Well...Fairy Tail ended this week. I've posted a lot about it, positive and negative, though obviously I cared enough to read it to the end.
I'll post my thoughts on the final chapter, as well as some general thoughts on the manga itself, what went wrong, what Hiro did right, and overall impressions.
Chapter ends with a big party one year later after Lucy finally has her novel published. Was cute seeing everyone go wild even at a big high society event. Lots of characters returned, old gags came back. Basically your standard guild party, only out in public. Lucy mentally explains what was going on with everyone, which of course meant all the ship confirmations or implications.
While it was obvious ships would play a role, I was surprised at how little was actually confirmed. Gajeel/Levy is canon now, and it seems Levy is pregnant. Elf/Ever and Cobra/Kinana (I think that's her name, the girl that used to be his snake) seem like they're dating, while everyone else was limited to a final strong moment between the pairs. The Laxus tease was pretty hilarious; Lucy talking about rumors he was an item with Mirajane, Lisanna, or Cana, and not knowing for sure.
I'm a huge Na/Lu fan, and while I was hoping for something more solid, I can grow to accept the more open ending we got. I was little annoyed at HIro's final tease (make it look like Natsu was going to confess, only for him to take Lucy on a long quest instead), but the way their final scene was drawn spoke for itself. They'll always be each other's most important person, and nothing will ever get in the way of that. Even if it wasn't a real confession, Natsu's claim that "we'll be together forever" was about as much of a confession as I can expect from someone like him. A wedding scene like Rave Master would have been nice, but this is a different manga, and I think I'll be okay with it.
Final comment on the chapter, but Mavis and Zeref's reincarnation was really stupid. I get that it's a popular trope, and I've seen in before, but the characters died a year ago, they shouldn't be the same age now as when they died. Also the scene would have had a lot more impact if they were talking in the background, or if maybe only one person might have noticed in passing, but having the whole guild stare and them and smile and blush just made it worse, especially since no one seems to care how it happened, or what the implications might be.
LIke I mentioned, I cared enough to finish the manga, but there were a ton of parts, particularly after the Tenrou Island arc, where Hiro seemed to grow really really lazy. Nakama power became more and more overused, extreme conflicts would be set up only to be resolved the exact same way every single time. The end of the manga should have been the most climactic part, where we would be genuinely worried about what would happen, and yet it just felt like he was running on autopilot the whole time. There was never any question that Natsu would beat Acnologia with friendship power, and so there was never any tension at any point during that fight. This was a big problem with the manga as a whole honestly. Hiro hated both overly long fight scenes and training arcs...which I do too...but this poses a serious problem for someone who writes a freaking battle manga!
On the positive side, the characters always remained consistent, for better or worse, and Hiro never forgot who the main cast was. Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and Erza were always important to the story, and is a refreshing to know that every week I would be able to come back to see these characters that I'd grown to love. This was indispensible for the comedy elements of the manga, which I personally found to be a much bigger draw than the awful fight scenes. It's why I've held on multiple occasions that a rom-com or comedy SoL story by Hiro would be absolutely amazing.
He also handled emotional scenes very well, even if the setup to those scenes was often contrived. Lucy finding out about her dad's death, future Lucy dying and meeting all her friends, August finally seeing his mother, etc. Looking at these scenes in a vacuum, they were all extremely well drawn, and did a great job at bringing out emotions in me, and I've definitely cried more than once in this story. The problem though, as expected, is Hiro's inablity to leave characters dead usually dampened the blow to what could be even more strong moments, but overall, the manga did a good job at handling these scenes when they came about. I had similar thoughts on Rave Master, and while it wasn't as extreme in that case, my lasting impression on RM is these scattered strong moments, rather than the million asspulls and plot contrivances it took to get there. This will be a bit subjective, but for me, it left a more positive than negative feeling on the manga as a whole.
Overall, while some things felt anti-climactic, like many things in this manga, the ending tied up most of the loose ends, and left an overall positive feeling with the never-ending adventure theme. After the abominations that were the Naruto and Bleach endings, I feel grateful that another long-running battle manga ended without me wanting to punch the author in the face, and that I enjoyed it enough that I plan to give his next work a shot. And heh...with how prolific Hiro is as a writer, I feel confident that I haven't seen the last of the FT gang. I'm sure we'll get some cute omakes at some point, and very likely another crossover manga like he did with Rave Master. Would be nice to have a wedding omake...ku ku ku.
Anyways...that's all for now. No more Fairy Tail rants from me...probably.
