SharkVice's manga / #Fantasy(16)

This is amazing. Another classic if I do say so myself. It has everything anyone that likes long shoujo manga could be looking for. The relationship is amazing and it progresses very well with the story. You'll end up being the #1 shipper of the main characters. You'll become emotionally invested. You'll feel genuinely happy from their heartwarming moments. You'll feel like you want to fix everything when things looking dark. You'll become a mom lol.

I kept hanging onto this until the end because I thought despite the really slow arcs there was going to be an amazing arc in the end against the main villains that would bring an epic end to the story. However, in the end all you get is a few amazing arcs (the Tower of Heaven, the Grand Magic Games, the Tenrou Island arc) while the rest of the manga is, with all due respect, far from 1st rate (that last arc that I so greatly anticipated was complete mayhem). The only thing that is really worthwhile in this manga are the ships. Mashima is clearly superior at writing romantic subplots when compared to other best-selling shounen mangakas such as Kishimoto (Naruto), Oda (One Piece), and Kubo (Bleach). However, Mashima's storytelling and arcs are significantly lacking when compared to the same mangakas. Besides that, I personally think Mashima made a questionable decision when he decided to make Lucy the main character of Fairy Tail. Usually character growth from the main character is a key element of shounen manga. That being said, despite Lucy receiving several power ups as a wizard, she was never able to become a character that was essential to the story, she could never fight an important fight, and her abilities as a wizard were overshadowed, not only by the rest of the main characters, but also by many side characters. Even Levy, from the same guild, who doesn't have an offensive type of magic is more useful than Lucy in the story. At times, her presence in the story almost seemed forced with Mashima always creating connections between Lucy and their adversaries that would make Lucy relevant to the story. Despite Mashima's effort to keep Lucy firmly grounded in the story, one would often forget Lucy was the main character due to Natsu, who's comparable to famous characters such as Goku, Monkey D. Luffy, and Uzumaki Naruto.

It was a great story overall. Personally, I find Kishimoto's ability to connect characters to the story unmatched. I had never read a story where all characters were so interwined to each other. Characters from early in the manga were relevant even in the later half of the story or after their deaths. There honestly werent that many characters given the length of the manga but they were all memorable and they were all necessary to the story to the point where if you took one out you would be left with a gap. It was brilliant storytelling and that made Naruto spectacular to me. The only thing that could've been better was the romance as it was something that Kishimoto obviously struggled with but it's not a big deal since shounen manga don't need to be romantic. There are other shounen manga such as One Piece, Dragon Ball, HunterXHunter, and Captain Tsubasa that don't focus much on romance development. Kishimoto still tried though but the result came out bland though the extra episodes after the end of the manga (the shippuden season 21 episodes) have romantic moments worth noting (specially Naruto's wedding).

Good stuff too bad they rushed the ending

There's just something about it that makes it really cute