So I've usually only watched the classic/elitist/hipster stuff but recently had a chance to read two volumes of all the...

So I've usually only watched the classic/elitist/hipster stuff but recently had a chance to read two volumes of all the popular shounen manga: dragonball, naruto, black buttler, exorcist, fairy tail, bleach and one piece. I always thought it's too late for me since I'm long past my teens but I decided to just go and try them all out.

Interestingly, the one I most enjoyed turned out to be Fairy Tail. But oddly it seems to be the one that gets the most hate. Why is that? It's pretty fun, doesn't treat itself seriously, has hot chicks with big cleavages and has the romb, adventerous tone that reminds me of hanging out with friends in a bar.

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Every arc is the exact same shit and there never feels like there's any progression, even if there actually is progression.

Shitty start, but at least the one thing Fairy Tale nails down is showing skin + bullying cute girls. It's more modern than the other shonen, and has a sensible balance of charm without being total sluts despite getting naked.

Flashes of embarrassment work if they are ok with nothing on as long as they are comfortable.
You would be hard pressed reading it for an interesting story though, it's more the characters that carry this series.

> read two volume
Dont read more of fairy tail
It start fun but then goes downhill at an incredible speed and never slow down
And it somehow manage to be even worse as new chapters come out

Isn't that what all modern shounen are like?

No. Bullshit.

The thing is I don't think any of those shounen stories I've read had that much of an interesting story. It's all more about the setting, characters and tone, and Fairy Tail handles the last one definitely the best.
Damn, guess I'll have to see. One Piece, Dragonball and Fairy Tail where the only ones I planned on reading, rest just felt bland and uninteresting. Was planning on reading Bleach till I get to Kukaku, Yoruichi and Rangiku but it feels just too uninspired so far.

It goes downhill later on. It took me a while to realize it though, most people will start hating it by the time the timeskip bullshit happens.

fairy porn is good for the porn but everything else is retarded

Well, I still prefer good characters, settings and tone without progression then progression with all of those being bland and uninteresting. I mean people watch comedy shows and don't care about progression in them at all.

Fairy Tail has always been a shit. It's not that hard to notice the massive flaws this shit has in the early chapters.

Rather than wasting your time with that bullshit, read Kongou Banchou.

In what specifically? It's fun, rackish and sexy.

Like what?

typical shonen plot. Can't enjoy them once you saw better things

If you don't like standard battle shounen you would like FT more than the others. It has a nice slice of life feeling and the girls are cute in a way that you normally see in CGDCT shows.

That's not true. None of my favorites are shounen and as I mentioned I enjoyed Fairy Tail. It's like saying that once you eat caviar you can't enjoy hamburgers anymore.

Terrible protagonist, terrible female sidekick, ludicrous fanservice, non-existent world-building, lameass conflicts, zero-dimensional characters and zero creativity and originality. Don't tell me you didn't notice these, or are you just a retarded Fairy fanboy?

I don't really like those types of shows though. I mean I can enjoy some of them like Aria or YKK just like I could enjoy JoJo and FMA among shounen but they're definitely not my prefered types of shows.

hamburgers have better taste than caviar

I literally read it yesteday as I mentioned. But all of these you mentioned are just are just adjectives and no arguments. I'm also not comparing Fairy Tail to the best anime or works of fiction out there just to other modern shounen series (besides the actually good ones like FMA or HxH). In that aspect I don't see how they come off as that much worse than something like Naruto, Bleach or One Piece. Only One Piece can compare in terms of how vibrant the setting and characters are, but One Piece only focuses on the fights so far, Fairy Tail actually creates a fun dynamic between the characters.

The fanservice is good and definitely the best among all those titles.

FT knows its generic shit and uses it to its advantage, that is why I enjoy reading it.

Kill yourself.

The point still being that I can enjoy works by Kon, Dezaki, Anno, Oshii or Takahata and also Fairy Tail. It doesn't anywhere near the same level of creativity, ambition or entertainment value but it's still a fun adventure story that handles its tone better than most other generic shounen.

What is your preferred type of show?

Everything that is not Faily Fail.

So you like Nardo and Bleach.
Ok.

People that read shounen (largely the ones that like Naruto, Bleach and One Piece) hate it because it doesn't take itself seriously.
People that don't read shounen hate it because it's shounen.
The most appealing aspect, or perhaps the only worthwhile one, is the fan service.

>People that read shounen hate it because it doesn't take itself seriously.

