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Thursday, July 30, 2015

One Piece vs. Fairy Tail:

For Fairy Tail to be better than One Piece, each of its anime episodes needs to be around three times as good as its One Piece opposition, as One Piece is three times as long as Fairy Tail currently.  (It's already better than Naruto, which is twice as long as Fairy Tail currently, which means every Fairy Tail episode is more than twice as good as its Naruto equivalent.)

Let's look at these things in chunks then -- From the start of Fairy Tail until the end of the battle of fairy tail, the episode titled Fantasia, is where we get to know all of the main characters minus Wendy and their back stories.  The similar block of material in One Piece extends until episode 53 where the main crew is gathered in East Blue, we see their back stories, and then they go off into the grand line at the end.

Of these two expositions, which is superior?  The answer is Fairy Tail.  Fairy Tail has a hell of a lot more happen than One Piece, with a hell of a lot better art than One Piece could ever hope to have.  One Piece certainly has some great episodes in this arc, like Nami's flashbacks, Zoro's flashbacks, Sanji's flashbacks, and the good fights on Usopp's island and at Arlong Park.

But Fairy Tail can match that punch for punch.  We get Erza's flashbacks, Gray's flashbacks, Natsu's flashback remembering Lisanna, team Laxus using clever tricks to keep even with the entire rest of Fairy Tail combined, Phantom's all out war with Fairy Tail where we get to see everyone in the guild show their stuff, Lucy's fated meeting with Natsu at the very beginning and their subsequent adventures together where they become steadfast companions, Natsu rescuing Lucy from Phantom Lord solo when all hope looked like it was lost, Elfman's flashback of killing Lisanna, Lucy saving Loke from the spirit king's judgment, Natsu pretending to be a bullied cat to defeat the all-powerful enemy Milliana, the vision of Erza's funeral when she merges with the ether-nano, Juvia wanting to be accepted as part of Fairy Tail to Cana, Levi crying out to Laxus that his grandfather was at death's door . . .  three times as good?  I say no problem.  Even with Nami asking Luffy for help.  Even with that scene in mind, yes, Fairy Tail's beginning was three times as good as One Piece's beginning.

One Piece's next arc is Alabasta.  It goes all the way to episode 135.  Within that time period, they meet Vivi, Zoro fights 100 bounty hunters at once and wins, Zoro becomes a gallant wax figurine but is saved despite the amazing combo of Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek which almost had Luffy licked, Nami gets sick and is given tender care all the way up the snowy mountain of Drum.  Chopper's incredibly sad back story is revealed, as is his incredibly sentimental departure from Doctorine.  Luffy meets Ace for the first time in many years.  Vivi and Luffy fight about what their goal should be.  Luffy beats Crocodile, and the others also do well in fights beyond what you would expect from each of them.  Vivi says goodbye to the crew in a tearful farewell.  These are great moments, no doubt.  Is it posible for Fairy Tail to have three times as many great moments in the same period of episodes?

In the same period, there's budding romance between Lucy and Natsu, we meet Wendy and Charle for the first time, Natsu tries to take out a sleeping Midnight in a total cheap shot, Natsu takes on Cobra and Master Zero in really roaring fights, Wendy says goodbye to her homeland, Gildarts is introduced, the guild is turned into magicite, Natsu and Wendy adventure in a parallel world without magic alone together, unlimited smiles competed with unlimited magic as the proper path to the future, Happy and Charle learn about their origins and form a bond of friendship together, Wendy, Natsu and Gajeel team up to take down a dragon mecha, Erza fights a wielder of the 10 commandments from Rave, Lisanna is miraculously returned to Fairy Tail, Natsu fights Gildarts, Urtear reveals her true power, Meldy fights Juvia, everyone works together against Purehito, then everyone works together against the even mightier Acknologia.  In addition, Mavis is introduced and a momentous time skip occurs.

That's about twice as many good moments as One Piece, but not three times as many.  In that case Fairy Tail falls short of the goal this time.

How about the next arc?  In One Piece we have now reached Sky Island.  During this arc Luffy faces down Bellamy, beats Eneru, gets into a really annoying encounter with police, Wiper proves his mettle, Nami trusts Luffy to protect her, Montblack Norland's flashback is recounted, Chopper is told that he must get stronger if he is to make demands of his opponents, and Nico Robin shows off her skills.  This goes until episode 206.

