Aww. Well I'm glad you didn't hate it :( Honestly the "simple" feeling Fairy Tail has is what appeals to me. I'm ssso tired of heavy, heavy shounen, after so many manga that seem like they're just running through the tropes to avoid being simple, because simple = shallow. It always reads as "false depth" to me, so something that glorifies fun and friendship and trucking through sadness and "belonging" is something that makes me love it.
I'm glad you gave it the old college try though! And glad it somewhat held up against a very angry feminist :|b It's not really a feminist manga, I wouldn't argue that, because gender isn't an thematic issue like you said. But that's why I like it so much, I suppose.
See, I knew I was going to sound meaner than I meant to. It was fun. And that's worth something! I had a good time reading it while I was bored, and I don't mean to say that it's bad because it's simple, or that being shallow is necessarily a bad thing.
Sometimes, it's a good thing. But it's not something I ramble on at length about. Criticism brings out the teal deer, you know?
Like I said, I wouldn't call it an unfeminist pleasure, and certainly not anti-feminist. As shounen manga go, it's not so bad. It's heart is in the right place, and the problems there are are generally mitigated by the problems that there aren't, if that makes sense. I can definitely see why someone would like it, and I'll probably keep reading it, at least for a while.
I'M SURE IT HELPS THAT I LIKE THE ART AND I'M NUMB TO THE NAKAMA THING
Haha see when all the girls were turned to stone, I thought of it as more of a "Oh shit our guild's power is totally nuked seeing as we just lost our women, we are so screwed with this plot" and not a "Now our girls need rescuing." This was when I thought to myself "Wow this manga makes me happy when it comes to the girls, if this happened in another shounen I'd probably go bonkers."
I am so very picky about art. For real. I've been called a terrible person on the internet for it before.
It's a trope that makes be really twitchy. And the stronger the girl is supposed to be, the more it makes me >( because it just feels so very cheap. It wouldn't be so bad if that sort of thing happened to male characters more, or the same way. I mean, Natsu does get locked away at the time too, but it wasn't the same. He got to press his face to the shield and be an ass, and not just stand around blankly looking pretty. And it was so overwhelmingly gender segregated, and the girls were really the ones being held hostage--so many bad buttons to push. TT_TT
It's okay though. I'm just a freak, and half the fun of reading stuff like this is analyzing the stuff that does bug me. Even in things I like.
On "nakama" - I agree in principle, and seeing the word does prickle me a bit albeit not to anything like the extent to which it apparently bothers you, but the trouble is that I'm given to understand (and have to concur based on my own assessment, however limited that may be) that in at least some cases, it is important that the same word be used for "nakama" in all instances... and while I've yet to see any single context for "nakama" where I could not find an English word which would be an accurate translation, there is no single English word which can be accurate and flow well in *all* contexts
( ... )
I can't really speak for the underlying meaning--which is one of the problems that I have with the word. I speak English, and read translations for a reason. I ended up putting the meaning together mostly from context anyway, which is one of the problems I have with it.
In any event, I agree a bit, in that I can see why someone would make that choice. I still think it's a bad one, though. While you might not have the one consistent word, I think that we're pretty used to associating the ideas of friends and families, or generally other people you have close relationships with. You don't get the buzzword, no, and I guess if it's that important to you, that's the choice you make. But it feels very clunky and unnecessary to me.
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I'm glad you gave it the old college try though! And glad it somewhat held up against a very angry feminist :|b It's not really a feminist manga, I wouldn't argue that, because gender isn't an thematic issue like you said. But that's why I like it so much, I suppose.
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Sometimes, it's a good thing. But it's not something I ramble on at length about. Criticism brings out the teal deer, you know?
Like I said, I wouldn't call it an unfeminist pleasure, and certainly not anti-feminist. As shounen manga go, it's not so bad. It's heart is in the right place, and the problems there are are generally mitigated by the problems that there aren't, if that makes sense. I can definitely see why someone would like it, and I'll probably keep reading it, at least for a while.
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Haha see when all the girls were turned to stone, I thought of it as more of a "Oh shit our guild's power is totally nuked seeing as we just lost our women, we are so screwed with this plot" and not a "Now our girls need rescuing." This was when I thought to myself "Wow this manga makes me happy when it comes to the girls, if this happened in another shounen I'd probably go bonkers."
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It's a trope that makes be really twitchy. And the stronger the girl is supposed to be, the more it makes me >( because it just feels so very cheap. It wouldn't be so bad if that sort of thing happened to male characters more, or the same way. I mean, Natsu does get locked away at the time too, but it wasn't the same. He got to press his face to the shield and be an ass, and not just stand around blankly looking pretty. And it was so overwhelmingly gender segregated, and the girls were really the ones being held hostage--so many bad buttons to push. TT_TT
It's okay though. I'm just a freak, and half the fun of reading stuff like this is analyzing the stuff that does bug me. Even in things I like.
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In any event, I agree a bit, in that I can see why someone would make that choice. I still think it's a bad one, though. While you might not have the one consistent word, I think that we're pretty used to associating the ideas of friends and families, or generally other people you have close relationships with. You don't get the buzzword, no, and I guess if it's that important to you, that's the choice you make. But it feels very clunky and unnecessary to me.
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