I'm now at chapter 95, and honestly, I have no idea why I'm still reading it. Perhaps because the plot is really simple, and in a certain way, refreshing.
Recca has unlocked 6 of the 8 dragons, but the manga hints that summoning them is not the full extent of the power. Too little time has been spent in developing the dragons or the power-ups already. In what seems like a popular "wild-card" move by mangaka, they always go along the lines of characters having lots of potential to develop further. Not just Recca, all the characters in the main team are made "weak", so they have opportunity to grow. They are so similar in this sense that it becomes sick.
Another gripe I have with this manga is that it's too fast paced, and far too thin. There is next to zero character development, the bare minimums for the plot, and for the abilities. In a rather touch-and-go style, the manga goes through battles within one or two chapters at most.
What makes having such a high pace worse is that there are so many characters, particularly enemy teams, that none of them are memorable. Each team is just an obstacle, and they follow two patterns. First, they are rotten bastards and get killed or meet their ill-fated end somewhere, or second, they are great people so they aren't killed, and they join the ever-increasing fan-base of the protagonist team. Apart from the main characters, who stand out with some character design, and the virtue of having the most screen time, all other characters are relegated to being just part of the scenery.
Furthermore, the lines of the manga are too cliche. Throughout the 95 chapters I've read, I vaguely remember every battle ending in a similar way. Traditional values of fairness and courage is upheld, and the enemy is portrayed as rotten, with socially unacceptable value systems. The standard response after they do something horrible is that the next protagonist team fighter will kill him, or take revenge. Boring as Hell. All flashbacks have no flow, randomly inserted to justify a sudden inspiration during the battles.
The manga is really simplistic and boring. There is an utter lack of development whatsoever, creating just the bare bones of the manga, to drive the plot forward. Still, there may be some reason why such mainstream mangas catch on. Perhaps in the simplicity and familiar developments, people feel a sense of security, that at the end of all the fights, there is hope? Or maybe simply because the setting of the manga is cool, such as the characters' abilities? Naruto's jutsu system, Bleach's Zanpakuto, One Piece's Devil Fruits, these main systems of the most standard mangas seem to be what really makes them stand out. On that note, Fairy Tail has almost no system, and everything is broadly classified as magic. Only the "Dragon Slayers Magic" part of Fairy Tail stands out.
Well, I'm still going to continue and finish up this manga. I guess it fits really well into the shounen mainstream, simple, fast-paced, arguably interesting setting, and is literally a reproduction of all mainstream battle mangas that have been done so far.
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