How about Fairy Tail in that same period of time?  This covers the entire Grand Magic Games of Fairy Tail, in which many a good thing happened.  The badass rival guild Sabertooth is introduced.  Lucy fights Flare.  Wendy cries because she can't compete.  Wendy is saved from kidnapping by Natsu.  Kagura fights Yukino.  Erza takes on all 100 magic beasts at once.  Wendy fights Chelia.  Natsu beats Sting and Rogue together.  Natsu lectures Sabertooth's guild master over his treatment of Yukino with biting logic.  Wendy, Natsu, Mirajane and Lucy fight the Garou knights.  7 dragon slayers face off against 7 dragons.  Natsu beats future-Rogue.  Urtear turns back time.  Future-Lucy dies and goes to heaven.  Urtear becomes old.  Yukino and Lucy work together instead of trying to take each other's keys.  All the guilds attend a hilarious theme park.  Wendy and Chelia become friends and hang out.  Fairy Tail returns victorious to Magnolia.

Again, Fairy Tail is twice as good as One Piece during this time, but not three times as good.  At this rate Fairy Tail will just keep falling behind.

The only thing left in Fairy Tail's anime is the Tartaros arc, which still isn't done yet.  Even if all the remaining Fairy Tail manga were animated, it probably wouldn't exceed in length the Water 7 arc of One Piece.  So further comparisons are currently impossible.

There seems to be a lot more One Piece manga planned than remaining Fairy Tail manga planned, so that 3:1 ratio in length isn't likely to change.  Unless the later half of One Piece is drastically worse than the earlier half, it just feels impossible for Fairy Tail to ever catch up.

In addition, there's no telling when the Fairy Tail anime might be cancelled, whereas the One Piece anime remains evergreen popular and will definitely not end until the end of the manga is reached.  This gives the anime a huge advantage even if the Fairy Tail manga could somehow overtake the One Piece manga.

In both manga length and anime length, Fairy Tail has surpassed virtually all of its competition, but compared to One Piece it still just isn't nearly long enough to compete on even ground.  I feel like Fairy Tail is ending soon, so it has basically no chance to catch up with One Piece in the future.  The only thing Fairy Tail can hope for is that all future One Piece will suck, which would render the length advantage moot.  But since that would be a tragedy for the world I certainly don't want a victory such as that to play out.

I'd love for Fairy Tail to beat One Piece and become #1, but the wall is just too high.  One Piece is just too good.  Combined with its infinite length, it feels almost impossible for anyone to compete with no matter how far into the future we project.  If even Fairy Tail, which has over 200 episodes to work with, can't topple One Piece, who could?  If 200 episodes aren't enough, who could possibly marshal an even greater force and fight evenly with One Piece at this point?  Even if a new story started now and eventually became longer than One Piece after 30 years of serialization, even if said fabled show actually is better than One Piece in the end, no one alive today will be around to witness that moment.  I think we have to bow ourselves to the inevitable.  One Piece is immortal and invincible.  It is the work of art that will dominate the entire 21st century.  Likewise, I don't see Fairy Tail or Naruto losing to anyone in their positions of 2nd or 3rd place either.  They have an enormous lead in length over all possible competitors, while having made good use of their length unlike Pretty Cure or Dragon Ball.  That killer combo is going to keep all competition away indefinitely.  Unless, maybe, Sword Art Online is adapted into an anime in full all the way to the end of the books, whenever that will occur.  Then SAO would have both the length and the quality necessary to compete even with One Piece.  I can't imagine anyone else even coming close.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is all wrong. Whole Fairy Tail anime and manga combined with just the One Piece anime, Fairy Tail loses. (Just to note that One Piece manga is much better than One Piece anime. But One Piece anime is much better than Fairy Tail anime and manga combined). Fairy Tail is great, but it isn't even better than Naruto. I respect your opinion of preferring Fairy Tail over One Piece; but saying Fairy Tail is better than One Piece is downright wrong.

