User blog comment:Ash9876/Ashy's Reviews - Fairy Tail 497: The Winter Mage/@comment-3327892-20160814211955

The prodigal tabor has come back to the guild, and so I am here to review the review (reviewception) and the chapter.

I actually did rather like that one. Irene is dastardly as ever, and I am actually curious to know what kind of relationship lies between her and Erza and Neinhart. Zeref still got some (very, very relative soft spot for Mavis): just hope is not enough to trigger the curse.

I also take the oppurtunity to talk about the so called "missing hype" opportunity, which has been a problem in this wiki concerning Hiro for a long while. Honestly, I kinda understand why Hiro is doing certain choices, since it just fits with the standard Fairy Tail pacing: fights never last for more than two-three chapters except when we have to face the so called "arc villain" which takes more spots. Such approach can effectively spare the user many chapter of just dragging along so to go straight to advance the point and make the plot go faster. If every fight among all the minor villain will last for a chapter or two longer, the pacing might suffer a lot, especially when Fairy Tail has to face so many minibosses at once such the Spriggan Twelve. So yeah, I do not think Invel is gonna last that long; we will much certainly advance with the plot with Fairy Heart.

However, as much this approach does make the story progress more smoothly, it takes a lot in term of tension. Fight are often a spectacle to see for the sheer scale and the details in the background, but they rarely shine for strategic brilliance or dramatic impact. Plus, you can see certain and, often many times, patterns repeating to keep the good guys winning (which almost always happens with shonen). There some shining moments, especially when the Faires cooperates to defeat a stronger opponent by cleverly applying their powers (I mostly think of the fights against Ajeel and Jacob Lessio in this particular arc; as much as the Nakanama mantra is repeated at nauseam, we can see why those guys keep preaching the importance of team work) but many times we see tons of asspull just to get faster where the plot unravels (need I to mention Minerva and Kyoka?).

To be honest, one to reasons while I still enjoy the manga is because of his very polished art and quick pacing, but I can see that the plot needs to be tinkered with more proper build-up on plot and more variation in the fight formula rather than just go on high speed. Such fastness prevents Fairy Tail to become a boring mess like Bleach, where meaningless fights drag along forever and an uncoherently complicated plot just killed the interest (for me at least: If you like Bleach anyways, more power to you), but can leave thirsty for me. A bit more of foretought, less Nakama pandering and much less clothing damages could make this series incredibily intertaining.