juvia was saved from dying by the Tenrou Tree, you don't have any argument for Meredy. This one has no explanation. Next, there is another plot hole pertaining to the Tenrou Tree: The Gildarts and Bluenote fight (which should have certainly lasted longer since this was the first time we saw Gildarts get into a real fight). Gildarts and Bluenote are fighting on par against each other while the tree is up. However, when the Tenrou Tree goes down, Gildarts is losing to Bluenote. The Tenrou Tree goes back up, and Gildarts is suddenly stronger than Bluenote. He's able to overpower him with ONE PUNCH. No, that's not how it works. The Tenrou Tree's energy brings them back up to PAR. It doesn't suddenly put Gildarts above Bluenote.

Part VI: Makarov's Lost Potential

Acnologia comes in and attacks Fairy Tail at Tenrou Island. This was actually one of the cooler scenes of the series. I love Acnologia. After some convincing, Gildarts gets Fairy Tail to run away, but Acnologia stops them from running. Makarov then says that he is willing to risk his life delaying Acnologia so that his guild can escape Tenrou Island. Had Natsu learned anything from Gildarts' message in his fight against him, he would have realized that he couldn't beat a dragon and would run away. Yet he didn't, and Fairy Tail came running back to help Makarov. This part gets some huge negatives for me. If there was any chance to advance the plot, and any chance for Makarov to have died in the Fairy Tail series, it would have been right here against Acnologia. Think about it. Makarov saves Fairy Tail at the cost of his own life. Everyone looks back on him as a hero and reflects on his loss back at the guild. They evolve as characters. They learn to cope with the loss of someone close to them, and develop as characters. But Makarov didn't die, and in X791 he's back up as Fairy Tail's Guild Master once again. The plot hasn't gone anywhere and neither has Fairy Tail. Lots of potential was lost here.

Part VII: The Timeskip and Ultear's Magic

The seven year timeskip after Acnologia's decimation of Fairy Tail still has not fully been explained and feels very, very cheesy. Mavis Vermilion says that the "Friendship Bonds" with Fairy Tail activated the Fairy Sphere, which protected them from Acnologia. In my opinion, this is horribly cheesy and suggests that friendship is some tangible thing that can somehow be converted into magic. It doesn't make much sense to me, but it is what it is. However, the biggest problem I have is...why seven years? Why couldn't the Fairy Sphere have been deactivated the next day? There is no clear explanation for this. Everyone just seems to accept that seven years are suddenly gone. I want answers, and I don't think I'll be getting any. Moving away from the timeskip problem, let's talk about Ultear's Time Ark magic. Her ability is to apparently manipulate non-sentient things. Yet after the seven year timeskip, she uses her Time Ark magic on the Fairy Tail guild members in order to get them to their Second Origin levels. This is a blatant contradiction of her abilities and Hiro Mashima is once again trolling by breaking the rules he himself established.

Part VIII: Natsu Failing to Grow as a Character

This will probably be one of the last points I make about this. After the timeskip, apparently Natsu and the returning members of FT partied for three weeks or something similar in order to make up for lost time. However, let's think back. Remember when Natsu Dragneel used to have a goal? Remember he was supposed to be looking for his foster father Igneel? Throughout the series, what attempts has he made to go look for his father? None. Instead of searching for his father after the timeskip, he decides to party for three weeks with his guild. At some point before the start of the Grand Magic Games he could have gone to look for answers about Igneel, but he doesn't. Even aside from that, he only puts in one or two days of training for the GMG before going off to the Celestial Spirit World for three months. And then he gets a powerup handed to him by Ultear. Instead of working for his strength, he gets it handed to him on a silver platter by Ultear. THIS IS A PROBLEM. If one major point of the seven year timeskip was to create new, stronger enemies for Fairy Tail to face, what is the point if they are getting powerups handed to them? They should have to train harder and struggle against enemies. They should realize that the world around them has changed and they are no longer the strongest. By handing Team Natsu free powerups that they don't have to work for, and having them win every fight in the GMG, using the seven year timeskip as a way to create new powerful enemies is completely nullified.



Anywho, that's about all I have to say about Tenrou Island and post-Tenrou so far. Sorry for the long read, but I wanted to put some effort into this. Thoughts? Comments?

With part 1 I kinda agree but it's still early in her being back. Part 2 I completely disagree with you there. The whole point of the lesson is to learn from fear and to keep going. With your part 3 in the fights b4 we had no idea about the tree and when we were told it made the story more exiting. Part 4, if you're heart was out of your body you would have to keep it close by and do some thing similar similar to dialysis. Part 5, I can't explain all of them but the gildarts fight, when the tree came back it gave a burst of energy allowing him to win. Your part 6 is just you complaining and I completely disagree. Part 7, the guild is all about the bonds of friendship so that's how that can all a happen and for the second seven years is a while to develop your skills so that its limits do not exist. Now I've explained part of your part 8 but you think that they purposely partied for the entire time they were supposed to be training. The were first tricked into going to the celestial spirit world and not told how the time differes between the two so they had no choice but together what you called the free power-up, that to everyone else but Erza was extremely painful

So please I'm sick of people like you who complain just to complain. if you can't read a simple manga about friendship, how can you read the complicated story lines of bleach, Naruto and one piece. Please if you are going to make more threads like this or post in threads week after week and complain just stop reading fairy tail and make true fans happier

 

[Mr Scruffington]

Damn man, I'm completely losing interest in responding to people in this section. I'm thinking after this post, I should only reply to people who are level-headed and aren't total fairytards.