More than half of the Fairy Tail arcs, character designs, plots, filler episodes, are shamefully ripped-off from One Piece. Gildarts is exactly like Shanks (and Shanks came before Gildarts was even a thing). I can see Fairy Tail version of Enel. Erza doesn't get developed at all, yet every Strawhat member does. Fairy Tail has good characters, and maybe funnier, but NOT better than One Piece. One Piece is superior in every aspect except for it's art and animation. The sounds are somehow better too. Music is also great and lovely. But those alone can never beat One Piece. One Piece is widely loved for a reason. I however do think you are also a One Piece but prefer Fairy Tail, but again, saying it's better is not true.

Fairy Tail is slightly better than Bleach and Sword Art Online, but it isn't in anyway (except for the few ways I mentioned above) superior to Naruto/Shippuden, HunterxHunter, Attack on Titan and especially One Piece.

And even if I said these things against Fairy Tail, please note that I'm a huge Fairy Tail fan and also a huge Nalu shipper. I adore the couples in Fairy Tail.

Anonymous said...

I'm RJ, here's my response.

Are you joking? Fairy Tail better than One Piece? That's absolute rubbish.

I'll give it to you, the beginning of Fairy Tail was promising, everything until Tower of Heaven was pretty decent but are you really telling me that it was 3 times better? One piece had amazing moments in the beginning as well, I was inspired by Shanks just like Luffy about being the better man, and Nami's heartbreaking story made me tear up badly, and Zoro's endless determination when facing Mihawk was awesome, you really just brushing over that?

Then the Arabasta arc facing against Baroque Works and here One Piece was definitely surpassing Fairy Tail where the stakes were raised to 11 as they had to face off against Crocodile, a Warlord who held the same title as Mihawk and we all saw how overwhelmingly strong he was. Facing all the number agents was brilliant with epic fights, all of them were plain amazing like Usopp and Chopper, where we see Usopp start to become the brave warrior he wished to be, when he was defending Luffy's dream. Then Zoro's fight was just epic, even to the brink of death, he's a badass through and through. And the final showdown with Crocodile lived up to the hype that we had from the previous fights and surpassed it.

And at this time, Fairy Tail to me was starting to get formulaic and dull, true I did like Wendy but god I wanted to kill Charle so many times in the show, worthless obnoxious cat, Gildarts just seemed like the plot armour because the writer had no idea how to balance the scales while Oda from One Piece puts the scales against the Straw Hats and masterfully creates battles where they overcome great trials, where you can feel the struggle, when I see all of Fairy Tail fights, I really just couldn't care in comparison to One Piece.

But there is one thing that One Piece far outdoes Fairy Tail in, and that's the villains. Fairy Tail villains were childish and meh at best, the only one I really gave a damn about was Jellal since he seemed big but after that, seeing the Oracion Seis, I just got bored. One Piece has consistently great villains, with their own motives and plans, fully fleshed out like Crocodile, who was one hell of a villain and someone like Arlong who you really just despised completely to the core.

Next up is the Skypiea arc and most people say that it's not as relevant compared to the others, but we have a great villain living up to the One Piece standard, Enel. Then there's the whole land and story fleshed out with a feud against Skypians and Shandrans, leading to a war between the two races and the crew thrown in the middle, the depth of the characters like Wiper and Gan Fall were amazing and the story behind it was brilliant.

And Fairy Tail in the meantime, tries a Tenkachi Budokai (World Martial Arts Tournament-from Dragon Ball) knockoff, with dull villains. Future Rogue tries to kill everyone because his talking cat frog pet died compared to a centuries old feud between two sects leading to an all out war and an ego-centric self proclaimed god thrown into it. One Piece destroys.

Anonymous said...

RJ cont.

Then Tartaros vs Enies Lobby and Water 7. This is just slaughter. Fairy Tail is so formulaic at this point that they up the fanservice to 50 to try and make up for lackluster plot with only some twists that try to save this train wreck but now, it's just pathetic. Then compare it to Usopp leaving the crew, in fear that he might become obsolete like the Going Merry, Robin's "betrayal" and sacrifice, as well as her fear of letting people get close to her, then Franky's tearjerker of a backstory adding Robins on with that as well, seriously my eyes were drenched. Then declaring war on the World Government, that was insane but I just felt so damn hyped all the way through.