No people hate it because things like Naruto and Bleach took their asspulls and power levels seriously when all their balancing was a joke.

>People that don't read shounen hate it because it's shounen.
Actually they are the ones who liked it. At least in the beginning.

It was shit from the beginning, but you could still read it for the fanservice.

Now it's a toxic mess of cancer which should just be burned down.
>BECAUSE SHE IS ERZA
>Oh no, these enemies are so strong, wait i just one punched them and some outside force also killed a group of them, but wait, they are all alive again and stronger than before, wait again, i just one punched them again
>These characters died a sad death, but wait, they never died because asspull

Most vocal haters of FT are definitely hardcore battle shounen fans. Because every fight must have some sort of forced rules and seriousness.

You forgot to mention the
>POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

I like shows with so called "jigsaw puzzle plots" the most. Ones where the viewer has to put together certain pieces of segmented exposition to understand the thematic message or actual narrative of the work. Ones like FLCL, Angel's Egg, Eva, Lain or Utena. I also like stories which are one hand very personal but on the other majestic and grandious in scope. Ones where you get to know the flawed natures of the characters but also behind that there is something larger lingering behind this. Examples would be the ones I already mentioned but also for example Berserk, Kaiba or Casshern Sins. Lastly I like shows with unique visual designs like anything done by Masaaki Yuasa and Kenji Nakamura.

Not saying those are the only things I like, but definitely the things I find to be common and appealing to me among my favorite works.

That might be why I like it and probably One Pieca and Dragonball among those the most. Having seen actually amazing anime which can handle a serious tone it's hard to not roll your eyes when you see a silly shounen series trying to be serious. I read those for the fun atmosphere, wacky setting and hot chicks. All the rules shounen set for themselves are usually pretty damn retarded and forced anyways.

Then you should continue FT. It never gets serious with it's fight.

I liked it too as a teen but trust me it turns into dogshit. At least the OST is nice I guess.

What is the setting supposed to be? It seems to be medieval fantasy with some arabic influences but they have cameras and colorful magazines.

For me it's sort of what this user said. It starts off really fun with a feeling of adventure and charming characters, but for me at least, it got old after a while. Probably because it keeps on with the same sort of shenanigans through the whole thing and never really evolves (which in a way I actually consider a good thing since sometimes anime/manga will lose themselves as they go on.)

It's a pretty fun ride though while it feels fresh, so I say just read it until you stop enjoying it. Then just put it on hiatus until the mood strikes you at some point to pick it up again.

Also, it's pretty annoying sometimes how Natsu is about the only one allowed to take down the BBEG in whatever arc, but that's typical for shounen. And even though that's the case, the non-protagonist characters do still get a lot more opportunity to shine than in most shounen.

You would have to be more familiar with battle shonens in general to understand why Fairy Tail is trash.
It's because it takes the bare bones shonen formula
>power of friendship
>plot progression based entirely on power creep
>random fucking powerups
and adds absolutely nothing to it.
It does not put any effort into thinking up cool, creative fights and instead just resolves them with power levels and nothing else.
If you only read the first two volumes then this might not have happened yet as I vaguely remember it being better in the beginning but it gets so, so much worse the further it goes on.

>Also, it's pretty annoying sometimes how Natsu is about the only one allowed to take down the BBEG in whatever arc, but that's typical for shounen. And even though that's the case, the non-protagonist characters do still get a lot more opportunity to shine than in most shounen.
I suppose the other characters getting so much chance to shine only makes the whole 'only Natsu can beat the arc final boss' thing stand out even more. In One Piece, for example, Luffy is notably stronger than his crew members and his position as captain makes it seem natural that he's the one who fights the enemy captain.

In Fairy Tail, Natsu isn't really that special compared to his friends. He's on roughly equal standing with Grey and Erza powerlevel-wise, and is certainly not their superior in the Guild, so why is it that he's the only one who gets to beat the boss?

I didn't read a word of this but those 2 girls are hot as fuck

One Piece starts slow, but it's worth staying with it if you're going to commit to at least one, since it's very character-driven and has pretty consistent quality (though it moves between totally silly and sorta serious). Dragon Ball is a good read regardless, if only so you know about it.
Exhorcist is literally God-damned stupid.