There are some people who aren't complete fanboys and fangirls around here, but it seems like the mindset of a lot of people here are "SHUT UP SHUT UP FAIRY TAIL IS GOOD YOU'RE WRONG SHUT UP SHUT UP." It's like they're so blinded by their fanboyism that they can't think properly and try to shut out ANYTHING critical about their series. It makes conversation almost impossible and completely pointless because they'll never even listen in the first place.

With part 1 I kinda agree but it's still early in her being back.

We've had two full arcs since her return. That's over 120+ chapters if I recall correctly. So she has been back for awhile.

Part 2 I completely disagree with you there. The whole point of the lesson is to learn from fear and to keep going.

Um...no, it isn't. Gildarts displayed his power before Natsu, and Natsu fell to his knees and started crying. He said he couldn't win and pretty much gave up. Then Gildarts told him about fear and how it allows you to know your weakness, and it's okay to back down. Had Natsu charged straight at him, he would have failed the test. But because he backed down and realized he was up against a far stronger opponent that he couldn't win against, he advanced. That was what Gildarts taught him. Yet he never backs down or realizes his inferior strength at all in the series. He learned absolutely nothing from Gildarts.

With your part 3 in the fights b4 we had no idea about the tree and when we were told it made the story more exiting.

You're right, we had no idea about what the Tenrou Tree did while the fights were going on. My point is that after we learned about what the Tree does and how it prevents Fairy Tail members from dying, we realized that nobody was in any serious danger in those fights anyways because the Tree would have prevented them from dying in their fights.

Part 4, if you're heart was out of your body you would have to keep it close by and do some thing similar similar to dialysis.

Alright, you skimmed over the Natsu somehow being able to eat Lightning part but we'll let that slide. Why did Hiro Mashima even decide to make Hades have a separate heart outside of his body that was vulnerable to attack? It was a stupid ending to the fight and I can see no other reason for it other than to troll Hades and the people watching/reading the series.

Part 5, I can't explain all of them but the gildarts fight, when the tree came back it gave a burst of energy allowing him to win.

Which makes absolutely no sense. The Tenrou Tree was keeping Fairy Tail's magic up. While the tree was still up, Gildarts was fighting at an equal level with Bluenote. Then Asuma sucks the life out of the tree, and crashes it down. Everyone in Fairy Tail except Erza gets considerably weaker and is now susceptible to dying. Asuma makes a deal with Erza that if she can win, he will give FT all of their magic back. So she wins, and Asuma gives FT their magic back as promised. Logically, this means that Gildarts got back the magic he had at first against Bluenote, which would put him back at an equal level with Bluenote. Yet he was able to overpower him with a single punch. This makes absolutely no sense.

Your part 6 is just you complaining and I completely disagree.

"YOU'RE JUST COMPLAINING, YOU'RE WRONG YOU'RE WRONG YOU'RE WRONG." Yet you have no explanation as to why you disagree. Great argument.

Part 7, the guild is all about the bonds of friendship so that's how that can all a happen and for the second seven years is a while to develop your skills so that its limits do not exist.

I don't even really understand this response.

Now I've explained part of your part 8 but you think that they purposely partied for the entire time they were supposed to be training. The were first tricked into going to the celestial spirit world and not told how the time differes between the two so they had no choice but together what you called the free power-up, that to everyone else but Erza was extremely painful

Nonono, before the team on Tenrou Island even learned about the Grand Magic Games and started training, they partied with the guild members who they reunited with for something like three weeks. Okay, one or two days is acceptable, but should you really be partying for that long when your main goal is to look for your father? At that point, Igneel could have been getting his ass kicked by Acnologia or some shit.

So please I'm sick of people like you who complain just to complain. if you can't read a simple manga about friendship, how can you read the complicated story lines of bleach, Naruto and one piece. Please if you are going to make more threads like this or post in threads week after week and complain just stop reading fairy tail and make true fans happier

I don't complain. I look at things critically and weigh the pros and cons of each series I watch or read. Fairy Tail was a series that had a lot of potential and a lot of positives, but the last two major arcs have had more negatives than positives and have caused me to not enjoy the series anymore. It's the main reason why I'm going to be dropping Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima is not as good of a writer as I once believed. Also, I don't really get the comparison between Naruto/Bleach/One Piece. I like those series because the stories are so complex, and they all actually have a clear direction. The character development in those are LEAGUES better than in Fairy Tail. So yeah, no real comparison there.

Also my only response to you not liking me being critical of Fairy Tail? Deal with it.

 

[KakuzuHatesMoney]

Natsu can't just be looking for Igneel all the time. He can't keep living in the past. He missed 7 years of his life and within those seven years things happened, which needed to be fixed. It wasn't simply about showing you're the strongest; it was about showing people that you can't just shit on someone else's friends. Its Natsu's way of apologising to the guys who were left behind. They were humiliated constantly, and Natsu wanted to redeem his friend's honour. You could say that finding Igneel is his greatest priority, and it was, but the fact that so much happened in the seven years they were gone changed all that. Fairy Tail at the moment is the only concrete family he has left. If I was Natsu I would tell Igneel to go **** himself for abandoning me, like Gajeel did.