And comparing Mard Geer to Rob Lucci, yeah this is slaughter. Mard Geer, usual take over the world with END, humans are bad blah blah blah and Natsu beats him. Meanwhile Rob Lucci, with his belief in Dark Justice, and the rest of CP9, a secret branch of the World Government who try to use the Ancient Weapons to end the Great Pirate Era, and pushing the question of what is justice? Lucci's dark justice is anything but good considering his violent tendencies, murdering his own comrades for being weak compared to Luffy's pursuit of freedom to sail the seas however he wants, all of this culminating to amazing moments like Gear Second and just how far Luffy pushes himself to fight Lucci to save his nakama.

Normally I hate the nakama power-ups but in One Piece, I see it as their motivator not a get-out-of-jail free card like Fairy Tail uses. In the Tartaros arc, they just give up and let Erza win because she's Erza, Plot armour incarnate while Luffy struggles between life and death, pulling strength from his memories and lasting just a little bit longer to deal Lucci the final blow and damn it was a very close fight unlike Erza's one sided beatdowns. She gets tortured beyond belief and keeps standing up, because she's Erza nuff said. On the other hand, Luffy wasn't able to move at all after fighting Lucci, going to show the extent that Luffy would go and how beaten up he was.

The ending of Tartaros, just one plot twist with Natsu being END. Compare that to the hype of the Ancient Weapons, Luffy's father being Dragon, the world's most wanted criminal, and his grandfather Garp being a Marine Hero. Then the amazing moments like Robin rejoining after saying she wants to live, the unbelievable heartbreaker that was Merry's death, then Usopp rejoining as well. I honestly felt so damn happy when they all joined up again. And compared to Fairy Tail where they all joined back after one shotting people, I just thought, oh god they're back again, but sadly I'm a completionist to the extreme and I kept going with that series, even when it was poison at this point.

Anonymous said...

RJ cont.

Then let's compare the heights of One Piece, I like to drag this all into one because it all just keeps flowing from one to the next, from the Sabaody Archipelago, to Amazon Lily, then to Impel Down and to the peak of it all, Marineford. Since Fairy Tail is reaching it's end, it's time to put it's last card and by far the biggest letdown, the Alvarez arc.

They spent so much time hyping up the villains of the Alvarez arc, so much that I was really looking forward to it. But in the end, it was all just a crap pile of one shots, nakama power-ups and failed endings. Zeref seemed like such a great villain, and they offed him with a damn hug. Ok fine, but the worst let down was Acnologia, who was so damn hyped for the fight but given no explanation at all, no real feeling, he was just there because...just because. There's a dragon, for some crazy reason, he making space-time go nuts, kill him. End. I had to check the wiki to find more about him, and god it was just some standard Sasuke-level revenge schtick, and they didn't even explain how any of it made sense.

Hell there was a villain in One Piece called Senor Pink, who was a man dressed in a baby outfit, and this is a more interesting villain compared to Fairy Tail. Considering he had a fleshed out backstory and unique character that easily engaged a reader/watcher compared to a revenge driven nut, which in Shounen anime is really just too common.

Then let's compare all of Alvarez to One Piece, where in the Sabaody Arc they had amazing moments. Also I want to mention the great parts of the Thriller Bark arc, with Brook's tearjerking backstory with song as well, Zoro's epic sacrifice like the goddamn badass he is, Luffy and all the Straw Hats vs Oars and Moria, it was epic. But in the Sabaody arc, we had the darker side of the world with human trafficking being highlighted, the Celestial Dragons, the most hated villains with ego's bigger than Enel, great new rivals like Kidd and Law, then Kizaru and Kuma and the ultimate defeat of the Straw Hats, just shattering you on the inside.

Then zooming through Amazon Lily, which has a lot of comedy gold, to Impel Down where we see even more great and unique characters from the stoic Jimbei to the ridiculous Emporio Ivankov, and the Marines in a worse light than ever before, showing us that like any organisation, it's corrupt in the inside where they kill children who were recently born in an attempt to kill Ace, then the slow torture of pirates in Impel Down, and the heartless way that Magellan nearly kills Luffy, and the sacrifices Luffy goes through to continue.