>oh noez i'm severely outnumbered and these guys are in a whole other league
>you can do it!!!!!!
>*proceeds to beat all enemies in a second*

I understand, I'll probably do just that and the same with One Pieca and Dragonball. In fact the main reason I didn't look into shounen before was because I expected them all to be repetetive and formulaic. But now I have a bit of a more lax attitude and don't mind reading something that I won't find ambitious or adhering strictly to my taste.

I would like if the setting had a bit more "specific-ness" to it, I guess. I mean Soul Eater felt "halloween-ish" and One Piece is "pirate-ish" but I don't really know what Fairy Taile is going for.
That's true, I'm not that much interested in the formula and don't have specific requirements for it. For me fights are never really thaat interesting and I always just see them as a way to add conflict and reason to explore the characters, setting and establish a specific tone. I was never good at realizing whether that move was inconsistent or not or keeping track of power levels. Or caring about stuff like this: Power of friendship and sexy girls are things I stand by strongly, so I like those aspects.
Along with Fairy Tail I was planning to actually stick with One Piece and Dragonball out of all of these. These are the ones that seem the most chill, vibrant and imaginative. Plus I know One Piece also gets some sexy girls later on and Nami herself becomes sexier.

>Why is that? It's pretty fun, doesn't treat itself seriously, has hot chicks with big cleavages and has the romb, adventerous tone that reminds me of hanging out with friends in a bar.
This. I couldn't have said it better myself.
I like it exactly for these reasons. I don't read it expecting a deep and compelling story, I just enjoy the mindless fun.
I don't mind battle shonen manga, but Fairy Tail is the one I prefer nowadays.

As readers they were right in being disappointed when a series got watered down and wasn't improving or getting better over time. There's a reason one piece is still doing well today despite slagging a bit, mostly because Oda has excellent story mechanics.

Focusing on story over art is key and it works. There's a reason why the writers get paid more than artists normally in the industry and this is the reason why. It keeps people in. Not many people can pull that off.

Is Magi decent? Arabian nights stuff interests me

Yes.

I hate Fairy Tail because I can't watch anything past like episode 14 on Crunchyroll. Like wtf, how am I supposed to get into this anime and give it a chance if I'm not even allowed to watch it. Can't even watch/stream them anywhere else. Dropped. I'll stick to One Piece if this stupid anime wants to be stingy with its episodes. It all sucked so far but I was willing to watch for another 14 episodes to see if it got better.

Reasons to watch/read Fairy Tail:

>1. The girls
>2.

My biggest issue with Fairy Tail is that Groove Adventure Rave pretty much is everything FT is but miles better to the point where I wonder why Mashima degraded so hard

Fairy Tail is quite fun if you don't take it seriously.
Not even the mangaka takes it seriously, such as the self-jab at his refusal to let dead people die in the laziest way possible.

1. the girls
2. magic and dragons
3. adventures and bars

OP, you should really think about checking out Shokugeki no Soma, there's a lot of overlap with what you like between it and Fairy Tail (except Shokugeki is probably the more fun of the two).

I think he just wanted a long running series that would rake in money. Which it has done, and last year it was ranked 15th in manga sales, actually up from 17th in 2014, so it's doing well if his goal is sales.

>Jigsaw puzzle plot

Have you seen Kara no Kyoukai? The fifth film is pretty much this, it jumps around in time like every 19 minutes.

I watched the first season of Shokugeki and dropped it somewhere around the second. But it was rather fun and over the top, plus had some sexy girls like Alice, and that Blonde one. Though I do like the setting and adventurous tone in Fairy Tail.

To me the best realization of all the elements I'm speaking of are basically Gainax and Trigger shows. But I've seen them all and some of them a couple of times.
I have seen the whole thing. I found the main duo to be rather bland and disliked the rather expository storytelling but I liked some of the ideas in it and the soundtrack. The design was generic like all nasushit though I guess people do praise the digital processing but it doesn't do much for me.

Why did you drop it? Tournament drag on too long?

You should think about checking out the manga, the next two arcs after are really good.

It's just the shounen formula never really appeals to me that much. I liked JoJo because the setting and characters change with each book and FMA because there was a changing story and a specific mystery to solve press in general good characters etc. In Shokugeki even if certain arcs were better they were still pretty much the same thing and I just lost interest. In general I like short stories with several ideas than long stories relying on one specific idea.

Maybe he just likes them too much.

Not long after the anime ends Shokugeki does shift in a big way so that might qualify for the kind of thing you want, it never loses that sense of goofy fun though.

Is FT close to ending?