Of Swords and Parasols

I think I’ve lost my ability to uncritically read at least some shounen bits that I was less critical about before? I hate to think how I’d react to Bleach or Naruto now.

Erm, I’m specifically referring to Erza’s big arc culminating in men trying to protect her and her being self-sacrificing to save people while Natsu hits things. Since Erza’s usually the one hitting things (well, with the most effective results, at least) and Mashima usually handles shounen tropes in a way that doesn’t annoy me, I’m less annoyed than I might be otherwise, but still.

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(Why yes, I am trying to clear out as much of the manga backlog as possible before the last books from rightstuf’s Viz and Tokyopop sales trickle in. Why do you ask?)

Did I read that right that Gray’s badass master who he wants to live up to is a female? Things like that are allowed to happen in shounen outside of Fullmetal Alchemist?

( spoilers )

Dear Hiro Mashima: You just wanted to make sure I loved Lucy, didn’t you? First you have her turn into a fangirl when presented with a library. Then you have her reading during battle, and then leaving the battle because the book is verra verra important, and she can’t be interrupted. Then you reveal that she just happens to carry around a pair of glasses that can make a person read up to 32 times their normal speed (want!) and declaring people to be enemies of literature. We approve. Yes, yes we do.

Actually, the mangaka is being much smarter about Lucy than most shounen mangakas are. Instead of building her up to be a fighter and then sidelining her and making her be there to be protected, she’s introduced as being useful in a fight, but definitely a non-combatant, with her main usefulness being common sense and a solid head on her shoulders, and then backing it up. Not the best solution, but much less frustrating than the norm. Actually, I think she’s the only person in the book to display any common sense so far. Just like I wonder how Gourry in Slayers survived before he met Lina, I wonder how Natsu survived before he met Lucy. Probably, both just fought their way through anything that got in their way.

This is a slightly hard one to try to explain. It has a very strong D&D feel to it, and is built around magic guilds where members are hired for special jobs. The titular guild, Fairy Tail, has a reputation for trouble. If one of them isn’t wreaking towns while saving them, then another is forgetting his clothes and stealing underwear from a laundry line, or another is hitting on everything in sight that’s nominally female, or another is drinking every cask of beer in town that she can find.

Our main (so far) characters, Lucy and Natsu, meet when they kinda-sorta-pretty-much bring down a slave ring. Natsu is the one who causes a lot of property destruction, and was apparently raised to be a dragonslayer by a dragon, who disappeared one day. He’s accompanied by Happy, a talking cat who sometimes grows wings. Lucy is a rather shallow, but sweet and big-hearted young wizard who wants to join Fairy Tail, and becomes part of Natsu and Happy’s team. Unlike Natsu, who has a very hands on fighting style, Lucy summons creatures from other dimensions to do the fighting for her. I’m not sure about that, yet, but it does suit her personality, and I can’t help but think it’s better than the shounen heroines who are set-up to be fighters but always get pushed to the sidelines. The other members of Fairy Tale have only had a few pages each. There’s Grey, who comes across as a badass but seems to actually be a space cadet, and always forgets his clothes and asks people if he can borrow theirs. Then there’s Loke, who acts like a smooth ladies’ man, but appears to be a complete dork. And then there’s Cana, who seems to be able to break buildings over people’s heads, but so far has most just drunk a lot. And various others whose names I didn’t catch. The whole group seems to have the normal shounen “we show our friendship by always fighting and trying to outdo each other, but we’ll kill anyone else who tries” thing.

As is typical with shounen, not a whole lot happened this volume, just several random adventures after the leads were introduced, but it was very fun. And, somehow, rather cute.