All of this culminates to Marineford, where Luffy faces off against the Marines finest, bringing in a plethora of new and old characters like Akainu, everyone's most hated Admiral, and Whitebeard, the most epic old man in all of anime. Really Makarov vs Whitebeard, I dare someone to tell me that Makarov is a better character when Whitebeard stole all our hearts by being the worlds greatest dad. Then highlighting the horrors of war, where minor characters like Coby all the way from the very beginning step up to the plate, and watching Ace and Whitebeard die, that was painful, and the rise of Blackbeard, one very, very epic villain who outclasses Acnologia badly and isn't going to be beaten by a hug like Zeref, this is a man who is the culmination of everything Luffy hates and the other villain Akainu, who is just as bad to me.

I'll admit you can say that there is a comparison at the start of both series, but past Tower of Heaven, One Piece starts to win, then dominate, and then just pure slaughter Fairy Tail in every way. Luffy feels so unique, true he's a lot like Goku like every other shounen protagonist but Luffy's journey from an adorable kid, to maturing moments like against Crocodile, and against Lucci, to the death of his brother Ace, Luffy is a great man, compared to Natsu who is a literal template of shounen hero who brings nothing new to the table.

Anonymous said...

RJ

I want to find my dad, been done already with Gon from Hunter x Hunter and even there, that at least kept it as a goal, most of the time Natsu does nothing to further that goal and ends with a lame reveal, he was inside him all along...yawn. Then his "I want to protect my nakama" , really just One Piece rip off, or hell any other shounen hero like Naruto or Goku.

Compared to Luffy where we can never really tell what he wants to do, at times he can be incredibly selfish, choosing to head right into danger and drag his crew with him for the fun of it, or incredibly selfless in the way he goes out of his way to make those around him happy. He's not always a hero, considering he did release every violent criminal in Impel Down, and turned Marineford on it's head, but he doesn't have to be in the right. He's following his own sense of right and wrong, just like everyone else, leaving a much more interesting morality scope rather than Fairy Tail, who are always good, and the bad guys are just guys who either join the light side, i.e. Fairy Tail or just are bad because...they're bad? Nope, nothing here.

Zoro compared to Erza, Zoro hands down. This man is the epitome of badass, while I admired Erza near the start, I got bored silly when she just kept winning, why because she's Erza! Zoro's far more fleshed out, where he remains the stoic first mate. He's harsh at times, like when the topic of Usopp rejoining was hit, to incredibly selfless in offering his own life to Kuma to save his captain, and to fighting till the brink of death on multiple occasions to fulfil a dream to become the World's Greatest Swordsman, while Erza fights...to protect her family, over and over and over again. Really she gets bland after a while, characters need a dream, something they want at the end of the day other than to protect their friends or they're just an Ichigo.

Sanji compared to...Gray I suppose. Both of them have great backstories, but the recent arc about Sanji and his life as a genetic experiment blows Gray out of the water, with the ethics of it all being covered in depth and Sanji's estrangement from his family. Sanji wants something, he wants to find All Blue, to fulfil Zeff's dream that Sanji feels guilty for taking from him because Zeff gave up his leg to save Sanji. Sanji and Gray, I honestly like Gray, I like him far more than Natsu or Erza, but then after Tartaros not even he could save this series, while Sanji although was a bit lackluster in recent arcs has come back on top with the Whole Cake Island saga, and he had his own share of epic moments like how he was just as willing to give his own life to Kuma for Luffy, his dedication and care for his captain, being the only cook that Luffy would eat from when on hunger strike, and his chivalry at not hitting a woman, even his enemy in Enies Lobby.

And finally, Lucy and Nami. Both of them are great characters, Nami having the far superior backstory even though both stories have a mother die, Nami was far more interesting as a character. Neither character is a fighter, but while Lucy relies on spirits, Nami relies on her weather staff but hey at least she's actually fighting. Both of them are used for fanservice, but Lucy is far too overused to the point where you think she might develop as a character but then it's fanservice the next page, while Nami had to go through deep moments like overcoming her own prejudice of Fishmen during the Fishman island arc from her scarred past with Arlong, it showed a far deeper and more interesting character as a whole, and fit in well with the theme of that arc, where it was about racism and divides between two species, and breaking those boundaries.

Really I just want to highlight it out, Fairy Tail gets crushed by One Piece, and the thought that it was ever 2x better or 3x better is laughable to the extreme. The level of depth, world building, plot and characterisations in One Piece far outshine Fairy Tail, and with that, I'm out! Peace, One Piece!